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Marta Bednarczyk, 43, was pronounced dead at the scene on Newcomen Road in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, at about 03:30 GMT on 10 March.

Police and firefighters were called to the house in Newcomen Road shortly after 03:00 following reports of a fire.

In the three centuries since Thomas Newcomen deployed his primitive steam engine at a Staffordshire mine, we went from a world where the average person lived at subsistence level and half of children died before reaching adulthood to one where most children survive to their 15th birthdays and end up on average healthier, better fed, more lavishly entertained and more comfortable than a medieval king.

The court heard that Mr Ali of Dalwood Court, Hemlington and Mr Matthews of Newcomen Green, Middlesbrough, both 21, had a bought a Vauxhall Insignia the day before the incident.

The first great, practical achievement of the new science was Newcomen’s steam engine of 1712—the very engine Swift was presumably mocking when he complained about mills being built where there were no rivers.