Richard Newsham, inventor of the Newsham Fire Engine, was awarded his first patent for his creation in 1721. His goal was to improve upon the design of the European water pump and utilize the science behind it to combat the fires that often raged through his home city. Even decades after the Great Fire of London, he was still seeing its effects, and he decided to create a machine to help combat fires and preserve life and property around him.

Soon, the Newsham Fire Engine dominated the English fire engine market.

At the scene of a fire, the Newsham would have been operated by ten men at once. Three men would be on either side of the hand rails, pumping up and down while three more men stood atop the engine, using their feet in tandem with the hand pumpers. This activated a twin-cylinder pump in the top portion of the engine, and a jet of water shot out of a rigid metal pipe on the top, which was controlled by the last engine operator.  

Water for the Newsham engine was transported primarily by a bucket brigade, though water could be occasionally siphoned from a larger body of water such as a well, a river, or a lake.

At the height of operation, the Newsham was able to shoot between 60 and 100 gallons of water per minute, reaching a distance of over 135 feet. In a time when fires raged and solutions were few and far between, this invention revolutionized firefighting and allowed metropolitan areas in Europe and in the United States to continue to grow day after day.

In 1731, the first Newsham hand pumper crossed the Atlantic to the United States. Soon, the Newsham fire engine would be protecting life and property across all of Europe and the United States, and other inventors would be inspired to create their own designs for even more effective fire engines.