It was popular for use in small, rural waterworks, where the huge capacity of a Cornish engine was not required. Rotative beam engines were also extensively used to drive mill and factory machinery.

This engine was built by Easton & Amos of Southwark, in 1863 and came to Kew Bridge from the Cliftonville Pumping Station in Northampton as a "kit of parts", where it had been in storage.

It is a Woolf compound engine, with the high pressure cylinder closer to the centre of the beam than the low pressure, thus resulting in differing stroke lengths. The engine drove a set of three-throw pumps from an extension to the crank shaft, which originally passed through an outside wall.