>Realizing this, textile manufacturers (we’re talking about factory owners, at this point) first use watermills, but there are only so many places in Great Britain suitable for a watermill and a windmill won’t do
It might be prudent to interject at this point that the windmill itself did not appear until 9th-century Iran, and the more common horizontal-axis version is first seen in the 12th century in the Low Countries. The possibility of a vacuum and thus the fact that air is a substance (rather than a quality of the world) was first conclusively shown by Torricelli in the 17th century. It's very hard to imagine not knowing things that we have taken for granted since early childhood. Even if you could make things spin by manipulating gases (which is what a steam engine does), it's very hard to improve your design if you have no idea what's going on inside it!
It might be prudent to interject at this point that the windmill itself did not appear until 9th-century Iran, and the more common horizontal-axis version is first seen in the 12th century in the Low Countries. The possibility of a vacuum and thus the fact that air is a substance (rather than a quality of the world) was first conclusively shown by Torricelli in the 17th century. It's very hard to imagine not knowing things that we have taken for granted since early childhood. Even if you could make things spin by manipulating gases (which is what a steam engine does), it's very hard to improve your design if you have no idea what's going on inside it!