WATT, JAMES

(b Greenock, Scotland, 19 January 1736; d Heathfield, England, 19 August 1819), engineering, chemistry.

Although Watt’s achievements as an inventor and an engineer have been fully recognized and universally honored, the dependence of his technical work on contemporary science and his own scientific research have long provoked sharp differences of opnion.

Watt’s grandfather and father had both followed technical pursuits: the former, Thomas, as a teacher of surveying and navigation (“professor of the mathematicks”) and the latter, James, as a shipwright and maker and supplier of nautical instruents. His mother, Agnes Muirhead (or Muireheid), was descended from a family that had at one time been prominent in Scottish life. Owing to his fragile health Watt’s attendance at elementary school was somewhat irregular, but he nonetheless attained some proficiency in geometry (in which he showed great interest), Latin, and Greek. Schooling, however, composed only the lesser part of his education; the more consequential portion he received in his father’s shop, where he first gained the knowledge and skills of contemporary craftsmanship-woodworking, metalworking, smithing, instrument making, and model making.

At the age of eighteen, having decided to follow the career of scientific instrument maker, Watt left Greenock and took up residence in nearby Glasgow, which was then becoming a center of commerce and industry. In 1775 he went to London, where he spent a year as an apprentice, rapidly mastering the arts and crafts that entered into the making of navigational and scientific instruments. He found London both disagreeable and a strain on his health, however, and a year later he returned to Scotland. Watt hoped to establish himself in Glasgow as an instrument maker, but he was prevented from doing so by guild restrictions. It was only through the influence of friends on the faculty of the University of Glasgow that he was able in 1757 to evade the jurisdiction of the corporations of tradesmen through an appointment as “mathematical instrument maker to the university.” Watt thus found the setting that fostered much of his technical and scientific work. He soon became acquainted with John Robison (who first directed his attention to the steam engine) and Joseph Black; and it was in 1765, during his association with the university, that he made his first and most important invention, the separate condenser for the Newcomen engine. He patented it in 1769 and developed it commercially, first in partnership with John Roebuck and later with Matthew Boulton.

This initial success was followed over the next quarter-century by a remarkable sequence of additional inventions related to the steam engine-the sun-and-planet gearing system to translate the engine’s reciprocating motion into rotary motion without employing the common crank (which was entangled in patent claims); the application to the steam engine of the double-acting principle that was then commonly used in pumps; the “expansive principle” whereby Watt recognized that because of its expansive power, steam need not be admitted into the cylinder during the entire stroke; the “parallel motion” with which he connected a rigid piston rod to the overhead beam without causing the rod to wobble;and the “indicator” for determining the pressure in the cylinder during the cycle. Besides these signal contributions to the technology of the atmospheric steam engine, Watt also originated a perspective drawing machine, a letter-copying process, an indicator liquid for testing acidity, and a steam wheel (which he was unable to perfect) for producing rotary motion directly from steam pressure.

In 1766 Watt closed his shop at the university and opened a land surveying and civil engineering office in Glasgow, where he practiced as a civil engineer until 1774. In the latter year he moved to Birmingham and formed the partnership with Boulton whereby he successfully commercialized his improved steam engine design. During the 1790’s he was heavily preoccupied with the litigation through which he preserved his separate condenser patent against a series of challenges. And in 1800 both Watt and Boulton retired, turning their business enterprises over to their sons.

Watt became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of London, and was member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. He married Margaret Miller, a cousin, and after her death in 1773, Ann MacGregor, the daughter of a Glasgow merchant. Of the children born from these marriages only a son, James, outlived the father.

Watt’s career as a scientist centered on his interest in chemistry. He performed numerous experiments, was in contact with several of the foremost chemists of the day (including Black, Priestley, and Berthollet), and occasionally ventured into the realm of theory. In 1783 he formed the opinion that water is a compound; but his designation of its components was ambiguous, inasmuch as he described them as “dephlogisticated and inflammable air, or phlogiston,” where “phlogiston,” as he often used the term, signified various gases. During the nineteenth century a spirited debate arose among the partisans of Watt, Cavendish, and Lavoisier over credit for priority in the discovery of the “composition of water” J.R. Partington, the historian of chemistry after closely evaluating the conflicting claims has lent his authority to the view that while Watt is entitled to credit for first stating that water is not elementary, it was Lavoisier who clearly specified what its components are.

Watt also did experiments during the 1780’s that contributed to the commercial application in Britain of the process, which Berthollet had discovered, of bleaching textiles with chlorine. In this case Watt’s role as a chemist must be heavily qualified. Unlike Berthollet, whose chemical research was part of a program of theoretical inquiry and who promptly published his discoveries even when they had commercial possibilites, Watt was more akin to what would presently be designed to render the process effective and economical on a commercial scale. Moreover, Watt’s father–inlaw, James MacGregror, was in the bleaching businees; and Watt hoped that by keeping their improvements secret, they would realize substantial profits. He was openly disappointed that Berthollet was conducting his research “earnestly” and was making “his discoveries on it publick,” When Watt proposed to Berthollet that, with MacGregor, they brushed aside the proposal with the remark “Quand on aime les sciences on a peu besoin de fortune …” These distinctions between the motivations and purposes of the engineer and the scientist are of great interest in attempting to reach an understanding of the development of modern science.

Twenty years earlier, during the 1760’s Watt had played a similar role in an attempt to commercialize a process for producing alkali using common salt and lime as ingredients. The “theory,” according to Watt’s own testimony, was formulated by Black; Watt’s contribution consisted of experiments designed to find a commercially feasible procedure. Watt unquestionably displayed considerable knowledge of the chemistry of bleaching, dyeing, and alkali production: but in these fields his contrubutions were to industrial chemistry, not to chemical theory. They were the chemical equivalents of his mechanical inventions (which likewise followed systematic experiments).

In one additional area of his involvement with chemistry, a misunderstanding continues to confound our appreciation of Watt’s career as a scientist. Both Robison and Black advanced the claim that the invention of the separate condenser rested upon Watt’s understanding of Black’s principle of latent heat. Although Watt denied these assertions and presented a convincing description of the events that led to his invention,¹ some writers have not only repeated the claim but have gone further and asserted that Watt discovered or “rediscovered” the principle itself² In fact, however, Watt only noticed the phenomenon (the apparent loss of heat when water is boiled) that is accounted for by the principle of latent heat. Upon describing his observations to Black, he was told of the principle, which Black had been teaching at the University of Glasgow for serveral years. Watt’s own claim was only that he had “stumbled upon one of the material facts by which that beautiful theory is supported”

If we confine our meaning of science to its theoretical dimensions, we must conclude that Watt’s inventions were made for the most part independently of science. But there can be no question that, conversely theoretical science owes much to his inventions. The steam revolution that Watt’s work as an inventor promoted, focused the attention of mathematicians and natural philosophers on problems that prompted important research in the theory of heat and in kinematics. Indeed, his “expansive principle” was embodied in the adiabatic expansion phase of Sadi Carnot’s heat cycle.³ And the parallel motion that Watt substituted for the chain and arch head connection stimulated considerable research in pure kinematics.⁴

If, however, we take a wider view of science, we can find still more meaning in Watt’s career. For despite the contrast between his modest achievements as a scientist and his extraordinary originality and inventive power as an engineer, his career displays one of the key developments in the history of science — the entrance by engineers into the world of research. During the eighteenth century the traditional affiliation between engineering and craftsmanship was being revised in favor of a merger of engineering with experimental and theoretical science; and in Watt’s work in chemistry, in his associations with chemists and natural philosophers, in his employment at the University of Glasgow, and in his membership in the foremost British scientific societies we have one of the earliest and clearest traces of that emerging pattern.

NOTES

1. For a defense of Watt’s position, see Donlad Fleming, “Latent Heat and the Invention of the Watt Engine,” in Isis, 43 (1952), 3 – 5.

2. A. E. Musson and Eric Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969), 80. These authors generally claim more for the theoretical content of Watt’s work than the present article allows.

3. See Robert Fox, “Watt’s Expansive Principle in the Work of Sadi Carnot and Nicolas Clément,” in Notes and Records. Royal Society of London, 24 (1969 – 1970), 233 – 253.

4. See Eugene S. Ferguson, “Kinematics of Mechanisms From the Time of Watt,” in Bulletin of the United States National Museum228 , paper 27 (1962), 185 – 230.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Watt wrote much but published little. His only publication on his inventions is his ed. of John Robison’s Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on steam and steam engines: Tit(,Articles Steam and Steam–Engines, Written for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by the Late John Rohinson, LLD., F.R.S.L. & E. (Edinburgh, 1818); this material is reproduced in vol. II of the posthumous collection of Robinson’s articles, A System of Mechanical Philosophy, David Brewster, ed., 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1822). Two letters by Watt setting forth his views on the composition of water were published by the Royal Society: “Thoughts on the Constituent Parts of Water and of Dephlogisticated Air; With an Account of Some Experiments on that Subject. In a Letter From Mr. James Watt, Engineer, to Mr. De Luc, F.R.S.,” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 74 (1784), 329 – 353; and “Sequel to the Thoughts on the constituent Parts of Water and Dephlogisticated Air: In a Subsequent Letter From Mr. James Watt, Engineer, to Mr. De Luc, F.R.S.,” ibid., 354 – 357. Watt’s biographer, James Patrick Muirhead, later reprinted these letter with additional material relevant to the composition-of-water controversy: Correspondence of the Late James Watt on His Discovery of the Theory of the Composition of Water, James Patrick Muirhead, ed. (London, 1846).

Watt’s interest in the application of pneumatic chemistry to medicine resulted in his collaboration with Thomas Beddoes on the following works: Considerations on the Medicinal Use of Factitious Airs, and on the Manner of Obtaining Them in Large Quantities (Bristol, 1794; 2nd ed., 1795; 3rd ed., 1796); and Medical Cases and Speculations; Including Parts IV and V of Considerations on the Medicinal Powers, and the Production of Factitious Airs (Bristol, 1796) — Watt’s contribution to the first of these was also printed separately as Description of a Pneumatic Apparatus. With Directions for Procuring the Factitious Airs (Birmingham, 1795). He also published a note on his test for acidity: “On a New Method of Preparing a Test Liquor to Shew the Presence of Acids and Alkalies in Chemical Mixtures,” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 74 (1784), 419 – 422.

Some of Watt’s multitudinous letters and unpublished papers have been reprinted: vol. II of James Patrick Muirhead. The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt, 3 vols. (London, 1854), contains a selection of Watt’s correspondence; and recently two systematic collections that include much previously unpublished material have appeared: Eric Robinson and A. E. Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revlution. A Documentary History (London, 1969); and Eric Robinson and Douglas McKie, eds., Partners in Science. Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black (London, 1970). Many of Watt’s letters and notes are preserved among the family papers at Doldowlod, Radnorshire.

II. Secondary Literature. Writings on Watt’s life and work are voluminous, almost all of them on his engineering rather than his science. For his personal life and especially his family background, see George Williamson, Memorials of the Lineage, Early Life, Education, and Development of the Genius of James Watt (Edinburgh, 1856). James Patrick Muirhead’s 3–vol. work (see above) is the standard nineteenth-century biography; besides the volume of correspondence (II), vol. I contains a narrative of Watt’s life and vol. III patent specifications and information. The narrative is recapitulated in Muirhead’s The Life of James Watt (London, 1858). Among the more recent biographical works the most valuable is H. W. Dickinson and Rhys Jenkins, James Watt and the Steam Engine. The Memorial Volume Prepared for the Committee of the Watt Centenary Commemoration at Birmingham 1919 (Oxford, 1927); this work contains a narrative biography, descriptions of many of Watt’s technical achievements, reproductions of some of his drawings, and an extensive annotated bibliography. The composition-of-water controversy is summarized and the various claims evaluated in J. R. Partington. A History of Chemistry. III (London, 1962), 344 – 362. Partington’s History is also useful in connection with Watt’s other chemical endeavors. An important study of science in the industrial revolution that bears heavily on watt’s career is A. E. Musson and Eric Robinason. Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969).

The following publications are among those that have recently contributed to a fuller understanding of Watt’s place in science: Robert E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham (Oxford, 1963), 60 – 82, passim: D. S. L. Cardwell, From Watt to Clausius (Ithaca, N. Y., 1971), 40 – 55, passim; W. A. Smeaton, “Some Comments on James Watt’s Published Account of His Work on Steam and Steam Engines,” in Notes and Records. Royal Society of London, 26 (1971), 35 – 42; David F. Larder, “An Unpublished Chemical Essay of James Watt,Engineer and Man of Science,” ibid.,24 (1969 – 1970) 221 – 232.

Harold Dorn