The son of a mine captain, Richard Trevithick (1771 – 1833) was born in Tregajorran near Illogan and became famous for his invention of the first high-pressure steam engine and the first working steam railway locomotive which first ran on February 21^st 1804 when it hauled a load along the tramway at Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.

In 1797, Trevithick became engineer at the Ding Dong Mine, and it was there that he experimented with high-pressure steam. Trevithick married Anne Harvey, daughter of the founders of the esteemed engineering company Harveys of Hayle and established a company building high power beam engines for pumping out mine water. 

As his experience grew, he realised that improvements in boiler technology now permitted the safe production of high-pressure steam, which could move a piston in a steam engine on its own account rather than using near atmospheric pressure in a condensing engine.  With improvements in boiler technology and aware, from collaboration with William Murdoch (November 15^th), that steam could move a piston this led him to design the first high-pressure steam engine to be used as a road locomotive.

His first public demonstration of his ‘Puffing Devil’ occurred on December 24^th 1801 when it carried six passengers up Fore Street in Redruth and continued up Camborne Hill to the village of Beacon, inspiring the popular song of that name. In his forties Trevithick suffered financial problems, contracted typhoid and was declared bankrupt.  He died in poverty in 1833.