James Watt James Watt was born on January 19, 1736, at Greenock in Scotland, wherehis father was a shipwright. Jamie, as his parents called him, was not atall strong. He suffered from terrible headaches and this was naturally agreat handicap to him both in play and later in work. He could not start his schooling at as young an age as most children did,so his mother taught him to read, and his father taught him writing andarithmetic. He had a very good memory and a natural love of work. He liked mathematics and was also fond of designing and making things. Forhours he would dismantle his toys and then rebuild them to his own designwith the help of a small set of carpentry tools given to him by father. When James was able to go to school he was sent to a private school; andhe also received private lessons. He learnt a lot of subjects, and becamegood at languages as well as at mathematics. When James was fourteen he was given the famous book by Isaac Newtoncalled Elements of Natural Philosophy. He found the book so interestingthat he read it many times and spent much time thinking about it. He thenstarted spending his free time on experiments. He made a small electricalapparatus with which ha gave his friends shocks that made them jump. At thesame time he studied how steam could be condensed. Thought only fifteen, hewas already beginning to acquire knowledge that was very important for himlater when he began to design the steam engine. Soon after reading Newton’sbook on natural philosophy, James began to read books on other scientificsubjects – chemistry, medicine and anatomy.
[pic] James Watt (1736 – 1819)
An instrument-maker
James Watt, as a boy, spent much time in his father’s workshops. He learnt
about elementary mechanics and about fitting out ships. His father always kept a good stock of telescopes, quadrants, and otheroptical instruments. James showed an especial interest in theseinstruments. He spent hours dismantling them to study how they worked andthen carefully reconstructed them. This led him to take an interest inastronomy. Sometimes he went to a nearby hill and studied the stars throughships telescopes. When James was eighteen he decided to become a professional instrument-maker, and in June 1754 he went to live with his uncle and aunt in Glasgowhoping to perfect the trade there. But there were so few qualifiedinstrument-makers in those days that James could not find anyone in Glasgowable to teach him. So he set off on horseback for London.[pic] The new Wath’s engine
After some time James managed to persuade an instrument-manager to givehim a year’s instruction for twenty guineas. He found his training veryhard and tiring. He worked from early morning till late in the evening. In a few months, however, he could make many things and towards the end ofhis training he told his father, “I thing I shall be able to get my breadanywhere, as I am now able to work as well as most journeymen, though I amnot so quick as many.” Watt bought a few tools and returned to Glasgow to establish himself asinstrument-makes in that town.
At Glasgow University It happened that Glasgow University had just received valuable instrumentsfor equipping a new observatory. These instruments needed cleaning andputting into good working order, and Watt was given that job. His work onthe instruments was so good that he was allowed to call himself“mathematical instrument-maker to the University”. When he was twenty-one Watt was asked by a professor of medicine to make
instruments that the latter needed for his medical experiments. Then hebegan to make quadrants and sell them at a much lower price than that askedby most instrument-makers. He also made musical instruments – organs,violins, flutes, and guitars. Once Watt was asked to repair a small working model of an atmospheric-steam engine that was used for demonstration at engineering lectures at theuniversity. The original full-size engine which this model represented had been builtin 1702 by the famous engineer Thomas Newcomen to pump water out of coal-mines. Newcomen’s engine was the first practical attempt at designing a steam-engine, or fire-engine, as it was then steam-engine of today. Watt soon started to think out ways to improve its efficiency. He made afew scientific experiments in the hope of discovering the causes of itsfaults. The results of these experiments showed him that Newcomen’s engine, likethe other atmospheric-steam engines of that time, was founded on the wrongprinciple. He understood that in order to make the best use of steam, itwas necessary – first, that the cylinder should be always as hot as thesteam was condensed, the water to which it was reduced and the injectionwater itself should be cooled down to 100 degrees. It took Watt two years to find a away of putting his new theory intopractice; but once Sunday afternoon in April 1765, while he was out for awalk, he suddenly found the answer to his problem. It occurred to him, hewrote later, that if communication were opened between a cylinder withsteam and another vessel which was without air or fluids, the steam, as afluid, would go into the empty vessel, and that if that vessel were keptvery cool by an injection or some other way, more steam would continue toenter till the whole was condensed. Watt had made a great discovery: the using of a separate condenser in aengine for condensing the steam into water, so that the temperature of thecylinder was not lowered at each stroke of the piston. When he returned home, he took an old syringe and a few other things,including one of his wife’s thimbles and made a model engine to test hisideas. He introduced another new idea into his model in addition to theseparate condenser: he did not leave the top of his cylinder open and hedid not rely upon atmospheric pressure. So the cycle was completed and thepiston was operated by steam only. Though he had managed to make a successful model without much difficulty,he found it very difficult to construct a full-size engine based on hisprinciples. He could not make his piston slide smoothly up and down theinside of the cylinder. The steam percolated between the piston and thecylinder and reduces power. Eventually, Watt managed to solve this problemto a certain extent: he put a mixture of pasteboard, cork, tow and horse-dung over the inside surface of the cylinder; but it was several yearsbefore he thought of this, and by that time his costly experiments had runhim heavily into debt.[pic] James Watt’s Boulder
At a Factory in Birmingham
Once, when Watt was on his way back from London to Scotland, he visited alarge factory in Birmingham which had been built a few years before. Thisfactory, described as “the largest in England”, had over workmen, who made“all sorts of works … even astronomical clocks”. Watt was much impressed with the factory, but ha saw one serious weakness.The mechanical equipment used in the factory, such as it was, was driven by
a water-wheel, in much the same way as the country flour mills were driven.But the stream providing the water ran so low in dry weather thatproduction was often brought to a standstill. Watt thought that his newsteam-engine could be used there; and in May 1774 Watt and his two children(his wife had died three years before) want to Birmingham. James Watt was now thirty-eight. It was eleven years since he had firstbecome interested in building a steam-engine, but he had still notperfected his engine and ha had not been able to make use of it at all forindustrial purposes. One reason why his engine was not fully efficient was that the cylinderbore was not a perfect circle; it was a little oval. This meant thatnothing could entirely prevent the escape of steam round the piston. WhenWatt explained this difficulty to his partner, the latter immediatelyarranged to have better cylinders especially bored for him. New cylinders were a great improvement on those that Watt had used before,and with their help he could build an engine that at last really wasefficient. “The fire engine that I have invented is now going, and answersits purpose better than any other that has yet been made,” he wrote to hisfather. His engine was soon drawing up water from the mines from a lower levelthan had ever been reached before.[pic] The machines-tool
Once it was known how successfully the engine was working in the Cornishtin-mines, more and more orders from other parts of the country began tocome. One order was from France for an engine for supplying Paris withwater.
Other Inventions
Watt did not work on his engine only. He made several other inventions ofa different kind. The most important of them was a copying machine to help
him with his correspondence and other written work. This is how the machine worked. A letter or manuscript was written in aspecial ink. Then thin sheets of paper were pressed in turns over theoriginal script until ink had successfully penetrated the paper and hadleft a clear impression of the writing. Several copies could be taken veryquickly in this way, thus saving the writer hours of work. Watt’s copying machine was used all over the country for about 100 years –until the typewriter was invented. He also invented a method of bleaching, a machine for drying linen, and aninstrument for determining the specific gravities of liquids. In October 1781 Watt made a still better engine that could do much morethan merely pump water out of mines. This was a rotative engine. It couldrun machines, a thing no steam-engine had ever been able to do before. Thiswas a great invention at that time. Watt took some time to improve his newrelative engine. After he perfected it all kinds of industries began to useit. In fact, it became the basis of industry: the motive power that drovethe wheels of the various machines used in industry. It could do manythings. But there was one thing that Watt’s engine could not do: propel itself andso drive a train. Watt thought to try to design a locomotive as well as hisstationary engine, but he soon gave up the idea of designing a locomotive. In 1800, when James Watt was sixty-four, he retired. But he was by nomeans idle in the retirement. He fitted up a room in his house as aworkshop, and shut himself away in his room for hours making experiments ordesigning something. One invention that occupied his attention was amachine for copying sculptures. When he came out of his workshop, he usually liked to read by the fire, toimprove his general knowledge. He read anything that he could lay hands on,but he was particularly interested in reading about music, medicine, law,and architecture, and, of course, about engineering and scientificsubjects. He often continued his reading till late at night. As well as reading and experimenting, Watt received many visitors to hisown home. He was an excellent conversationalist, and people paid greatattention to everything that he said.[pic] Watt’s statue
Recognition
James Watt lived to the age of eighty-three. He received many honors inrecognition of his valuable work. He was elected a Fellow of the RoyalSociety of both London and Edinburgh. Glasgow University, the universitywhere he began his successful work, conferred on him the honorary degree ofDoctor of Law; and France made him a member of her famous Academy ofSciences. He liked very much to explain engineering problems to anyone, particularlyyoung people, who wished to consult him, and he was consulted very often bypeople of all ages. On August 19, 1819 James Watt died at his home. A few years later amonument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.