A college lecturer who controversially claimed the first working Newcomen steam engine was sited in Wolverhampton and not Dudley has inched closer to rewriting the history books after getting his research accepted for publication.
Suhail Rana’s paper on the subject, which has split the Newcomen Society, disputes the long-held belief that the engine designed by Devon ironmonger Thomas Newcomen was first set to work at the Coneygree coal works in Tipton, near Dudley Castle.
He suggests there is new evidence supporting a Wolverhampton location behind Moore Street.
And the research mooting a site off Willenhall Road, about a mile from the city centre, is being published by no less than the Newcomen Society itself, which suggests that learned members are at least taking the paper seriously. Mr Rana, who teaches computer studies at Dudley College, said: I’m delighted, it’s great news.”
The 40-year-old also learned this week that he had won the Express & Star Local History Bursary for his work.
But his work has divided historians locally, including John Allen, West Midlands chairman and former president of the Newcomen Society, who has called the research “pure fiction”.
Mr Allen has written 12 papers on the Newcomen engine and is co-author of the definitive book on the subject, The Steam Engine of Thomas Newcomen.
He has been invited by the Society to write a balancing article, making the case for Dudley. He said: “I have done nearly 30 years work on the subject and it concerns me that it is being cast aside for claims that remain unsubstantiated.”
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