James Watt

James Watt was the father of the industrial revolution. His crucial role in transforming our world from
one based on agriculture to one based on engineering and technology is recognized in the unit of
power: the watt.
James Watt was born in 1736 in Greenock, Scotland. He was an inventor, engineer and scientist.

Quick Guide to James Watts Inventions and Discoveries

James Watt:
radically improved the steam engine, starting the industrial revolution.
continued to produce a stream of new ideas and inventions, which eventually resulted in an engine
that needed 80% less fuel than earlier engines.
invented high pressure steam engines capable of even higher efficiencies, but the technology of
the time was not capable of operating them safely.
introduced the word horsepower to describe an engines power output. We now generally
use wattsto measure power, although engine power is still often rated in horsepower.
was the first person to propose that water was made of hydrogen combined with oxygen.

 independently discovered the scientific concept of latent heat.

invented the worlds first copying machine similar in function to a photocopier to make copies of
correspondence, pages of books, and pictures.

Early Years
James Watt came from a successful family. His grandfather taught mathematics, and his father was
a carpenter, who built ships.
His mother was well-educated, and intelligent. She taught him to read, while his father taught him
arithmetic and writing. He excelled at math, science and engineering at high school, but his
language skills were less impressive.
As a boy, James Watts health was often poor, and much of his learning took place at home, where
he could watch the fishing boats coming into the port of Greenock and the big sailing ships bringing
in tobacco from the Americas. One day, thanks to his inventive mind, ships like these would be
powered by engines.
At eighteen, following the death of his mother, and a ship sinking that placed a financial burden on
his family, James gave up his plans to go to university. Instead, he trained in London as a scientific
instrument maker, specializing in mathematical and nautical instruments. Within two months, his
skills were higher than others who had been in training for two years. His exceptional hand skills had
previously been commented on by workers in his fathers shipyard in Greenock.
After a year in London, he found work at Glasgow University, repairing instruments for the astronomy
department.

Glasgow University

Making Friends, Building Knowledge, and Developing New

Skills at Glasgow University
Watts instrument work was so good that the universitys professors wanted to keep him working
there permanently, so they invited him to set up a workshop in the university.
The professors soon realized the young man in the workshop had a brain equal to their own. They
began calling on him to discuss their work. Students of mathematics and physics found that Watt
had learned more about their subjects than they had.
He also overcame his earlier poor language skills, teaching himself German and Italian in order to
read more scientific literature.

James Watt in his workshop

At Glasgow University, James Watt became friends with Adam Smith, who founded the academic
discipline of Economics and wrote The Wealth of Nations. He also became friends with the chemist
Joseph Black, who discovered magnesium and, independently of Watt, invented the concept of
latent heat.
In 1759, four years after his arrival in Glasgow, the 23 year-old James Watt became interested in
steam engines.
This happened when another of his new friends at the university, Professor John Robinson
discussed with Watt the possibility of a steam-driven car. Although their ideas for the car were
impractical, a seed had been sown in Watts fertile mind.
Professor Robinson didnt stand still either. He was the first person to publish an inverse-square law
for electric forces, and he invented the siren.

The Coming of Steam

In 1763, aged 27, Watt came into contact with a working steam engine, the Newcomen engine.
Professor John Anderson, who used the engine as a demonstration in his physics classes, needed it
repaired. Watt did the repair, but was astonished at how little work the engine was able to do.
At that time, Newcomen engines had been used in Britain for 50 years, and no-one had found a way
to improve them.
They worked on the principle that the piston in the cylinder would be driven in one direction by a jet
of steam causing air in the cylinder to expand, then cold water would be injected in place of the
steam to cool the air in the cylinder, creating a partial vacuum which pulled the piston back in the
other direction, ready for the cycle to begin again with the injection of hot steam.
Watt decided that he could make a better engine. He thought about little else, and experimented in
his workshop with water and steam in metal vessels.
After two years of experimenting and thinking, Watt had his Eureka moment.
With his scientific understanding of the behavior of water and the principle of latent heat, he realized
that the problem with the Newcomen steam engine was as follows: heat was being used by the
engine to generate steam, but when the steam had done its work the cylinder was cooled down with
water. Heating and cooling the same cylinder for every piston stroke was very costly in terms of
energy needed to do it.
In Watts own words, slightly modernized:

The idea came into my mind that as steam was a gas it would rush into a vacuum, and if I linked the
engines cylinder to a vessel at low pressure, the steam would rush into it. The steam would
condense there and it wouldnt cool the engine-cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the
condensed steam from the cylinder.

James Watts Steam Engine

Watt redesigned the engine. His idea was that air pressure would push the piston into a partial
vacuum generated when steam condenses into liquid water. The steam turned into water in Watts
condenser, which was surrounded by cold water.
The process was helped by a vacuum pump connected to the condenser which took the hot water
made by the condensing steam and conveyed it back, still hot, to the boiler ready to be turned back
into steam.

While keeping the condenser cold, Watt had also realized the importance of keeping the
piston/working cylinder hot: he surrounded these with a hot steam jacket.
By the end of 1765, a 29 year-old Watt had built his first small-scale steam engine, featuring a
separate condensing chamber, and a steam jacket. The start of industrial revolution was getting
closer, but had not yet begun.
In 1769, aged 33, Watt patented his new engine.

A Boulton & Watt engine in Birmingham, England, built during Watts lifetime in 1817. Image by Chris Allen.

From Small-Scale Engines to Industrial Superpower

Watt owned one of the most important patents in human history. He sold it to John Roebuck, whose
factory went bankrupt.
Matthew Boulton of Birmingham bought the patent rights to Watts steam engine.
In 1775, Watt celebrated his 39th birthday and began a highly successful 25 year partnership with
Boulton. The partnership was a perfect combination of Watts scientific and engineering ingenuity
and Boultons factory and commercial skills.
Eleven years after Watt built his first small-scale steam engine, his engines began to be installed to
pump water out of mines. The annual fee the mine owners paid for the machines was one-third of
the value of the fuel savings the machines made.
News of the new super-efficient engines spread fast, and with the coming of Watts steam engines,
the industrial revolution began.

Watt and Boultons success did have a few hiccups along the way. In 1791, they had to arm their
workers against a four day riot in which scientists and intellectuals were a specific target.
As the years passed, Boulton & Watt engines found their way into ever more applications, and the
United Kingdom was gripped by the industrial revolution. Boulton and Watt began exporting their
new technology all over the world.
The new industries began releasing larger amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than
previous human actions had. This trend continues today.

James Watt in later life

The End, But Not Before Another Crucial New Engine

Design!
In 1800, aged 64, and very wealthy, Watt retired. His patent had expired, and he and Matthew
Boulton passed their partnership to their sons, James Watt Junior, and Matthew Robinson Boulton,
who continued it successfully.

JamesWattwasequallydistinguishedasanaturalphilosopher
andchemist;hisinventionsdemonstratehisprofoundknowledgeofthose
sciences,andthatpeculiarcharacteristicofgeniustheunionofthemfor
practicalapplication.
HUMPHRYDAVY,1778TO1829
Watt continued with research work in his retirement. He patented his copying machine, the doubleaction engine, the rotary engine, and the steam pressure indicator.
The rotary engine was crucial, because it enabled engines to drive wheels rather than the simpler
up-down pumping motion of earlier machines.
James Watt died in 1819, aged 83. His mental power had not declined. His mind was razor sharp to
the end.