Three Generations of Watts |
James Watt came to Birmingham from Glasgow, where
he had worked as a scientific instrument maker and canal surveyor
while developing his steam engine. Through his partnership with
Matthew Boulton he is regarded as one of the greatest inventors
of his time.
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Watt had a varied career,
reflected by his papers, from his early days surveying in the wilds
of Scotland, through bitter struggles to protect his steam engine
patents, to retirement as a landowner managing estates in Wales. Throughout
his life he was a keen scientist. He worked in chemistry and medicine,
invented a very successful mechanical copying press, and was in contact
with the world's greatest scientists and engineers.
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Left: James Watt Jr's Medical Journal,
1797, showing
Dr Beddoes' fumigation chamber for treating syphilis |
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The papers shed light on the lives of Watt's family. His father, James
Watt of Greenock, and his uncle, John Watt, were merchants with extensive
trading interests in the Americas. John Marr, his sister-in-law's
husband, had a distinguished career as an army engineer and served
in the American War of Independence. Watt's youngest son Gregory was
a promising geologist who tragically died young from tuberculosis
at the age of twenty-seven. Watt's eldest son James was a talented
engineer who, along with Matthew Boulton's son, Matthew Robinson Boulton,
ran the engine business and did much to enhance his father's formidable
reputation.
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Right: Map of Scotland Gregory Watt used for
geological studies, with caricature of
geologists by the engineer William Creighton
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The James Watt Papers contain the business and family papers of James Watt,
his father and his sons. They include extensive correspondence,
personal and business records, and records of the family home at
Heathfield. |
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