559 



WATT, JAMES. 



WATT, JAMES. 



560 



supplying what was wanting in the character of Watt to cope with 

 and eventually to conquer those moral obstacles which, far more than 

 any mechanical difficulties, rendered the introduction of the improved 

 steam-engine an arduous undertaking. He also possessed in his works 

 at Soho mechanical facilities of a superior order, as well as a large 

 capital to establish the manufacture of steam-engines. Watt's con- 

 nection with Boulton commenced early in 1774, and they remained in 

 partnership until 1800, when Watt retired from business; but their 

 friendship continued undiminished until Boulton's death, after which 

 Watt expressed, in his notes upon Robison's account of the steam- 

 engine, his high esteem for his former partner, in the passage quoted 

 under BOULTON, vol. i. col. 859. By the latter end of 1774, Watt com- 

 pleted at Soho, with all the facilities afforded by the expert artisans 

 under Boulton's command, his fourth model engine, which was ex- 

 hibited to a deputation from the Cornish miners, and to other persons 

 competent to judge of its performances, which were deemed highly 

 Batisfactory. Perfect however as was the action of the improved 

 machine, the patentees knew that much remained to be done to bring 

 it into extensive operation ; that costly machinery must be constructed 

 to assist in tho fabrication of the new engines ; and that a protracted 

 struggle with ignorance and prejudice was to be anticipated before 

 any remunerative return could be expected. As five years out of the 

 term of fourteen years for which the patent was granted had already 

 elapsed, it did not appear probable that the remainder of the term 

 would suffice for the reimbursement of past and prospective expenses ; 

 while there was no doubt that the preliminary difficulties once fairly 

 conquered, an active competition in the construction of the improved 

 engines would immediately follow the termination of the exclusive 

 privilege held by Watt and his partner. They therefore immediately 

 applied to parliament for an extension of the term of their patent ; 

 and, although the application was met by a violent opposition, in 

 which Edmund Burke took part, "not," as observed by Muirhead, 

 "from any hostility to Mr. Watt or his patent, but simply from a 

 sense of duty in defending what he conceived, or what were repre- 

 sented to him to be, the claims of a constituent," and which occa- 

 sioned great expense and anxiety to the patentees, it was ultimately 

 successful, an act being passed in 1775 (15 Geo. III., c. 61), "vesting 

 iu James Watt, engineer, his executors, administrators, and assigns, 

 the sole use and property of certain steam-engines, commonly called 

 fire-engines, of his invention, described in the said act, throughout his 

 majesty's dominions," for a period of twenty-five years from tho 

 passing of the act. Being thus secured a return for their outlay, the 

 patentees prepared for the manufacture of steam-engines upon the 

 most extensive scale, and with a degree of accuracy never before 

 applied in the production of large machinery. In order fully to com- 

 prehend the difficulties conquered by Watt, it must be remembered 

 that his machine required much more accurate workmanship than those 

 which it was to supersede, and that, as stated by Mr. Boulton, the son 

 of his partner, at the meeting held at Freemasons' Hall in 1824, for 

 erecting a monument to Watt, " at the period of the construction of 

 the first steam-engine upon his principles at Soho, the intelligent and 

 judicious Smeatou, who had been invited to satisfy himself of the 

 superior performance of the engine by his own experiments upon it, 

 and had been convinced of its great superiority over Newcomen's, 

 doubted the practicability of getting the different parts executed with 

 the requisite precision ; and augured, from the extreme difficulty of 

 attaining this desideratum, that this powerful machine, in its improved 

 form, would never be generally introduced." Stuart states that when 

 the engine tried at Kinneil was made, there were but one or two artists 

 who could give the requisite truth of workmanship to air-pump 

 cylinders of two inches diameter ; while Watt required similar accu- 

 racy in cylinders of many thousand times their capacity, and in the 

 large pistons, piston-rods, and other working parts of his machine. 



The opposition raised to an extension of the patent had the effect of 

 exciting the public attention, and tho commercial tact of Boulton 

 greatly facilitated the introduction of the machine to general use. 

 Pursuing throughout an enlightened and liberal policy, the patentees 

 invited the public to au inspection of the engine, freely explained the 

 principles of its action, and promoted a series of experiments under 

 the inspection of practical and scientific mechanics whose professional 

 character and position in society placed their testimony beyond sus- 

 picion. Similar experiments were made, before the same persons, on 

 an engine of Newcomen's construction, of the best make and in perfect 

 order ; and the results as to quantity of coal consumed, and amount 

 of work done in a given time, were contrasted. Thus the immense 

 saving effected was rendered manifest to the parties to whom the use 

 of the machine was recommended, and the remuneration of the 

 patentees was made proportional to that saving. Without attempting 

 to realise their profit as manufacturers of the engines, Messrs. Boulton 

 and Watt claimed only, by way of rent, the value of one-third part of 

 the coals saved by using their improved machine instead of the old 

 fire-engine. After paying this very moderate claim, it cost little more 

 than half the money previously paid to perform a given amount of 

 work, to say nothing of the great saving of room, water, and repairs. 

 Not only were the engines supplied at certain fixed prices, according 

 to size, at such a rate as would have been charged by any neutral 

 manufacturer, but where persons were either unable or unwilling to 

 throw aside the expensive apparatus which they might have already 



hi operation, the patentees took the old engines in part payment for 

 the new, often at rates far beyond their real value ; while in other 

 cases they erected machinery worth thousands of pounds on condition 

 of being paid when they produced the estimated advantage. In some 

 instances parts of the old machinery were brought into use, as, for 

 instance, by placing a smaller working-cylinder within the old one, and 

 using it as the outer case or jacket; when, although the new cylinder 

 was seldom more than half the size of the old one, the power of the 

 machine was so augmented as to present a striking illustration of the 

 value of the patented improvements. Still further to facilitate the 

 adoption of the new machinery by rendering the terms upon which its 

 use was allowed as clear as well as liberal as possible, the patentees 

 laid down a standard of horse-power by which to calculate tho power 

 of their machines ; and in so doing their honourable spirit was ren- 

 dered strikingly manifest, since, instead of taking a low standard of 

 horse-power, which would have increased the apparent value of their 

 engines, they estimated the power of a horse as equal to raising 

 33,000 Ibs. one foot high in a day ; while Smeaton had valued the force 

 of a strong English horse as low as 22,000 Ibs. ; and they moreover 

 calculated their machinery so as to perform work equal to raising 

 44,000 Ibs. a foot high for every nominal horse-power ; so that, hi fact, 

 what they called a five-horse-power engine would perform as much as 

 ten horses according to Smeaton's estimate. Even these liberal terms 

 and modes of computing the power of their machines might have 

 proved objectionable if saddled with the necessity for frequent inspec- 

 tion 'on the part of the patentees or their agents ; and therefore, at 

 once to avoid all vexatious interference for the purpose of ascertaining 

 the amount of work really done, and to afford to all parties a satisfac- 

 tory check upon every species of fraud by which the engines might be 

 represented as doing more or less than they really did perform, Watt 

 contrived an apparatus for counting and registering the strokes of the 

 great lever or beam of the engine, and thereby affording unerring and 

 indisputable data for computing the duty performed. This apparatus, 

 or ' counter,' was locked up in a box with two keys, one of which was 

 kept by the proprietor of the engine, and the other by the patentees, 

 who employed a confidential agent to open and examine the apparatus, 

 in the presence of the proprietors, every three months. 



Of the spirited manner in which Boulton conducted the mercantile 

 department of the great adventure some idea may be formed from the 

 fact, that upwards of 47,000. was spent before the patentees began to 

 receive any return; but at length their remuneration began to pour in, 

 and in no scanty stream. In Cornwall and other mining districts, 

 especially where coal was not abundant, the new engines speedily 

 replaced the old ; and although in many cases the patentees agreed to 

 receive a fixed sum, lower than the amount that would have been pay- 

 able to them under the usual agreement, in lieu of the stipulated rent, 

 they soon realised a very large annual revenue. In one instance, at 

 the Chacewater mine, in Cornwall, where three very large engines 

 were employed, the proprietors agreed to pay 800. per annum for 

 each engine as a compromise for the patentee's share of the saving 

 of fuel. 



The chief application of the old atmospheric engine, and also of 

 Watt's first improvement upon it, was for the purpose of pumping 

 water from mines, a purpose for which the circumstance of its power 

 being applied only during the downward stroke of the piston was of 

 little consequence. As however the extension of manufacturing 

 operations called for the introduction of some powerful and manage- 

 able prime-mover, more uniform in its action and less dependent upon 

 local circumstances than either wind or water, various attempts were 

 made to apply the steam-engine to this purpose, for which, in most 

 cases, it was necessary to convert its alternating rectilinear motion 

 into a continuous circular arc. Prior to the time of Watt, the prin- 

 cipal means adopted for accomplishing this object, which however was 

 very seldom attempted, was to employ the engine in pumping water 

 into an elevated reservoir, in its descent from which it might turn a 

 water-wheel. A large atmospheric engine was erected for this pur- 

 pose, iu 1752, at Champion's copper and brass works near Bristol; 

 and such engines were subsequently introduced at several other places, 

 among which was the Soho works. Watt was fully aware of the 

 importance of some more convenient method of obtaining rotatory 

 motion from the steam-engine : and of the numerous plans which had 

 either been tried by others or were suggested by his own feriilo 

 imagination, he appears to have considered none equal to the common 

 crank, the efficiency of which was shown by its use in the lathe, the 

 knife-grinder's wheel, and other machines in common use long before 

 its application to the steam-engine was thought of. A difficulty ^how- 

 ever presented itself in the application of the crank to the siugle- 

 acting engine, or that which exerted power in the down-stroke only, 

 because it would have been necessary to use a very heavily-loaded fly- 

 wheel to keep up and equalise the motion imparted by the separate 

 impulses of the piston, to avoid which Watt once proposed to employ 

 two engines, working distinct cranks on the same axle. Watt however 

 was not the man to publish his inventions until he had brought 

 them to a considerable state of perfection ; and consequently hi this, 

 as in some other cases, parties who were anxiously watching to obtain, 

 by the most uuscrupulous means, a share in the advantages of his 

 ingenuity, were enabled to steal a march upon him. While his 

 attention was directed to other important points, patents were ob- 



