At the opening of the Manchester Mechanics’ Institute in 1825, a banker named Benjamin Heywood remarked that the steam engine was a unique example of the wedding of science and art. He was in fact paying the highest tribute to James Watt, the Scotsman who had perfected the steam engine nearly a half-century earlier. Indeed, Watt’s early life, study, and application seemed to prepare him for what was arguably the most significant development of the Industrial Revolution.
As a youth, Watt dabbled in a variety of technical fields such as wood - and metal - working and harmonics (the process of constructing stringed instruments such as guitars, fiddles, and organs) and scientific disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and mechanical engineering. He absorbed as much knowledge as possible about the scientific principles of these areas and then sought their practical application. In the mid-1750s he became an instrument maker for the University of Glasgow and subsequently joined the Lunar Society of Birmingham, so-called because its members—noted leaders of science and industry—convened on evenings of the full moon (perhaps the gentlemen relied on the
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Better light of these nights to journey home after eating and imbibing together!). This association highlights his reputation for possessing a theoretical mind rather than his technical tinkering, a trait that set him apart from many contemporary mechanics and inventors. A close friend of Watt who met the inventor in his twenties later remarked that he was more than just a specialist with machines; having learned to speak French, Italian, and German, he was also considered to be a philosopher, one with a deep love of music and poetry—a truly universal man.
Watt’s achievement at Glasgow had perhaps the most dramatic impact of any other single development of the Industrial Revolution. During the winter of 1764, Watt worked to repair a model of the Newcomen engine, perhaps inspired by a lecture on steam heat that he had recently attended at the university. He quickly spotted the flaws and inadequacy inherent in the inefficient engine, which he perhaps halfjokingly claimed required a coal mine to keep it running. He envisioned a means to make the engine more efficient by using the principle of latent heat developed by one of his associates, the chemist Joe Black. Watt deduced that it took more heat to re-warm the just-cooled cylinder than to inject steam, the process then in use to alternately heat and cool the cylinder and which wasted precious time and fuel.
He repaired the Newcomen model but pondered the problem he had observed for several months. During the spring of 1765, while taking a Sunday stroll, an idea popped into his head. The solution that he needed was two cylinders, one to stay consistently hot and another connected by a pipe and valve and being kept cold to serve as the condensing chamber. Thus, the great loss of steam that Watt had observed in the Newcomen engine would be alleviated, and his device required only one fourth of the fuel. In addition, the Newcomen cylinder had been open at the top, allowing atmosphere to do all the work. Watt opted to let the steam to do the same, sealing the top of the cylinder, a move that increased the steam pressure and introduced it alternately to the top and bottom of the piston. This modification greatly increased the power and efficiency of the engine.
Watt patented his separate condenser in 1769 but could not afford to further develop his engine. After one failed partnership he joined forces with a manufacturer, entrepreneur and fellow Lunar Society member Matthew Boulton. These two were complementary, yin and yang—Watt gloomy and negative, Boulton upbeat and full of energy. What Boulton provided to Watt was invaluable—monetary support, constant encouragement, and the use of his Soho Works, a factory near Birmingham where Watt could refine his prototype into a true steam engine. His innovations included the double powerstroke, a gearing mechanism that converted reciprocal motion to rotary motion to drive machinery, a governor to regulate the engine’s speed, parallel motion to keep the piston rod vertical while being driven by an oscillating iron beam (previous engines had used awkward wooden working beams, usually a fir tree), and a gauge that provided information on the pressure and volume of steam—the real indicator of the power of the machine. The pair also brought in others to help perfect their creation. One such person was ironmaster John Wilkinson, whose experience with boring cannon led to the creation of close-fitting cylinders that further reduced potential steam loss.
During the early 1780s, the British government approved a series of patents for the adjustments Watt had made to the engine. During this period, Watt and Boulton established the profitable Boulton and Watt Company. They sold their revolutionary engines to anyone willing to purchase them—from potters to beer-makers. The pair installed their first engine in a coal mine and by 1800 fifty-two mines had adopted the devices. In addition, between 1787 and 1800, Watt engines were operating in at least eighty-four cotton mills. A Cartwright loom and a rolling mill and other factory operations were also being powered by steam. Indeed, the reaction to the Watt-Boulton collaboration was electrifying. Although there were approximately 120 Newcomen engines in operation in 1769, by 1781 the Watt-Boulton engines had appeared in growing numbers in saw mills, flour mills, and other industries not only in Great Britain but on the continent as well. Indeed, Richard Arkwright, the mastermind behind the factory system, purchased one of the Watt-Boulton engines for his mill in Nottingham. Watt and Boulton maintained their monopoly until 1800, when their patents expired even though they often had to go to court during the 1780s and 1790s to contest others who attempted to pirate their engine. By 1800 about 500 Watt-Boulton engines were in operation in Great Britain, although some 1,000 Newcomen and 30 Savery models were also still in use. However, the tremendous appeal of the Watt-Boulton engine soon rendered these other rivals virtually obsolete.
By the middle of the 19th century, steam power was the norm in the industrial process, and thus standards needed to be set regarding the capacity of engines. Watt had devised a means for measuring the output of steam power. Since horses had been used for several millennia to turn cranks, the term horsepower seemed to be a common and understandable measure. Watt coined the term and equated 33,000 foot pounds per minute as 1 horsepower—one foot pound being the amount of power needed to lift a single pound (one foot). The Watt-Boulton engine had a horsepower of 7,500. By the turn of the century Great Britain’s total industrial horsepower derived from steam is
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Estimated to have been between 20,000 and 30,000 horsepower, and by the mid-19th century the country’s output was 500,000 horsepower. Boulton often bragged to his potential buyers (even to Czarina Catherine of Russia) that he had a product the entire world craved: power. For the first time, manufacturing was now possible on a large, industrial scale.
However, despite the tremendous contribution that the Watt-Boulton collaboration made to the age of industrialization, one drawback remained. Their engines were stationary and used low-pressure steam because Watt was fearful that high-pressure steam posed dangers and that the boilers might explode. Thus, until the Watt-Boulton patent expired, there was a delay in converting their idea to the next level, whereby lightweight engines mounted on wheels and using high-pressure steam might be used to pull or haul wagons or cars with cargo. Therefore, in the final analysis, the introduction of the railroad would have to wait. Indeed, when the Watt-Boulton patent lapsed, Richard Trevithick, a mining engineer from Cornwall, leaped to turn stationary into mobile application for steam power. Watt, ever the naysayer, once remarked that Trevithick’s proper place was at the end of a rope.
In 1800, Watt retired and spent the last years at his home, Heath-field Hall, near Birmingham, where he died in 1819. His significant contribution of the refinement of the earlier steam engine prototypes, despite his reticence to use high-power steam, along with the financial and moral support of his colleague Matthew Boulton, cannot be overemphasized. Their collaboration truly ushered in the age of steam, an era that fueled remarkable industrial and economic expansion. Indeed, the watt designation as a unit of electrical power is named in his honor.
World History
