JAMES WATT--LINEAGE AND BIRTHPLACE--BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP.
James Watt was born at Greenock, on the Clyde, on the 19th of January,
1736. His parents were of the middle class, industrious, intelligent, and
religious people, with a character for probity which had descended to them
from their “forbears,” and was cherished as their proudest inheritance.
James Watt was thus emphatically well-born. His father and grandfather
both held local offices of trust, and honourable mention is made of them
in the records of Greenock. His grandfather, Thomas Watt, was the first
of the family who lived in that neighbourhood. He had migrated thither
from the county of Aberdeen, where his father was a small farmer in the
time of Charles I. It is supposed that he took part with the Covenanters
in resisting the Marquis of Montrose in his sudden descent upon Aberdeen
at the head of his wild Highlanders in the autumn of 1644; and that
the Covenanting farmer was killed in one of the battles that ensued.
The district was ravaged by the victorious Royalists; the crops were
destroyed, cattle lifted, dwellings burnt; and many of the inhabitants
fled southwards for refuge in more peaceful districts. Hence Thomas
Watt’s migration to Cartsdyke, where we find him settled as a teacher of
navigation and mathematics, about the middle of the seventeenth century.
[Illustration: CRAWFORDSBURN HOUSE, NEAR GREENOCK.]
Cartsdyke, or Crawfordsdyke, was then a village situated a little to the
east of Greenock, though now forming part of it. Crawfordsburn House,
still standing, was the residence of the lord of the manor, and is a good
specimen of the old-fashioned country mansion. It is beautifully situated
on the high ground overlooking the Clyde. In former times a green slope
stretched down from it towards the beach, along which lay the village,
consisting of about a hundred cottages, mostly thatched. Cartsdyke was,
however, in early times, a place of greater importance than Greenock.
It had a pier, which Greenock as yet had not; and from this pier the
first Clyde ship which crossed the Atlantic sailed for Darien in 1697.
What little enterprise existed in the neighbourhood was identified with
Cartsdyke rather than with Greenock; and hence Thomas Watt’s preference
for it, in setting up there as a teacher. He, too, like his sire, seems to
have been a sturdy Covenanter; for we find him, in 1683, refusing to take
the test in favour of prelacy, and he was consequently proclaimed to be
a “disorderly schoolmaster officiating contrary to law.” He nevertheless
continued the teaching of the mathematics, in which he seems to have
prospered, as, besides marrying a wife, he shortly after bought the house
and garden which he occupied, and subsequently added to his possessions
a tenement in the neighbouring village of Greenock.
From the nature of his calling, it is obvious that he must have been a
thoughtful and intelligent person;[51] and that he was a man of excellent
character is clear from the confidence he inspired in those who had the
best opportunities of knowing him. When William and Mary were confirmed
in their occupancy of the British throne, shortly after the Revolution of
1688, one of the first acts of Mr. Crawford, of Crawfordsburn, the feudal
superior, was to appoint Thomas Watt baillie of the barony--a position
of local importance, involving the direction of public affairs within the
limits of his jurisdiction.
[51] Among the few household articles belonging to him which
descended to his son, and afterwards to his grandson the
engineer, were two portraits, one of Sir Isaac Newton, and the
other of John Napier, the inventor of Logarithms.
A few years later, the Kirk Session of Greenock, having found him
“blameless in life and conversation,” appointed him an Elder of the
parish, when it became part of his duty to overlook not only the religious
observances, but the manners and morals, of the little community. Kirk
Sessions did not then confine themselves to ecclesiastical affairs, but
assumed the function of magistrates, and almost exercised the powers of
an inquisition. One of their most important duties was to provide for
the education of the rising generation, in pursuance of the injunction of
John Knox, “that no father, of what estate or condition that ever he may
be, use his children at his own fantasie, especially in their youthhead;
but all must be compelled to bring up their children in learning and
virtue,”--words which lie at the root of much of Scotland’s mental
culture, as well as, probably, of its material prosperity. In 1696 the
Act was passed by the Scotch Parliament which is usually regarded as the
charter of the Scotch parish-school system; and in the following year the
Kirk Session of Greenock proceeded to make provision for the establishment
of their parish school, which continued until the Town Council superseded
it by the Grammar School, at which James Watt, the future engineer,
received the best part of his school education.
After holding the offices of Presbytery Elder and Kirk Treasurer for
some time, Thomas Watt craved leave to retire into private life. He was
seventy years old, and felt infirmities growing upon him. The plea was
acknowledged, and the request granted; and on his retirement from office
the Kirk Session recorded on their minutes that Thomas Watt had been
found “diligent and faithful in the management of his trust.” He died at
the age of 92, and was buried in the old kirkyard of Greenock, where his
tombstone is still to be seen. He is there described as “Professor of
Mathematics in Crawfordsdyk.” Not far from his grave lie, “mouldering in
silent dust,” the remains of Burns’s Highland Mary, who died while on a
visit to a relative at Greenock.
Two sons survived the “Professor,” John and James, who were well settled
in life when the old man died. John, the elder, was trained by his father
in mathematics and surveying; for some time officiating under him as clerk
to the barony of Cartsdyke, and afterwards removing to Glasgow, where he
began business on his own account. In the year that his father died (1734)
he made the first survey of the river Clyde; but he died shortly after,
and the map was published by his nephew. James, the engineer’s father,
was bound apprentice to a carpenter and shipwright at Cartsdyke, and on
the expiry of his term he set up business for himself in the same line at
Greenock.
About the beginning of the last century, Greenock, now one of the busiest
ports in the kingdom, was but a little fishing-village, consisting of a
single row of thatched cottages lying parallel with the sandy beach of the
Frith of Clyde, in what was then known as “Sir John’s little bay.” Sir
John Shaw was the superior, or lord of the manor, his mansion standing
on a height overlooking the town,[52] and commanding an extensive view
of the Clyde, from Roseneath to Dumbarton. Across the water lay the
beautiful north shore, broken by the long narrow sea-lochs running far
away among the Argyleshire hills. Their waters, now plashed by the paddles
of innumerable Clyde steamers, were then only disturbed by the passing
of an occasional Highland coble; whilst their shores, now fringed with
villages, villas, and mansions, were as lonely as Glencoe.
[52] The mansion house of the Shaws is now principally occupied as
manorial offices. The fine old garden and pleasure-grounds have
been presented by Sir John Shaw to the people of Greenock as a
public park for ever. It is now called “The Watt Park,” and a
more beautiful spot (bating the smoke of the busy town below)
is scarcely to be found in Britain.
Greenock was in a great measure isolated from other towns by impassable
roads. The only route to Greenock, on the west, lay along the beach,
and when strong winds raised a high tide the communication was entirely
cut off. Greenock was separated from Cartsdyke, on the east, by the Ling
Burn, which was crossed by a plank, afterwards supplanted by an old ship’s
rudder; and it was about the middle of the century before a bridge was
built across the stream. The other provisions of the place for public
service and convenience were of a like rude and primitive character:
thus, Greenock could not boast of a public clock until about the middle
of the last century, when a town clock was mounted in a wooden steeple.
Till then, a dial, still standing, marked the hours when the sun shone,
and a bell hung upon a triangle summoned the people to kirk and market.
Besides the kirk, however, there was another public building--the Black
Hole, or prison, which, like the other houses in the place, was covered
with thatch. Before the prison were placed the “jougs,” as a terror to
evil-doers, as well as a few old pieces of cannon, taken from one of the
ships of the Spanish Armada wrecked near Pencores Castle. The Black Hole,
the jougs, and the cannon were thought necessary precautions against
the occasional visits to which the place was subject from the hungry
Highlandmen on the opposite shores of the firth.[53]
[53] In 1715 the Greenock and Cartsdyke men kept strict watch and
ward for eighty days against a threatened visit of Rob Roy and
his caterans. The conduct of these unruly neighbours continued
to cause apprehensions amongst the townspeople until a much
later period, especially during fair time, then the great event
of the year. The fair was the occasion of the annual gathering
of the people from the neighbouring country to buy and to sell.
Highlandmen came from the opposite shores and from the lochs
down the Clyde, men caring little for Lowland law, but duly
impressed by a display of force. Their boats were drawn up on
the beach with their prows to the High Street, the north side
of which at that time lay open to the sea. The Highland folk
lived and slept on board, each boat having a plank or gangway
between it and the shore. On the first day of the fair Sir John
Shaw, the feudal superior, convened the local dignitaries, the
deacons and the trades, and after drinking the King’s health
and throwing the glasses amongst the populace, they formed in
procession and perambulated the town.
The prosperity of Greenock dates from the year 1707, shortly after the
Union with England. The British Parliament then granted what the Scottish
Parliament had refused--the privilege of constructing a harbour. Before
that time there was no pier,--only a rude landing-stage which Sir John
Shaw had provided for his barge in the “Little Bay;” but the fishermen’s
boats and other small craft frequenting the place were beached in the
usual primitive way. Vessels of burden requiring to load or unload
their cargoes did so at the pier at Cartsdyke above referred to. When
the necessary powers were granted to make a harbour at Greenock, the
inhabitants proceeded to tax themselves to provide the necessary means,
paying a shilling and fourpence for every sack of malt brewed into ale
within the barony; ale, not whisky, being then the popular drink of
Scotland. The devotion of the townspeople to their “yill caups” must have
been considerable, as the harbour was finished and opened in 1710, and in
thirty years the principal debt was paid off.
In course of time Greenock was made a custom-house port, and its trade
rapidly increased. The first solitary vessel, freighted with Glasgow
merchandise for the American colonies, sailed from the new harbour in
1719; and now the custom-house dues collected there amount to more than
six times the whole revenue of Scotland in the time of the Stuarts.
Here James Watt, son of the Cartsdyke teacher of mathematics, and father
of the engineer, began business about the year 1730. His occupation was of
a very miscellaneous character, and embraced most branches of carpentry.
He was a housewright, shipwright, carpenter, and undertaker, as well as
a builder and contractor, having in the course of his life enlarged the
western front of Sir John Shaw’s mansion-house, and designed and built
the Town-hall and Council-chambers. To these various occupations Mr. Watt
added that of a general merchant. He supplied the ships frequenting the
port with articles of merchandise as well as with ships’ stores. He also
engaged in foreign mercantile ventures, and held shares in several ships.
Three months after the death of his father, to a share of whose property
he succeeded, Mr. Watt purchased a house on the Mid-Quay Head, at the
lower end of William-street, with a piece of ground belonging to it, which
extended to the beach. On this piece of ground stood Watt’s carpenter’s
shop, in which a great deal of miscellaneous work was executed--household
furniture and ships’ fittings, chairs, tables, coffins, and capstans, as
well as the ordinary sorts of joinery; while from his stores he was ready
to supply blocks, pumps, gun-carriages, dead-eyes, and other articles used
on board ship. He was ready to “touch” ships’ compasses, and to adjust
and repair nautical instruments generally; while on an emergency he could
make a crane for harbour uses--the first in Greenock having been executed
in his shops, and erected on the pier for the convenience of the Virginia
tobacco-ships beginning to frequent the harbour. These multifarious
occupations were necessitated by the smallness of the place, the business
of a single calling being as yet too limited to yield a competency to an
enterprising man, or sufficient scope for his powers.
Being a person of substance and respectability, Mr. Watt was elected by
his fellow townsmen to fill various public offices, such as trustee for
the burgh fund, town councillor, treasurer, and afterwards baillie or
chief magistrate. He also added to his comfort as well as to his dignity
by marrying a wife of character, Agnes Muirhead, a woman esteemed by
her neighbours for her graces of person, as well as of mind and heart.
She is said to have been not less distinguished for her sound sense and
good manners than for her cheerful temper and excellent housewifery.[54]
Such was the mother of James Watt. Three of her five children died in
childhood; John, her fifth son, perished at sea when on a voyage to
America in one of his father’s ships; and James, the fourth of the family,
remained her only surviving child. He was born in the house which stood
at the corner between the present Dalrymple-street and William-street,
since taken down and replaced by the building now known as the “James Watt
Tavern.”
[54] Some of her neighbours thought her stately and unbending, and
that she affected a superior style of living. In the ‘Memorials
of Watt,’ by the late George Williamson, Esq., Greenock, are
to be found many curious and interesting details as to the
Watt family; collected partly from tradition and partly from
local records. Of Mrs. Watt’s “superior style of living,”
compared with the custom of the period, the following anecdote
is given:--“One of the author’s informants on such points,
a venerable lady in her eightieth year, was wont to speak of
the worthy baillie’s wife with much characteristic interest
and animation. As illustrative of the internal economy of the
family, the old lady related an occasion on which she had spent
an evening, when a girl, at Mrs. Watt’s house, and remembered
expressing with much naïveté to her mother on returning home,
her childish surprise that ‘Mrs. Watt had _two_ lighted candles
on the table.’ Among these and other reminiscences of her youth,
our venerable informant described James Watt’s mother, in her
expressive Doric, as ‘a braw, braw woman--none now to be seen
like her.’” p. 128–9.
[Illustration: JAMES WATT TAVERN, GREENOCK.
[By R. P. Leitch.]]
From his earliest years James Watt was of an extremely fragile
constitution, requiring the tenderest nurture. Struggling as it were for
life all through his childhood, he acquired an almost feminine delicacy
and sensitiveness, which made him shrink from the rough play of robust
children; and hence, during his early years, his education was entirely
conducted at home. His mother taught him reading, and his father a little
writing and arithmetic. His mother, to amuse him, encouraged him to draw
with a pencil on paper, or with chalk upon the floor; and his father
supplied him with a few tools from the carpenter’s shop, which he soon
learnt to handle with expertness. In such occupations he found the best
resource against _ennui_. He took his toys to pieces, and out of the parts
ingeniously constructed new ones. The mechanical dexterity which he thus
cultivated even as a child was probably in a great measure the foundation
upon which he built the speculations to which he owes his glory; nor,
without his early mechanical training, is there reason to believe that
he would afterwards become the improver and almost the creator of the
steam-engine.
The invalid thus passed his early years almost entirely in the society
of his mother, whose gentle nature, strong good sense, and unobtrusive
piety, exercised a most beneficial influence in the formation of his
character. Nor were his parents without their reward; for as the boy grew
up to manhood he repaid their anxious care with obedience, respect, and
affection. Mrs. Watt was in after life accustomed to say that the loss of
her only daughter, which she had felt so severely, had been fully made up
to her by the dutiful attentions of her son.
Spending his life indoors, without exercise, his nervous system became
preternaturally sensitive. He was subject to violent sick headaches, which
confined him to his room for weeks together; and it almost seems a marvel
that, under such circumstances, he should have survived his boyhood. It is
in such cases as his that indications of precocity are generally observed;
and parents would be less gratified at their display if they knew that
they are usually the symptoms of disease. Several remarkable instances of
this precocity are related of Watt. On one occasion, when he was bending
over the hearth with a piece of chalk in his hand, a friend of his father
said, “You ought to send that boy to a public school, and not allow him to
trifle away his time at home.” “Look how my child is occupied,” said the
father, “before you condemn him.” Though only six years old, it is said
he was found trying to solve a problem in geometry.
On another occasion he was reproved by Mrs. Muirhead, his aunt, for his
indolence at the tea-table. “James Watt,” said the worthy lady, “I never
saw such an idle boy as you are: take a book or employ yourself usefully;
for the last hour you have not spoken one word, but taken off the lid
of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a silver
spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, catching and
counting the drops it falls into.” In the view of M. Arago, the little
James before the tea-kettle becomes “the great engineer, preparing the
discoveries which were soon to immortalize him.” In our opinion the
judgment of the aunt was the truest. There is no reason to suppose that
the mind of the boy was occupied with philosophical theories on the
condensation of steam, which he compassed with so much difficulty in his
maturer years. This is more probably an afterthought borrowed from his
subsequent discoveries. Nothing is commoner than for children to be amused
with such phenomena, in the same way that they will form air-bubbles in a
cup of tea, and watch them sailing over the surface till they burst. The
probability is that little James was quite as idle as he seemed.
When he was at length sent to Mr. M‘Adam’s commercial school, the change
caused him many trials and much suffering. He found himself completely
out of place in the midst of the boisterous juvenile republic. Against
the tyranny of the elders he was helpless; their wild play was most
distasteful to him; he could not join in their sports, nor roam with
them along the beach, nor shy stones into the water, nor take part in
their hazardous exploits in the harbour. Accordingly they showered upon
him contemptuous epithets; and the school being composed of both sexes,
the girls joined in the laugh. He shone as little in the class as in
the playground. He did not possess that parrot power of learning and
confidence in self necessary to achieve distinction at school; and he was
even considered dull and backward for his age.[55] His want of progress
may, however, in some measure be accounted for by his almost continual
ailments, which sometimes kept him for weeks together at home. It was
not until he reached the age of about thirteen or fourteen, when he was
put into the mathematical class, that his powers appeared to develop
themselves, and from that time he made rapid progress.
[55] The truth in regard to young Watt’s first years in the
public school is, that, owing doubtless to infirm health, to
the suffering and depression which affected his whole powers,
he was prevented for a considerable time displaying even a
very ordinary and moderate aptitude for the common routine of
school lessons; and during those years he was regarded by his
schoolmasters as slow and inapt. Although to some minds facts
of such a nature may be conceived to mar the romance of a great
man’s history, yet, seeing they rest on authenticity which
cannot be impugned, there appears no reasonable ground on which
it may be thought that they ought to be passed over as if they
had not existed, or were altogether unfounded.--Williamson’s
‘Memorials of Watt,’ p. 130.
When not quite fourteen, he was taken by his mother for change of air
to Glasgow, then a quiet place without a single long chimney, somewhat
resembling a rural market-town of the present day. He was left in charge
of a relation, and his mother returned to Greenock. But he proved so
wakeful during the visit, and so disposed to indulge in that habit of
storytelling, which even Sir Walter Scott could afterwards admire in him,
that Mr. Watt was very soon written to by his friend, and entreated to
return to Glasgow and take home his son. “I cannot stand the excitement
he keeps me in,” said Mrs. Campbell; “I am worn out for want of sleep.
Every evening, before retiring to rest, he contrives to engage me in
conversation, then begins some striking tale, and whether humorous or
pathetic, the interest is so overpowering, that the family all listen to
him with breathless attention, and hour after hour strikes unheeded.”
He was taken back to Greenock accordingly, and, when well enough, was
sent to the Grammar School of the town, then kept by Mr. Robert Arrol.
Under him, Watt made fair progress in the rudiments of Latin and Greek;
but he was still more successful in the study of mathematics, which he
prosecuted under Mr. John Marr. It was only when he entered on this branch
of learning that he discovered his strength, and he very soon took the
lead in his class.
When at home the boy continued to spend much of his time in drawing, or
in cutting or carving with his penknife, or in watching the carpenters
at work in his father’s shop, sometimes trying his own hand at making
little articles with the tools which lay about. In this he displayed a
degree of dexterity which seemed so remarkable that the journeymen were
accustomed to say of him that “little Jamie had gotten a fortune at his
fingers’ ends.” Even when he had grown old he would recall to mind the
pleasure as well as the profit which he had derived from working in his
shirt-sleeves in his father’s shop. He was, in fact, educating himself
in the most effectual manner in his own way; learning to use his hands
dexterously; familiarising himself with the art of handling tools; and
acquiring a degree of expertness in working with them in wood and metal,
which eventually proved of the greatest value to him. At the same time he
was training himself in habits of application, industry, and invention.
Most of his spare time was thus devoted to mechanical adaptations of his
own contrivance. A small forge was erected for him, and a bench fitted
up for his special use; and there he constructed many ingenious little
objects, such as miniature cranes, pulleys, pumps, and capstans. Out of a
large silver coin he fabricated a punch-ladle, which is still preserved.
But the kind of work which most attracted him was the repairing of ships’
compasses, quadrants, and nautical instruments, in executing which he
exhibited so much neatness, dexterity, and accuracy, that it eventually
led to his selection of the business he determined to follow,--that of a
mathematical instrument maker.
The boy at the same time prosecuted his education at school; his improving
health enabling him to derive more advantage from the instructions of his
masters than in the earlier part of his career. Not the least influential
part of his training, as regarded the formation of his character,
consisted, as already observed, in the example and conversation of his
parents at home. His frequent illnesses brought him more directly and
continuously under their influence than is the case with most boys of
his age; and reading became one of his chief sources of recreation and
enjoyment. His fathers library-shelf contained well-thumbed volumes of
Boston, Bunyan, and ‘The Cloud of Witnesses,’ with Henry the Rymer’s ‘Life
of Wallace,’ and other old ballads, tattered by frequent use. These he
devoured greedily, and re-read until he had most of them by heart. His
father would also recount to him the sufferings of the Covenanters,--the
moors and mosses which lay towards the south of Greenock having been
among their retreats during the times of the persecution. Then there
were the local and traditionary stories of the neighbourhood,--such as
the exploits of the Greenock men under Sir John Shaw, at Worcester, in
1651,[56]--together with much of that unwritten history, heard only around
firesides, which kindles the Scotchman’s nationality, and influences his
future life.
[56] The Shaw baronetcy was the reward of the feudal superior’s
services on the occasion. The banner carried by the tenantry in
the civil war was long preserved in Greenock, and was hung up
with the other town flags in one of the public rooms.
We may here mention, in passing, that one of the most vividly-remembered
incidents of James Watt’s boyhood was the Stuart rebellion of the
“Forty-five,” which occurred when he was about ten years old. Watt himself
is so intimately identified with the material progress of the nineteenth
century, that it strikes one almost with surprise that he should have
been a spectator, in however remote a degree, of incidents belonging to
an altogether different age. The Stuart Rebellion may be said to have
been the end of one epoch and the beginning of another; for certain it is
that the progress of Scotland as an integral part of the British empire,
and the growth of its skilled industry--which the inventions of Watt did
so much to develop--appeared as if to spring from the very ashes of the
rebellion. Like other lowland towns, Greenock was greatly alarmed at the
startling news from the Highlands of the threatened descent of the clans.
Sir John Shaw had the trades mustered for drill on the green in front of
his mansion, and held them in readiness for defence of the town, in case
of attack. Greenock was otherwise secure, being protected against the
Highlands by the Clyde; besides, the western clans were either neutral
or adhered to the house of Hanover. The Pretender with his followers
passed southward by Stirling, and only approached Greenock on their return
from England,--a half-starved and ill-clad, though still unbroken army.
They halted at Glasgow, where they levied a heavy contribution on the
inhabitants, and sent out roving parties to try their fortunes in the
neighbouring towns. A small detachment one day approached Greenock, and
came as near as the Clune Brae; but the townspeople were afoot, and on
guard; signal was given to the ships of war moored near the old battery,
and a few well-directed shots speedily sent the Highlanders to the
right-about. The alarm was over for the present; but it was renewed in the
following year, when the rumour reached Edinburgh that Prince Charles,
hunted from the Highlands, had landed at Greenock, and lay concealed
there. The consequence was that a strict search was made throughout the
town, and Mr. Watt’s premises were searched like the others; but the
Pretender had contrived to escape in another direction. Such was one of
the most memorable incidents in the boy-life of James Watt, so strangely
in contrast with the later events of his industrial career.
During holiday times, the boy sometimes indulged in rambles along the
Clyde, occasionally crossing to the north shore, and strolling up the Gare
Loch and Holy Loch, and even as far as Ben Lomond. He was of a solitary
disposition, and loved to wander by himself at night amidst the wooded
pleasure-grounds which surrounded the old mansion-house overlooking the
town, watching through the trees the mysterious movements of the stars.
He became fascinated by the wonders of astronomy, and was stimulated to
inquire into the science by the examination of the nautical instruments
which he found amongst his father’s shop-stores. For it was a peculiarity
which characterised him through life, that he could not look upon any
instrument or machine without being seized with a desire to understand its
meaning, to unravel its mystery, and master the rationale of its uses.
Before he was fifteen he had twice gone through with great attention
S’Gravande’s ‘Elements of Natural Philosophy,’ a book belonging to his
father. He performed many little experiments in chemistry, and even
contrived to make an electrical machine, much to the marvel of those
who felt its shocks. Like most invalids, he read eagerly such books on
medicine and surgery as came in his way. He went so far as to practise
dissection; and on one occasion he was found carrying off for this purpose
the head of a child who had died of some uncommon disease. “He told his
son,” says Mr. Muirhead, “that, had he been able to bear the sight of the
sufferings of patients, he would have been a surgeon.”
In his solitary rambles, his love of wild-flowers and plants lured him
on to the study of botany. Ever observant of the aspects of nature, the
violent upheavings of the mountain-ranges on the north shores of Loch
Lomond directed his attention to geology. He was a great devourer of
books; reading all that came in his way. On a friend once advising him
to be less indiscriminate in his reading, he replied, “I have never yet
read a book without gaining information, instruction, or amusement.” This
was no answer to the admonition of his friend, who merely recommended
him to bestow upon the best books the time he devoted to the worse. But
the appetite for knowledge in inquisitive minds is, during youth, when
curiosity is fresh and unslacked, too insatiable to be fastidious, and
the volume which gets the preference is usually the first which comes in
the way.
Watt was not, however, a mere bookworm. In his solitary walks through the
country he would enter the cottages of the peasantry, gather their local
traditions, and impart to them information of a similar kind from his own
ample stores. Fishing, which suited his tranquil nature, was his single
sport. When unable to ramble for the purpose, he could still indulge the
pursuit from his father’s yard, which was open to the sea, and the water
of sufficient depth at high-tide to enable vessels of fifty or sixty tons
to lie alongside.
But James Watt had now arrived at a suitable age to learn a trade; and
his rambles must come to a close. His father had originally intended him
to follow his own business; but having sustained some heavy losses about
this time--one of his ships having foundered at sea,--and observing the
strong bias of his son towards manipulative science and exact mechanics,
he at length decided to send him to Glasgow, in the year 1754, when he
was eighteen years old, to learn the trade of a mathematical instrument
maker.