Steam bending timber before the modern era

When did shipwrights begin using steam to bend timbers?

The practice appears very early, perhaps before the best surviving evidence; early methods may have used rudimentary heated or steam-filled structures rather than modern steam boxes.

Documented steam bending for furniture reaches the late seventeenth century, while shipbuilding applications may date to the sixteenth century or earlier. That earlier date is an estimate rather than a secure first use. Written descriptions record only part of craft practice, and much early equipment was itself wooden. The surviving evidence may therefore understate the history of bending hull timbers with heat and moisture.