James Watt junior, FRS (5 February 1769 – 2 June 1848) was a Scottish engineer, businessman and activist.

Early life

He was born on 5 February 1769, the son of James Watt by his first wife Margaret Miller, and half-brother of

Gregory Watt Gregory may refer to: People and fictional characters * Gregory (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Gregory (surname), a surname Places Australia *Gregory, Queensland, a town in the Shire of ...

. He was educated at

Winson Green Winson Green is a loosely defined inner-city area in the west of the city of Birmingham, England. It is part of the ward of Soho. It is the location of HM Prison Birmingham (known locally as Winson Green Prison or "the Green") and of City Hospi ...

near

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

, by the Rev. Henry Pickering. His father was unable to find a better school, though dissatisfied with his son's progress. At age 15 Watt spent a year at the Bersham Ironworks of John Wilkinson; and then went to

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...

. There he lodged with Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure, and knew

Marc-Auguste Pictet Marc-Auguste Pictet (; 23 July 1752 – 19 April 1825) was a Swiss scientific journalist and experimental natural philosopher. Pictet's main contribution to learning was his editing of the scientific section of the ''Bibliothèque Britann ...

and Jean-André Deluc. Subsequently, he studied German in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, sit ...

In Manchester

In 1788 Watt returned to England and a position in the textile trade in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

. Initially he worked at Taylor & Maxwell, makers of fustian, where Charles Taylor was a partner. Watt worked there in the counting-house. He was then employed by the Manchester radical Thomas Walker, changing jobs just before the

Priestley riots The Priestley Riots (also known as the Birmingham Riots of 1791) took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Jo ...

of July 1791. The

Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, popularly known as the Lit. & Phil., is one of the oldest learned societies in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United ...

was just one of a number of intellectual groups in Manchester at that period: Walker, Watt, Thomas Cooper and Samuel Jackson were leaders in the discussion of liberal reform and the views of Adam Smith. Watt became secretary of the Society in 1790, with John Ferriar. At this point Watt's interests were rather broad: Jacob Joseph Winterl the Hungarian chemist, Christoph Meiners, the ''Dictionary of Chemistry'' started by

James Keir James Keir FRS (20 September 1735 – 11 October 1820) was a Scottish chemist, geologist, industrialist, and inventor, and an important member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. Life and work Keir was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland, in ...

. It was through Cooper that Watt joined the Constitutional Society, and then went to work for Richard & Thomas Walker. Cooper, Jackson and Walker were radicals and abolitionists, prominent in founding the Manchester Constitutional Society in 1790. The whole radical group resigned ''en masse'', in 1791, when the Literary and Philosophical Society refused to send a message of sympathy to

Joseph Priestley Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted e ...

, driven from his home in the riots.Robinson p. 351.

In France

Watt went to Paris on a sales trip in France with Cooper in March 1792, at the time of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

. In April they conveyed to the

Jacobin Club , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = P ...

a greeting from the Manchester Constitutional Club. There was a reply of 13 April, from Jean-Louis Carra. Almost immediately Watt was denounced in the British parliament, with Cooper and Walker, by

Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January New Style">NS/nowiki> 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish people">Anglo-Irish Politician">statesman, economist, and philosopher. Born in Dublin, Burke served as a member of Parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 ...

. His name became coupled with Joseph Priestley's. In Paris Watt used letters of introduction from Priestley. He met the chemists

Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794),
CNRS ( Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy in particular, though the talk was all of politics. He encountered also

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's '' ...

, who became a friend. Over the summer he had business discussions with Jean-Marie Roland, vicomte de la Platière. Tom Wedgwood came to visit. At first Watt was in favour with the revolutionary leaders, and defended the

September massacres The September Massacres were a series of killings of prisoners in Paris that occurred in 1792, from Sunday, 2 September until Thursday, 6 September, during the French Revolution. Between 1,176 and 1,614 people were killed by '' fédérés'', g ...

. Later in 1792 Cooper and Watt became suspect as supporters of Jacques Pierre Brissot, and left for Italy. Watt remained in self-imposed exile, with a well-founded fear of legal procedures that might be taken against him. When prosecutions against Walker and Jackson failed, early in 1794, the shadow lifted.

Later life

Returning to England in 1794, Watt gave up on plans of emigration to America: they had been very real in 1793, when Cooper was preparing to go, and Priestley was still encouraging him late in the following year. At that point Watt was watching closely the treason trials, in particular that of

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wo ...

, about which he corresponded with Thomas Beddoes. Thomas Walker took heart from Hardy's acquittal by a jury, and felt able to speak out once more against the government. Clermont replica

Instead of leaving, Watt became a partner in the Soho Foundry firm of Boulton & Watt. Over time, he shared responsibility with Matthew Robinson Boulton for its management. Watt took on the daily operations and organisation of the Foundry, with Boulton being more concerned with planning. One problem was breaking into the steam engine market of the industrial north: Peter Ewart and Isaac Perrins had been tried as representatives, before the more satisfactory James Lawson was found. The younger generation of Watt and Boulton by the later 1790s had become serious adversaries of those firms who had reacted by infringing the company's patents in the north of England. Like others in his firm and family, Watt gave enthusiastic support to the Pneumatic Institution of Beddoes. He circulated German contacts,

Lorenz von Crell Lorenz Florenz Friedrich von Crell (21 January 1744 – 7 June 1816) was a German chemist. In 1778 he started publishing the first periodical journal focusing on chemistry. The journal had a longer title, but was known simply as Crell's Annalen. ...

. and Friedrich Albrecht Carl Gren, about it. Some years later, Boulton & Watt were able to sell gases to an industrial market, rather than for medical purposes. Watt later gave some technical assistance to Robert Fulton, providing in 1807 for Fulton the engine for '' North River Steamboat'', which was the first steamboat to run on the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

. Becoming more seriously interested in marine engines, he bought in 1817 the ''

Caledonia Caledonia (; ) was the Latin name used by the Roman Empire to refer to the part of Great Britain () that lies north of the River Forth, which includes most of the land area of Scotland. Today, it is used as a romantic or poetic name for all ...

'' of 102 tons, fitted her out with new engines, and went in her to Holland and up the River Rhine to Coblenz, the first steamship to leave an English port. On his return he made major improvements in marine steam engines. Watt moved into Aston Hall, Warwickshire, in 1817 and was appointed High Sheriff of Warwickshire for 1829–30. After his father's death in 1819, Watt became a concerned guardian of his memory and reputation. He became controlling of biographical references, where they suggested Watt senior had depended on the help of others, and of Henry Brougham's epitaph for Francis Chantrey's memorial in

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

. He was also assertive on behalf of his father's priority claim on the chemical composition of water, over that of

Henry Cavendish Henry Cavendish ( ; 10 October 1731 – 24 February 1810) was an English natural philosopher and scientist who was an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. He is noted for his discovery of hydrogen, which he termed "infl ...

. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematic ...

in 1820. Watt died unmarried, at Aston Hall, on 2 June 1848. An Australian author claims that he fathered seven children with a Margaret Redfern, but birth and death records show that she lived in Belfast, and her husband was an Andrew Watt. She was the sister of William Redfern, and mother of William Redfern Watt.

References

* *A. E. Musson and E. Robinson, ''The Early Growth of Steam Power'', The Economic History Review New Series, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1959), pp. 418–439. Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History Society. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2591464 *Eric Robinson, ''An English Jacobin: James Watt, Junior, 1769–1848'', Cambridge Historical Journal Vol. 11, No. 3 (1955), pp. 349–355. Published by: Cambridge University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3021128 *

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Watt, James 1769 births 1848 deaths Scottish engineers Scottish businesspeople High Sheriffs of Warwickshire Sheriffs of Warwickshire Fellows of the Royal Society Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society