|
|
 |
James Watt
Biography
Presented By
Ted Constantine
To The Society For Learning In Retirement, London
Curriculum Vitae
•
Born in Greenock, Scotland Jan 19th 1736
•
One of 5 children, son of a merchant/contractor whose business had
fallen upon hard times
•
Primary home education by his mother Agnes Muirhead who was of an
ancient Scottish family. She was a remarkable woman who gave
young Jamie a good grounding in mathematics, natural sciences,
philosophy and languages preparing him for upper school. She
died when Watt was 18.
•
Because of father’s poor finances, he was sent to trade school in
London at age 19
•
Became a mathematical instrument maker (his grandfather’s craft)
but did not see fit to spend 7 years as an apprentice. Finished
his skill training in one year
•
Returned to Scotland and established instrument making business in
1757 but couldn’t get accepted into the guild of hammer men (he
did not finish apprenticeship).
•
Through professor friends of his mother’s family he was allowed to
set up shop at the University of Glasgow making and repairing
instruments (Sextants Theodalytes etc)
•
Developed reputation as a good maker and user of scientific
instruments.
•
Employed on canal and harbor projects
•
To supplement his income he took to building musical instruments
after teaching himself the basics of music. His most notable
instrument was a pipe organ
•
In 1764 he married his cousin who died in childbirth in 1772.
Remarried in 1777 to Ann MacGregor and fathered two sons.
Watt Becomes An Industrial Revolutionary
•
In 1763 the university purchased a primitive steam engine which had
to be sent to London for repairs. Watt recalled the engine to
Glasgow and he was given the repair job to do.
•
This type of engine (known as the Newcomen engine) which was
invented about 50 years prior was inefficient but had found use
in dewatering coal mines
•
In repairing the engine, Watt conceived how to greatly increase
efficiency by redesign. It took five years of painstaking
development and experiments to get to a working model. This was
a measure of his perseverance.
•
A colleague, Dr Black had taught him about the latent heat of water
vapor which led Watt to install an external exhaust steam
condenser. This was the key to higher efficiency and Watt
developed new engine on this design.
•
Luckily he was not only talented, he was a genius.
•
Watt foresaw the numerous uses that a steam engine could be put to
and its development became a passion. He believed in continuous
improvement each successive model solving a problem observed
earlier. He often went on only 2 to 3 hours of sleep.
•
“Talent does what it can. Genius does what it must.”
Harnessing and Developing Machine Power
•
Until the 18th century windmills and
waterwheels were the only sources that supplemented muscle power
in doing work in basic agrarian societies throughout the world
•
Over five centuries (13th to 18th),
the parliamentary system in England fostered a merchant class
that progressed into capitalism which English and Scottish
entrepreneurs took to readily.
•
Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, and author
of The Wealth of Nations was on faculty at Glasgow university.
•
This system gave rise to rapid growth of industry
and diminished agrarianism. Watt studied and accepted Smith’s
treatise.
•
The industrial revolution was to flourish and
machines were needed in the mines and factories. Watt was to
provide the engine for progress.
•
He focused his efforts on steam engine
development. He did the design, the drawings, the manufacture
and assembly and the experimental runs on the early prototypes.
He worked tirelessly.
In The Right Place At The Right Time
•
Watt with his mechanical intellect came on the
world scene at the right time to make a quantum leap in machine
development
•
The stars were aligned in his favor
•
He had the benefit of the renowned Scottish
educational system championed by John Knox 200 years previous.
He was particularly fortunate that his mother’s family had
association with the university.
•
Scotland of the day was quite tolerant. Although
he claimed to be a life long Presbyterian, he never went to
church. The Sabbath was another working day for him.
•
As well as having great intellect, Watt was an
excellent craftsman and a teacher of tradesmen who would seek to
work with him.
•
He lived in a country that valued free thinking
and rewarded innovation
•
There was a ready made market for the products of
his intellect
•
There were investors interested in capitalizing
on developing technology that were available to him
The Business Part 1
•
Watt was not wealthy and did not own a means to manufacture what he
conceived
•
Watt partnered with James Roebuck, a Scottish ironworks owner who
put up capital to build Watt’s first prototypes
•
After Roebuck went bankrupt in 1773, Watt went south to Birmingham
and partnered with Matthew Bolton, a successful businessman and
factory owner
•
The world’s first steam engine manufacturing business “Boulton and
Watt” was born. This was a perfect partnership. Boulton provided
the business know-how and Watt provided the technology
•
Mine, mill and factory owners streamed to the Boulton Watt works to
place their orders for engines to drive their machinery. This
gave rise to innovative manufacturing as well as to the
development of specialized machine tools.
•
The Boulton and Watt manufacturing works was the first enterprise
to establish a benevolent society for workmen, each contributing
a fund according to his earnings. The fund paid the sick and
disabled and no one from the Boulton and Watt Works ended up in
the poorhouse.
The Business Part 2
•
Watt’s engine was readily adaptable to driving
pumps for use in collieries replacing the older inefficient
engines
•
Industrial espionage became a problem at home and
from abroad.
•
Watt and Boulton were able to get parliament to
grant them wide ranging patent rights on the steam engine
•
The business prospered. Modifications and
improvements were made that led to the engines being used to
drive many different types of machinery. However when recession
hit, industrialists, especially miners had difficulty getting
capital to buy more engines
•
As well as charging the sales price, Watt
developed another source of revenue for each engine. He compared
the work his engine could do to how many horses it could
replace. (Hence engines were rated in “:horsepower”).
•
He then charged each customer an annual fee of
one third of what was calculated that an equivalent team of
horses would cost for the first 25 years of engine use. This
helped to keep the works running.
Uses And Adaptations
•
By 1800 there were over 500 of Watt’s engines in use in British
mines and factories. At this point Watt retired and devoted
himself to teaching at the University of Glasgow.
•
Having developed how to convert the reciprocating action of the
basic engine into rotary motion, Watt’s engines powered entire
factories using multiple line shafts and belt drives greatly
advancing mass production.
•
Textile and woolen mills, furniture shops, ceramics works, grist
mills, iron works, coal and metal mines and municipal waterworks
employed stationary steam engines.
•
Watt was concerned about safety for the enginemen and developed the
devices such as the governor and avoided using high pressure.
•
Watt’s engine was adapted to power ships and he experimented with
steam powered carriages. Before his death in 1819 the steam
engine was adapted to a self propelled carriage and a primitive
railway locomotive, Shortly after his death it was used to drive
mobile equipment such as trams, commercial railway locomotives
and traction engines.
Watt’s Legacy
•
Developed the first practical engine to replace muscle power and
primitive motive power from wind and water.
•
Provided the linchpin for the industrial revolution to proceed and
modern day capitalism to succeed. He was the first major free
trade advocate.
•
He petitioned parliament not to tax manufacturing and succeeded.
Tax luxury, sin, property and wealth but do not tax the means of
making wealth.
•
Helped replace the landed class society with more egalitarian urban
based society.
•
Made common goods more affordable to the majority of citizens and
extended the use of municipal water supplies pumped by steam
engines.
•
Provided the first means of motive power for commerce and mass
transportation.
•
Served as an example for innovators that were to follow.
•
His work on power from steam led to electrical generation stations
of the 20th century.
His invention of the crank which converted the reciprocating
motion of the piston rod to rotation was fundamental to the
development of the internal combustion engine later in the 19th
century. |
|
|
|
