By JOHN TIMES, F.S.A.
(1736-1819)
[Illustration: James Watt.]
James Watt was born at Greenock, January 19, 1736. He was the fourth
child in a family which, for a hundred years, had more or less
professed mathematics and navigation. His constitution was delicate,
and his mental powers were precocious. He was distinguished from an
early age by his candor and truthfulness; and his father, to
ascertain the cause of any of his boyish quarrels, used to say, "Let
James speak; from him I always hear the truth." James also showed
his constructive tastes equally early, experimenting on his
playthings with a set of small carpenter's tools, which his father
had given him. At six he was still at home. "Mr. Watt," said a
friend to the father, "you ought to send that boy to school, and not
let him trifle away his time at home." "Look what he is doing before
you condemn him," was the reply. The visitor then observed the child
had drawn mathematical lines and figures on the hearth, and was
engaged in a process of calculation. On putting questions to him, he
was astonished at his quickness and simplicity. "Forgive me," said
he, "this child's education has not been neglected; this is no
common child."
[Illustration: Watt discovering the Condensation of Steam.]
Watt's cousin, Mrs. Marian Campbell, describes his inventive capacity
as a story-teller, and details an incident of his occupying himself
with the steam of a tea-kettle, and by means of a cup and a spoon
making an early experiment in the condensation of steam. To this
incident she probably attached more importance than was its due, from
reverting to it when illustrated by her after-recollections. Out of
this story, reliable or not in the sense ascribed to it, M. Arago
obtained an oratorical point for an _éloge_, which he delivered to the
French Institute. Watt may or may not have been occupied as a boy with
the study of the condensation of steam while he was playing with the
kettle. The story suggests a possibility, nothing more; though it has
been made the foundation of a grave announcement, the subject of a
pretty picture, and will ever remain a basis for suggestive
speculation.
Watt was sent to a commercial school, where he was provided with a
fair outfit of Latin and with some elements of Greek; but
mathematics he studied with greater zest, and with proportionate
success. By the time he was fifteen, he had read twice, with grave
attention, Gravesande's "Elements of Natural Philosophy;" and "while
under his father's roof he went on with various chemical
experiments, repeating them again and again, until satisfied of
their accuracy from his own observations." He even made himself a
small electrical machine, about 1750-53; no mean performance at that
date, since, according to Priestley's "History of Electricity," the
Leyden phial itself was not invented until the years 1745-46.
His pastime lay chiefly in his father's marine store, among the
sails and ropes, the blocks and tackle: or by the old gray gateway
of the Mansion House on the hill above Greenock, where he would
loiter away hours by day, and at night lie down on his back and
watch the stars through the trees.
At this early age Watt suffered from continual and violent
headaches, which often affected his nervous system for many days,
even weeks; and he was similarly afflicted throughout his long life.
He seldom rose early, but accomplished more in a few hours' study
than ordinary minds do in many days. He was never in a hurry, and
always had leisure to give to his friends, to poetry, romance, and
the publications of the day; he read indiscriminately almost every
new book he could procure. He assisted his father in his business,
and soon learned to construct with his own hands several of the
articles required in the way of his parent's trade; and by means of
a small forge, set up for his own use, he repaired and made various
kinds of instruments, and converted, by the way, a large silver coin
into a punch-ladle, as a trophy of his early skill as a metal-smith.
From this aptitude for ingenious handiwork, and in accordance with
his own deliberate choice, it was decided that he should proceed to
qualify himself for following the trade of a mathematical instrument
maker. He accordingly went to Glasgow, in June, 1754, and from
there, after a year's stay, he proceeded for better instruction to
London.
On Watt's arrival in the metropolis, he sought a situation, but in
vain, and he was beginning to despond, when he obtained work with
one John Morgan, an instrument-maker, in Finch Lane, Cornhill. Here
he gradually became proficient in making quadrants, parallel rulers,
compasses, theodolites, etc., until, at the end of a year's
practice, he could make "a brass sector with a French joint, which
is reckoned as nice a piece of framing work as is in the trade."
During this interval he contrived to live upon eight shillings a
week, exclusive of his lodging. His fear of the press-gang and his
bodily ailments, however, led to his quitting London in August,
1756, and returning to Scotland, after investing twenty guineas in
additional tools.
At Glasgow, through the intervention of Dr. Dick, he was first
employed in cleaning and repairing some of the instruments belonging
to the college; and, after some difficulty, he received permission
to open a shop within the precincts as "mathematical instrument
maker to the University." Here Watt prospered, pursuing alike his
course of manual labor and of mental study, and especially extending
his acquaintance with physics; endeavoring, as he said, "to find out
the weak side of nature, and to vanquish her." About this time he
contrived an ingenious machine for drawing in perspective; and from
fifty to eighty of these instruments, manufactured by him, were sent
to different parts of the world. He had now procured the friendship
of Dr. Black and another University worthy, John Robison, who, in
stating the circumstances of his first introduction to Watt, says:
"I saw a workman, and expected no more; but was surprised to find a
philosopher as young as myself, and always ready to instruct me."
It was some time in 1764 that the professor of natural philosophy in
the University desired Watt to repair a pretty model of Newcomen's
steam-engine. Like everything which came into Watt's hands, it soon
became an object of most serious study.
The interesting little model, as altered by the hand of Watt, was
long placed beside the noble statue of the engineer in the Hunterian
Museum at Glasgow. Watt himself, when he had got the bearings of his
invention, could think of nothing else but his machine, and
addressed himself to Dr. Roebuck, of the Carron Iron-works, with the
view of its practical introduction to the world. A partnership
ensued, but the connection did not prove satisfactory. Watt went on
with his experiments, and in September, 1766, wrote to a friend: "I
think I have laid up a stock of experience that will _soon_ pay me
for the trouble it has cost me." Yet it was between eight and nine
years before that invaluable experience was made available, so as
either to benefit the public or repay the inventor; and a much
longer term elapsed before it was possible for that repayment to be
reckoned in the form of substantial profit.
Watt now began to practise as a land-surveyor and civil engineer.
His first engineering work was a survey for a canal to unite the
Forth and Clyde, in furtherance of which he had to appear before the
House of Commons. His consequent journey to London was still more
important, for then it was that he saw for the first time the great
manufactory which Boulton had established at Soho, and of which he
was afterward himself to be the guiding intelligence. In the
meantime, among his other performances, he invented a micrometer for
measuring distances; and, what is still more remarkable, he
entertained the idea of moving canal-boats by the steam-engine
through the instrumentality of a _spiral oar_, which as nearly as
possible coincides with the screw-propeller of our day.
Watt's negotiations for partnership with Boulton were long and
tedious. Dr. Roebuck's creditors concurred because, curiously
enough, _none of them valued Watt's engine at a farthing_. Watt
himself now began to despair, and his health failed; yet in 1774,
when he had removed to Birmingham, he wrote to his father: "The
fire-engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better
than any other that has yet been made; and I expect that the
invention will be very beneficial to me."
A long series of experimental trials was, nevertheless, requisite
before the engine could be brought to such perfection as to render
it generally available to the public, and therefore profitable to
its manufacturers. In January, 1775, six years of the patent had
elapsed, and there seemed some probability of the remaining eight
running out as fruitlessly. An application which was made for the
extension of its term was unexpectedly opposed by the eloquence of
Burke; but the orator and his associates failed, and the extension
was accorded by Act of Parliament.
The first practical employment of Watt's engines to any considerable
extent was in the mining districts of Cornwall, where he himself
was, in consequence, compelled to spend much of his time subsequent
to 1775. Here he had to contend not only with natural obstacles in
the dark abysses of deeply flooded mines, but with a rude and
obstinate class of men as deeply flooded by inveterate prejudices.
The result in the way of profit was not, however, satisfactory,
notwithstanding the service to the mining interest was enormous. "It
appears," says Watt, in 1780, "by our books, that Cornwall has
hitherto eat up all the profits we have drawn from it, and all we
have got by other places, and a good sum of our own money to the
bargain."
At this stage Watt himself was more fertile in mechanical inventions
than in any other portion of his busy life. Taking his patents in
their chronological order, the first (subsequent to that of 1769)
was "For a new method of copying letters and other writings
expeditiously," by means of copying _presses_. Of the same date was
his invention of a machine "for drying linen and muslin by steam."
On October 25, 1781, he took out his third patent (the second of the
steam-engine series), "for certain new methods of applying the
vibrating or reciprocating motion of steam or fire engines, to
produce a continued rotative motion round an axis or centre, and
thereby to give motion to the wheels of mills or other machines."
One of these methods was that commonly known as the _sun-and-planet
wheels_; they were five in all. A favorite employment of his in the
workshops at Soho, in the later months of 1783 and earlier ones of
1784, was to teach his steam-engine, now become nearly as docile as
it was powerful, to work a tilt-hammer for forging iron and making
steel. "Three hundred blows per minute--a thing never done before,"
filled him, as his biographer says, with feelings of excusable
pride. Another patent in the steam-engine series, taken out in 1784,
contained, besides other methods of converting a circular or angular
motion into a perpendicular or rectilineal motion, the well-known
and much-admired _parallel motion_, and the application of the
steam-engine to give motion to wheel-carriages for carrying persons
and goods. To ascertain the exact number of strokes made by an
engine during a given time, and thereby to check the cheats of the
Cornish miners, Watt also invented the "Counter," with its several
indexes. Among his leading improvements, introduced at various
periods, were the _throttle-valve_, the application of the
_governor_, the _barometer_ or float, the _steam-gauge_, and the
indicator. The term during which he seems to have thus combined the
greatest maturity with the greatest activity of intellect, and the
portion of his life which they comprehended, was from his fortieth
to his fiftieth year. Yet it was a term of increased suffering from
his acute sick-headaches, and remarkable for the infirmities over
which he triumphed; notwithstanding, he himself complained of his
"stupidity and want of the inventive faculty."
Watt's chemical studies in 1783, and the calculations they involved
from experiments made by foreign chemists, induced him to make a
proposal for a philosophical _uniformity of weights and measures_;
and he discussed this proposal with Priestley and Magellan. While
Watt was examining the constituent parts of water, he had
opportunities of familiar intercourse not only with Priestley, but
with Withering, Keir, Edgeworth, Galton, Darwin, and his own
partner, Boulton--all men above the average for their common
interest in scientific inquiries. Dr. Parr frequently attended their
meetings, and they kept up a correspondence with Sir William
Herschel, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander, and Afzelius. Mrs.
Schimmelpenninck, who was greatly given to physiognomical studies,
has left us this picture of Watt at this period.
"Mr. Boulton was a man to rule society with dignity; Mr. Watt, to
lead the contemplative life of a deeply introverted and patiently
observant philosopher. He was one of the most complete specimens of
the melancholic temperament. His head was generally bent forward, or
leaning on his hand in meditation; his shoulders stooping, and his
chest falling in; his limbs lank and unmuscular, and his complexion
sallow. His intellectual development was magnificent; comparison and
causality immense, with large ideality and constructiveness,
individuality, an enormous concentrativeness and caution.
"He had a broad Scottish accent; gentle, modest, and unassuming
manners; yet, when he entered a room, men of letters, men of
science, nay, military men, artists, ladies, even little children,
thronged round him. Ladies would appeal to him on the best means of
devising grates, curing smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and
obtaining fast colors. I can speak from experience of his teaching
me how to make a dulcimer and improve a Jew's harp."
In the year 1786, Watt and Boulton visited Paris, on the invitation
of the French Government, to superintend the erection of certain
steam-engines, and especially to suggest improvements in the great
hydraulic machine of Marly, which Watt himself designates a
"venerable" work. In Paris Watt made many acquaintances, including
Lavoisier, Laplace, Fourcroy, and others scarcely less eminent; and
while here he discussed with Berthollet a new method of _bleaching_
by chlorides, an invention of the latter which Watt subsequently
introduced into England.
Meanwhile Watt had vigilantly to defend his patents at home, which
were assailed by unworthy and surreptitious rivals as soon as it was
proved that they were pecuniarily valuable. Some of the competing
engines, as Watt himself described them, were simply asthmatic.
"Hornblower's, at Radstock, was obliged to stand still once every
ten minutes to snore and snort." "Some were like Evan's mill, _which
was a gentlemanly mill_; it would go when it had nothing to do, but
it refused to work." The legal proceedings, both in equity and at
common law, which now became necessary, were numerous. One bill of
costs, from 1796 to 1800, amounted to between £5,000 and £6,000; and
the mental and bodily labor, the anxiety and vexation, which were
superadded, involved a fearful tax on the province of Watt's
discoveries.
With the year 1800 came the expiration of the privilege of the
patent of 1769, as extended by the statute of 1775; and also the
dissolution of the original copartnership of Messrs. Boulton and
Watt, then of five-and-twenty years' duration. The contract was
renewed by their sons, the business having become so profitable that
Watt and his children were provided with a source of independent
income; and at the age of sixty-four the great inventor had
personally realized some of the benefits he contemplated.
Henceforth Watt's ingenuity became excursive, discretionary, almost
capricious; but in every phase and form it continued to be
beneficent. In 1808 he founded a prize in Glasgow College, as an
acknowledgment of "the many favors that learned body had conferred
upon him." In 1816 he made a donation to the town of Greenock, "to
form the beginning of a scientific library" for the instruction of
its young men. Nor, amid such donations, were others wanting on his
part, such as true religion prescribes, to console the poor and
relieve the suffering.
In 1816, on a visit to Greenock, Watt made a voyage in a steamboat
to Rothsay and back again. In the course of this experimental trip
he pointed out to the engineer of the boat the method of "backing"
the engine. With a foot-rule he demonstrated to him what he meant.
Not succeeding, however, he at last, under the impulse of the ruling
passion (and we must remember he was then eighty), threw off his
overcoat, and putting his hand to the engine himself, showed the
practical application of his lecture. Previously to this, the
"backstroke" of the steamboat engine was either unknown or not
generally known. The practice was to stop the engine entirely a
considerable time before the vessel reached the point of mooring, in
order to allow for the gradual and natural diminution of her speed.
With regard to the application of steam power to _locomotion on
land_, it is remarkable enough that, when Watt's attention was first
directed, by his friend Robison, to the steam-engine, "he (Robison)
at that time drew out an idea of applying the power to the moving of
wheel-carriages." "But the scheme," adds Watt, "was not matured, and
was soon abandoned on his going abroad."
In 1769, however, when he heard that a linen-draper, one Moore, had
taken out a patent for moving wheel-carriages by steam, he replied:
"If linen-draper Moore does not use my engine to drive his chaises,
he can't drive them by steam." In the specification of his patent of
1784, he even described the principles and construction of
"steam-engines which are applied to give motion to wheel-carriages
for removing persons or goods, or other matters, from place to
place," and in 1786, Watt himself had a steam-carriage "of some size
under hand;" but his most developed plan was to move such carriages
"on a hard smooth plane," and there is no evidence to show that he
ever anticipated the union of the rail and wheel.
Among Watt's mechanical recreations, soon after the date of the last
of his steam-engine patents, were four plans of making lamps, which
he describes in a letter to Argand; and for a long time lamps were
made at Soho upon his principles, which gave a light surpassing,
both in steadiness and brilliancy, anything of the kind that had
appeared. About a year after, in 1788, he made "a pretty instrument
for determining the specific gravities of liquids," having, he says
to Dr. Black, improved on a hint he had taken.
Watt also turned his "idle thoughts" toward the construction of an
_arithmetical machine_, but he does not appear ever to have
prosecuted this design further than by mentally considering the
manner in which he could make it perform the processes of
multiplication and division.
Early in the present century Watt devised, for the Glasgow
water-works, to bring pure spring-water across the Clyde, an
articulated suction-pipe, with joints formed on the principle of
those in a lobster's tail, and so made capable of accommodating
itself to all the actual and possible bendings at the bottom of the
river. This pipe was, moreover, executed at Soho from his plans, and
was found to succeed perfectly.
Watt describes, as his hobby, a _machine to copy sculpture_,
suggested to him by an implement he had seen and admired in Paris in
1802, where it was used for tracing and multiplying the dies of
medals. He foresaw the possibility of enlarging its powers so as to
make it capable of working even on wood and marble, to do for solid
masses and in hard materials what his copying machine of 1782 had
already done for drawings and writings impressed upon flat surfaces
of paper--to produce, in fact, a perfect fac-simile of the original
model. He worked at this machine most assiduously, and his "likeness
lathe," as he termed it, was set up in a garret, which, with all its
mysterious contents, its tools, and models included, have been
carefully preserved as he left them.
It is gratifying to find that the charm of Watt's presence was not
dimmed by age. "His friends," says Lord Jeffrey, speaking of a visit
which he paid to Scotland when upward of eighty, "in that part of
the country never saw him more full of intellectual vigor and
colloquial animation, never more delightful or more instructive." It
was then also that Sir Walter Scott, meeting him "surrounded by a
little band of northern literati," saw and heard what he felt he was
never to see or hear again--"the alert, kind, benevolent old man,
his talents and fancy overflowing on every subject, with his
attention alive to everyone's question his information at everyone's
command." Campbell, the poet, who saw him later, in the beginning
of 1819 (he was then eighty-three), describes him as so full of
anecdote, that he spent one of the most amusing days he had ever had
with him. Lord Brougham, later still, in the summer of the same
year, found his instructive conversation and his lively and even
playful manner unchanged. But in the autumn of this year, on August
19th, he expired tranquilly at his house at Heathfield. He was
buried at Handsworth. A tribute to his memory was but tardily
rendered by the nation.
Jeffrey and Arago added more elaborate tributes to Watt's genius;
and Wordsworth has declared that he looked upon him, considering his
magnitude and universality, "as perhaps the most extraordinary man
that this country has ever produced." His noblest monument is,
however, his own work.