565 



WATT, JAMES. 



WATT, JAMES. 



field, near Soho, where lie resided to the end of his life ; and he had 

 also a property on the bauks of the Wye, in Wales. His health 

 improved in his latter years, and his intellectual faculties remained 

 unimpaired to the last. It is related that, when upwards of seventy, 

 he imagined them to be on the decline, and accordingly determined to 

 put them to the test by undertaking some new study. Having 

 selected the Anglo-Saxon language for this experiment, he mastered it 

 with a facility which proved that there was little ground for his fears. 

 At length however, in the spring of 1819, alarming symptoms began to 

 appear, aud on the 25th of August in that year he died, in hia eighty- 

 third year, his last illness having been one, observes hia sou, rather of 

 debility than of pain. Respecting the members of his family, Arago 

 states that the invariable mildness and cheerful disposition of, his first 

 wife rescued him from the depressing lassitude and nervousneas from 

 which he had suffered so severely ; and that, without her cheering 

 influence, he might never have published his inventions to the world. 

 She died in childbed, September 24, 1773, leaving her surviving children 

 James, the son frequently referred to in this article, and noticed more 

 fully below, and a daughter, who married Mr. Miller of Glasgow. By 

 his second wife, who died in 1832, he had two children, neither of 

 whom survived him. One of these, Gregory Watt, also noticed in a 

 separate article, distinguished himself by his geological investigations, but 

 died in 1804, at the early age of twenty-seven. As might be expected, 

 this bereavement affected Watt very keenly ; but Muirhead states that 

 his remarkable activity of mind was not impaired, nor was his interest 

 in the pleasures of literature and society destroyed, by this melancholy 

 event ; and that neither his conversation nor his correspondence 

 betrayed any approach to the remarkable silence which Arago states 

 to have been observed in the latter years of Watt. 



Of the private character of the great engineer a most pleasing 

 account is given by Lord Jeffrey, who, after stating that, independently 

 of his great attainments in mechanics, he was an extraordinary, and, 

 in many respects, a wonderful man, observes, "Perhaps no individual 

 in his age possessed so much and such varied and exact information, 

 he had read so much, or remembered what he had read so accu- 

 rately and well. He had infinite quickness of apprehension, a pro- 

 digious memory, and a certain rectifying and methodising power of 

 understanding, which extracted something precious out of all that was 

 presented to it. His stores of miscellaneous knowledge were immense, 

 and yet less astonishing than the command he had at all times over 

 them. It seemed as if every subject that was casually started in con- 

 versation with him, had been that which he had been last occupied in 

 studying and exhausting, such was the copiousness, the precision, aud 

 the admirable clearness of the information which he poured out upon 

 it without effort or hesitation." In social conversation he allowed his 

 mind, like a great cyclopaedia, to be opened upon whatever subject 

 might best suit the taste of his associates ; and he made every- 

 thing so plain, clear, and intelligible, that, it is remarked, scarcely any 

 one could be conscious of any deficiency in their own capacity in his 

 presence. With all this flow of information, his conversation, we are 

 further informed, " had no resemblance to lecturing or solemn dis- 

 coursing, but, on the contrary, was full of colloquial spirit and 

 pleasantry." Of a generous and affectionate disposition, he was con- 

 siderate of the feelings of all around him, and gave the most liberal 

 assistance and encouragement to all young persons who showed 

 indications of talent, or who applied to him for patronage or advice. 

 As his death approached, he was perfectly conscious of hia situation, 

 and calm in the contemplation of it, expressing his thankfulness for 

 the length of days with which he had been blessed, for exemption 

 from most of the infirmities of age, and for the calm and cheerful 

 evening of life which he had been permitted to enjoy after the 

 honourable labours of the day had been concluded. 



In acknowledgment of his invaluable services to his country, it was 

 intimated to Watt a few years before his death, by a friendly message 

 from Sir Joseph Banks, that, to use the words of Muirhead, " the highest 

 honour usually conferred in England on men of literature and science 

 was open to him, if he expressed a wish to that effect ; " but while he 

 felt flattered by the intimation, he determined, after advising with his 

 son, to decline it. He became a member of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh in 1784, of that of London in the following year, of the 

 Batavian Society in 1787, and in 1808 a correspondent of the French 

 Institute; and in 1814 the 'Acaddmie des Sciences' of the Institute 

 conferred upon him the highest honour it can bestow, by electing him 

 one of its eight foreign associates. In 1806, by a spontaneous vote, 

 the University of Glasgow conferred upon him the honorary degree of 

 LL.D. In 1824 a subscription was entered into for erecting a statue 

 to his memory in Westminster Abbey, and a public meeting, of which 

 the late Charles Hampden Turner, Esq. F.R.S., the attached and 

 zealous friend of Watt and his family, was chairman, was held at the 

 Freemasons' Tavern to do honour to the man who had taught us to 

 wield, as it was then observed, the mightiest instrument ever 

 entrusted to the hands of man, and whose inventions were charac- 

 terised by Davy as among the great means which had enabled Britain 

 to display power and resources, during a long war, so infinitely above 

 what might have been expected from the numerical strength of her 

 population. A large sum was immediately raised, and Chantrey was 

 engaged to furnish the statue, which ia one of the finest of his works, 

 and which calls to mind the remark of Watt's friend, Mr. Richard Sharp, 



who said that ho never looked at his countenance without fancying 

 that he beheld the personification of abstract thought. To this an 

 appropriate inscription by Lord Brougham was added. Another statue 

 by Chantrey adorns an elegant chapel erected by his son, at the 

 parish church of Handsworth, near Birmingham, in the chancel of 

 which he was interred. Other statues have been erected in St. 

 George's Square, Glasgow; in the University of Glasgow, where the 

 memory of Watt is also preserved by an annual prize which he 

 founded for the best essay upon some subject connected with science 

 or the arts ; in a public library at Greenock, which is enriched with a 

 collection of scientific works presented by Watt during his life, and 

 to which his son contributed liberally ; and in the open space in front 

 of the Infirmary at Manchester a bronze copy of Chantrey 's seated 

 statue of Watt has been placed on a pedestal so as to correspond with 

 a similar statue of John Dalton. 



In 1834 M. Arago read to the French Acaddmie des Sciences the 

 'Historical Eloge' to which allusion has been repeatedly made in 

 this article, and which reflects much honour on the liberal feeling of 

 the author. It has been more than once translated into English ; but 

 the translation we have chiefly referred to is that of Watt's relative, 

 James Patrick Muirhead, Esq., M.A., published in 4to, in 1839, to 

 which some valuable notes are added ; the new translation (1857) has 

 already been mentioned. Of other authorities referred to for the 

 purpose of this memoir, the notices of Watt in the ' Encyclopaedia 

 Britaunica ; ' Brewster'a ' Edinburgh Encyclopaedia ; ' and the ' Public 

 Characters of 1802 3,' together with the printed 'Proceedings' of the 

 public meeting above referred to, are among the principal. 



The following is a bibliographical notice of Mr. Muirhead's third and 

 most important work on the subject of this article, which, we believe, 

 is also the most recent separate publication relating to him or his 

 achievements : ' The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inven- 

 tions of James Watt, illustrated by his Correspondence with his 

 Friends and the specifications of his patents. By James Patrick Muir- 

 head, Esq., M.A. In three volumes,' 8vo, London, 1854. Vol i. : Intro- 

 ductory memoir and extracts from correspondence, pp. xviii., cclxxxiii., 

 and 104; with a portrait of Watt, from Sir F. Chantrey 's bust, and 

 31 woodcuts in fac-simile of Watt's drawings of his inventions in the 

 construction of instruments, machinery, and apparatus. Vol. ii. : 

 Extracts from correspondence, pp. xxxiv. and 374 ; with an engraving of 

 Pidgeon's medal of Matthew Boulton, and 27 fac-simile woodcuts. 

 Vol. iii. : Letters patent, specifications of patents, and appendix of 

 documents relating to Savery and Papin, and to the legal proceed- 

 ings in which Boulton and Watt had to engage for the protection of 

 their patents, pp. xiv. and 292 ; with an engraving of the reverse 

 of the medal of Boulton, 34 plates of machinery, and 2 fac-simile 

 woodcuts. 



Professor James D. Forbes, in his 'Dissertation on the Progress of 

 Mathematical and Physical Science,' principally from 1775 to 1850, 

 published in November 1856, in the eighth edition of the ' Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica,' devotes a section of his fourth chapter to Watt, 

 under the following heads : " Condition of practical mechanics 

 previous to the time of Watt. His genius for the application of 

 science to practice. His successive improvements on the steam-engine. 

 Steam navigation." Mr. Forbes's remarks on the Com position- of - 

 Water question, already cited, will be found in section 2 of the sixth 

 chapter. 



JAMES WATT, the eldest son of the preceding, was born on 5th of 

 February 1769, and dieH, unmarried, at his seat, Aston Hall in War- 

 wickshire, near Birmingham, on the 2nd of June 1848. His succession 

 to the manufactory and fortune of his father has already been stated 

 or indicated in the preceding article. 



Mr. Watt had early directed his son's attention to natural philosophy 

 and chemistry, and he had also applied himself to the practical study 

 of mineralogy. It is scarcely known, and has not been recorded in 

 any previous biographical work, that he was for a short time, when in 

 his twentieth year only, one of the secretaries of the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society of Manchester, then just founded, one of the 

 earliest, and perhaps still the most distinguished of the provincial 

 scientific associations. To the ' Memoirs ' of this society he communi- 

 cated two papers in 1789, one on the mine (at Anglezark, near Chorley, 

 in Lancashire) "in which the aerated [carbonate of] barytes is found," 

 and the other " on the effects produced by different combinations of 

 the Terra Ponderosa [barytes] given to animals." Though he was not, 

 as has been said, the actual discoverer of the carbonate of barytes at 

 Anglezark, he was the first to describe, in the paper here alluded to, 

 the circumstances under which it occurred, and to make known the 

 fact that the specimens examined and the supplies of the mineral 

 from which was prepared the muriate, which had been recently intro- 

 duced into medical use by Dr. Adair Crawford, F.R.S., had been 

 obtained from that locality. His also were some of the earliest expe- 

 riments on the poisonous effects of the combinations of barytes. 



A remarkable episode now occurred in the life of the young philoso- 

 pher for such, at this period, we may call him. Mr. Watt had 

 directed his son's attention to the study of science on the Continent; 

 and accompanied, as it would appear, by his friend Thomas Cooper, 

 one of the vice-presidents of the Manchester Society, and who after- 

 wards*became professor of chemistry in Columbia College, in America 

 he proceeded to Paris. But here, carried away by the enthusiasm 



