Watt on Earth! – The life of James Watt

 

James Watt is the man whom the S.I. unit of power is named after. This great engineer and inventor, however, was a man who had nothing whatsoever to do with generating electricity. So why was his name chosen as the official unit of power? Well, it should be remembered that the watt is also a measurement of mechanical power as well as electrical power. More importantly, it was James Watt’s insights into the workings of steam engines that would power the industrial revolution itself and change the world forever.

James Watt was born in Greenock on 18 January 1736. The son of a successful shipwright, he was a sickly child who was mainly schooled at home before attending the local grammar school. In 1755, when the family fell on hard times as the family business floundered, Watt ventured to London. It was here that he trained as a scientific instrument maker whilst simultaneously working so hard that he made himself seriously ill.

On returning to Glasgow in 1757, he hoped to be the only mathematical instrument maker in the whole of Scotland. His cunning plan was scuppered as the scarily named “Guild of Hammermen” blocked his employment as they claimed he had not served enough time as an apprentice.

Luckily, he gained employment at Glasgow university repairing and making instruments. In 1763, the university asked him to repair one of their Newcomen steam engines. These steam engines had been around for a long time and their main use was to pump water out of mines. These engines were notoriously inefficient and consumed huge amounts of coal to do their job.

One Sunday in 1765, whilst walking in a park near the Clyde, Watt suddenly realised how he could improve the Newcomen steam engine massively. By using a separate chamber to condense steam without cooling the rest of the engine, he made the engine faster, safer, and more fuel-efficient. It was this idea that was to provide the raw power to drive the Industrial Revolution.

Whilst Watt was a genius engineer, he was no great business man and his life is dogged by setbacks and bad luck. Getting a patent for his new design of engine proved troublesome, whilst finding mechanics that could make his machines with sufficient precision was nigh on impossible. On top of this, his business partnership with John Roebuck ended as Roebuck went bust because his mines that Watt’s engines were supposed to drain proved unprofitable as they were waterlogged!

The constant obstacles ground Watt’s spirit down and he began to suffer from depression. Only his wife, Margaret, whom he married in 1764, kept him sane through this and the awful, personal tragedies they shared. The couple had five children but only two of them survived to adulthood.

Tragically, in 1772, his wife died during childbirth. Watt was now a widower who was deep in debt and was fast approaching the age of 40. The future looked bleak. His luck changed when he met Birmingham-based business man Matthew Boulton. He bought out Roebuck’s part of the business and provided Watt with the precision engineering facilities he needed! Boulton’s canny business sense and Watt’s genius provided the backbone to a successful partnership which remained together for the next 25 years. This was the same length as the patent they acquired in 1785 to be the sole manufacturers of Watt’s revolutionary steam engine, an engine that would change society.

With a virtual monopoly on steam engines, the money came flooding in. Watt charged his customers large sums of money for using his machines which lead him to come up with the term “horse-power” to justify his high prices. Watt had calculated that a typical horse could exert a pull of 180 lb. Using this fact, he then went on to describe his machines as “20 horse-power engines”.

His personal life also looked up when he married again and had two more children. Sadly, he would outlive them both.

In 1781, something very important happened. Watt developed a steam engine where the up-and-down movement of the piston was converted to rotational movement. This machine was truly a revelation and the industrial revolution boomed as paper, flour, cotton and iron mills all became powered by Watt’s steam engines. Mass production ensued!

In 1800 both Watt and Boulton retired very rich men and left the business to their sons. Watt’s inventive mind did not rest there though and he went on to invent the “rev. counter”, a machine for copying sculpture and a very early version of a photocopier which could copy text.

He died in 1819 at the age of 83. In 1882, the watt, the S.I. unit of measurement of electrical and mechanical power, was named in his honour. His name is now immortal and can be found on labels on the back of every electrical appliance in the world.