James Watt
Page 24
51 C. Holtzapffel, Turning and Mechanical Manipulation, vol. I, p. 80.
52 Ibid., pp. 83–5.
53 Ibid., p. 101.
54 JWP 6/46.6, J. Watt to J. Watt Senior, 19 June 1756.
55 Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History, Series Three (Marlborough, 1999), Reel 33, JWP, C1/1, ‘Accounts’, 7 October 1759.
56 Later Wyke also made revolution counters for Watt’s steam engine. See A. Smith, A Catalogue of Tools for Watch and Clock Makers by John Wyke of Liverpool (Charlottesville, VA, 1978), p. 7.
57 J. Moxon, Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works (Mendham, 1994).
58 G. L’E. Turner, ‘The Auction Sale of Larcum Kendall’s Workshop, 1790’, Antiquarian Horology, VIII (1967), pp. 269–75.
59 H. W. Dickinson, James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer (Cambridge, 1935), pp. 57–8.
60 Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, p. 217.
61 Science Museum inv. 1924–792/1814.
62 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 133.
63 J. P. Muirhead, The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854), vol. III, pp. 75–6.
64 Sotheby’s, The James Watt Sale: Art and Science (London, 2003), lot nos 10, 12, 13.
65 JWP 4/11.9, 10 October 1757.
66 JWP 4/11.30, 15 May 1758.
67 JWP 4/11.40, 16 August 1758.
68 J. P. Muirhead, The Life of James Watt, with Selections from his Correspondence (London, 1858), p. 55.
69 Ibid., p. 56.
70 J. Rabone, ‘Measuring Rules’, in The Resources, Products and Industrial History of Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District, ed. S. Timmins (London, 1866), pp. 628–32: p. 631.
71 J. Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London, 1895), p. 74.
72 Muirhead, The Life of James Watt, p. 470.
73 A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1778), vol. I, p. 7.
74 Muirhead, The Life of James Watt, p. 46. He wasn’t alone. Robert Campbell, in his London Tradesman, complained that ‘a refinement of our taste into a love of the soft Italian music, is debasing the martial genius of the nation, and may one day be a Means to fiddle us out of our Liberties’, p. 92.
75 M. T. Wright, ‘James Watt: Musical Instrument Maker’, Galpin Society Journal, L (2002), pp. 104–29. This was the main source for the passage that follows.
76 Ibid., pp. 123–4.
77 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 113.
78 P. Holman, Life after Death: The Viola Da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch (Woodbridge, 2010), p. 167.
79 Wright, ‘James Watt: Musical Instrument Maker’, p. 126.
80 Ibid., p. 127.
81 W. Johnson, ed., Journals of Gilbert White (Henley-on-Thames, 1982), pp. xxxv–xxxvi.
82 R. Blythe, ed., The Diary of Thomas Turner, 1754–1765 (Oxford, 1984), p. 161, entry 19 August 1758.
83 Ibid., pp. 223–4, entry 28 April 1761. As Josiah Wedgwood wrote, ‘Heavens once dreaded bolt is now called down to amuse your wives & daughters, – to decorate their tea boards & baubles!’ K. Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770 (Manchester, 1903), p. 105.
84 D. J. Bryden, ‘Evidence from Advertising for Mathematical Instrument Making in London, 1556–1714’, Annals of Science, XLIX (1992), pp. 301–36: p. 332. See also entry for Sunday, 26 May, in The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. C. Latham and W. Matthews (London, 2000), vol. VIII.
85 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 104.
86 Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History, Series One (Marlborough, 1999), Part 2, Reel 19, MI/2/7, ‘Cash Memorandum’, c. 1769.
87 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 115.
88 Jean Bernoulli, Lettres Astronomiques; ou l’on donne une idée de l’état actuel de l’astronomie pratique dans plusiers villes de l’Europe (Berlin, 1771), p. 74.
89 Ibid., pp. 63–4.
90 Mare and Quarrell, eds, Lichtenberg’s Visits to England, p. 77.
91 Turner, ‘Eighteenth-century Scientific Instruments and their Makers’, p. 527.
92 A. Morton and J. Wess, Public and Private Science (Oxford, 1993), p. 86. Cuff could take two weeks to make a single microscope.
93 Alison Morrison-Low, ‘Feasting my Eyes with the View of Fine Instruments’, in Science and Medicine in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. C. Withers and P. Wood (East Linton, East Lothian, 2002), pp. 17–53: p. 39.
94 Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History, Series Three (Marlborough, 1999), Reel 33, JWP, C1/1, ‘Accounts’.
95 D. J. Bryden, Scottish Scientific Instrument-makers (Edinburgh, 1972), pp. 50, 11.
96 Ibid., p. 19.
97 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 128.
98 JWP 4/11.137, 8 September 1766.
99 Musson and Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, p. 24.
100 R. Law, James Watt and the Separate Condenser (London, 1969), p. 17.
101 Robinson and Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revolution, p. 27.
102 Hills, Power from Steam, p. 59.
103 A. Mills, ‘The Manufacture of Precision Brass Tubing’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, XXVII (1990), pp. 10–15: p. 10.
104 T. Gill, Gill’s Technological and Microscopic Repository; or, Discoveries and Improvements in the Useful Arts (London, 1830), vol. VI, p. 262.
105 D. Howse, ‘Sisson, Jonathan (1690?–1747)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, www.oxforddnb.com, accessed 30 October 2013.
106 Science Museum inv. 1951–691. J. Minns, Model Railway Engines (London, 1973), p. 6.
Chapter Three: Looking for a Living, 1764–74
1 J. Gibson, The History of Glasgow, from the Earliest Accounts to the Present Time (Glasgow, 1777), pp. 232–4.
2 Ibid., pp. 204–5. The records of the trade to and from Glasgow are immensely detailed because of the records kept for excise purposes, down to the export of 46 11/12 gross of ivory combs and 44 13/16 chalders of lime.
3 J. A. Denholm, The History of the City of Glasgow and Suburbs: Compiled from Authentic Records and Other Respectable Authorities (Glasgow, 1798), p. 213.
4 Daniel Defoe, A Tour through the Island of Great Britain (London, 1778), vol. IV, p. 117. Defoe’s account of the city appears to be based on that in John Slezer’s Theatrum Scottiae of 1693.
5 A. E Musson and E. Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969), p. 178.
6 D. Daiches, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, in A Hotbed of Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment, 1730–1790, ed. D. Daiches, P. Jones and J. Jones (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 1–42, p. 2.
7 Joel Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1850 (London, 2009), p. 54; Musson and Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, p. 179.
8 M. Berg, The Age of Manufactures (London, 1994), p. 45.
9 R. L. Emerson and P. Wood, ‘Science and Enlightenment in Glasgow, 1690–1802’, in Science and Medicine in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. C. Withers and P. Wood (East Linton, East Lothian, 2002), pp. 79–142: p. 81.
10 A. L. Donovan, Philosophical Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Doctrines and Discoveries of William Cullen and Joseph Black (Edinburgh, 1975), p. 60. Thanks to William Brock and John Christie for establishing the original source, University of Glasgow Special Collections, ref. Cullen MS1054.
11 M. Bartholomew and P. Morris, ‘Science in the Scottish Enlightenment’, in The Rise of Scientific Europe, 1500–1800, ed. D. Goodman and C. A. Russell (Sevenoaks, 1991), pp. 279–304: p. 298.
12 E. Robinson and D. McKie, Partners in Science: Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black (London, 1970), p. 87; R. Anderson, ‘Joseph Black’, in A Hotbed of Genius, ed. Daiches, Jones and Jones (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 93–115: p. 93.
13 Bartholomew and Morris, ‘Science in the Scottish Enlightenment’, p. 300.
14 Anderson, ‘Joseph Black’, p. 107.
15 S. Smiles, The Life of Thomas Telford (London, 1867), p. 129.
16 I. J. Standing, ‘Mushet, David (1772–1847)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, www.oxforddnb.com, accessed 1 November 2012.
17 Anderson, ‘Joseph Black’, p. 99.
18 Musson and Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, p. 134; Bartholomew and Morris, ‘Science in the Scottish Enlightenment’, p. 290.
19 R. L. Hills, James Watt, vol. III: Triumph Through Adversity, 1785–1819 (Ashbourne, 2006), p. 137.
20 C. A. Whatley, The Industrial Revolution in Scotland (Cambridge, 1997), p. 29.
21 Daiches, ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’, p. 32.
22 L. Gittins, ‘The Alkali Experiments of James Watt and James Keir, 1765–1780’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, LXVIII (1996), pp. 217–31: p. 222.
23 Musson and Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, p. 231.
24 A. Clow and N. Clow, The Chemical Revolution: A Contribution to Social Technology (London, 1952), p. 130.
25 Gibson, The History of Glasgow, p. 114.
26 Ibid., pp. 115, 120.
27 Denholm, The History of the City of Glasgow, p. 224.
28 Clare William, ed., Sophie in London, 1786; being the Diary of Sophie v. La Roche (London, 1933), p. 40.
29 M. L. Mare and W. H. Quarrell, eds, Lichtenberg’s Visits to England, as Described in his Letters and Diaries (Oxford, 1938), pp. 42–3.
30 M. Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth Century Britain (Oxford, 2005), p. 7.
31 J. P. Muirhead, The Life of James Watt, with Selections from his Correspondence (London, 1858), p. 50.
32 R. L. Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, 1736–1774 (Ashbourne, 2002), p. 126.
33 Sotheby’s, The James Watt Sale: Art and Science (London, 2003), lot nos 15–20.
34 Muirhead, The Life of James Watt, p. 50.
35 H. W. Dickinson and R. Jenkins, James Watt and the Steam Engine (Oxford, 1927), pp. 29–33.
36 Muirhead, The Life of James Watt, p. 203.
37 Dickinson and Jenkins, James Watt and the Steam Engine, p. 106.
38 J. Insley, ‘James Watt’s Cookbook Chemistry’, in Notes and Records of the Royal Society, LXV (2011), pp. 301–8: pp. 305–6.
39 Clow and Clow, The Chemical Revolution, p. 59.
40 D. P. Miller, James Watt: Chemist (London, 2009), p. 86.
41 Musson and Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, p. 6.
42 Berg, Luxury and Pleasure, p. 130.
43 D. Friedley, ‘English Eighteenth Century Pottery’, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, VII/6 (1912), pp. 113–16: p. 116.
44 C. Hibbert, ed., An American in Regency England: The Journal of a Tour of 1810–11 (London, 1968), pp. 163–4.
45 J. Aikin, A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles Round Manchester (Newton Abbot, 1968), p. 531.
46 Friedley, ‘English Eighteenth Century Pottery’, p. 115.
47 Berg, Luxury and Pleasure, p. 132; B. Faujas de Saint Fond, A Journey Through England and Scotland to the Hebrides in 1784, ed. A. Geikle (Glasgow, 1907), vol. I, p. 96.
48 K. Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770 (Manchester, 1903), p. 127.
49 William, ed., Sophie in London, 1786, pp. 122–3.
50 P. Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1961), pp. 385–6; Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770, p. 127.
51 W. Mankowitz, Wedgwood (London, 1967), p. 43.
52 R. L. Hills, ‘James Watt and the Delftfield Pottery, Glasgow’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, CXXXI (2001), pp. 375–420: p. 394.
53 Ibid., p. 398.
54 Insley, ‘James Watt’s Cookbook Chemistry’, pp. 301–8: p. 305.
55 G. Quail, ‘James Watt at Delftfield, the Work of James Watt as Potter at Delftfield, Glasgow, and the Development of Cream-coloured Earthenware’, Scottish Pottery Historical Review, VI (1981), pp. 44–54: p. 52.
56 Hills, ‘James Watt and the Delftfield Pottery, Glasgow’, p. 400.
57 R. L. Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 175.
58 Ibid., p. 167.
59 Science Museum inv. 1924–792/1165.
60 Hills, ‘James Watt and the Delftfield Pottery, Glasgow’, p. 385. Science Museum inv. 1924–792/1246 and /1218.
61 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 450.
62 Hills, ‘James Watt and the Delftfield Pottery, Glasgow’, pp. 387–8.
63 Science Museum inv. 1924–792/1045, /1048, /1049, /1051, /1056, for example. Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 170.
64 Hills, ‘James Watt and the Delftfield Pottery, Glasgow’, p. 390.
65 Miller, James Watt: Chemist, chap. 5, particularly pp. 122–3. A. Donovan, ‘James Hutton, Joseph Black and the Chemical Theory of Heat’, Ambix, XXV (1978), pp. 176–90.
66 D. P. Miller, ‘Seeing the Chemical Steam through the Historical Fog: Watt’s Steam Engine as Chemistry’, Annals of Science, LXV (2008), pp. 47–72: p. 50.
67 Miller, James Watt: Chemist, p. 94.
68 Robinson and McKie, Partners in Science, p. 10.
69 Miller, James Watt: Chemist, p. 90.
70 Clow and Clow, The Chemical Revolution, p. 298.
71 S. Shaw, History of the Staffordshire Potteries (Newton Abbot, 1970), pp. 30, 62.
72 J. Black, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry (London, 1803), vol. I, p. 20.
73 Ibid., p. 330.
74 G. Smith, The Laboratory; or, School of Arts (London, 1810), vol. I, p. 71. Author’s italics.
75 E. Meteyard, The Life of Josiah Wedgwood (London, 1865), vol. I, p. 168.
76 J. Wedgwood and J. Banks, ‘An Attempt to Make a Thermometer for Measuring the Higher Degrees of Heat, from a Red Heat up to the Strongest that Vessels of Clay Can Support’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, LXXII (1782), pp. 305–26: p. 306.
77 R. Reilly, Josiah Wedgwood (London, 1992), p. 156; B. Trinder, The Making of the Industrial Landscape (London, 1982), p. 84.
78 Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770, pp. 225–6.
79 Wedgwood and Banks, ‘An Attempt to Make a Thermometer’, p. 306.
80 Robinson and McKie, Partners in Science, pp. 23, 39. Watt’s workshop contains a considerable length of thermometer tube, indicating that Watt, when running his instrument making business in Glasgow, was producing these instruments in some quantity.
81 Wedgwood and Banks, ‘An Attempt to Make a Thermometer’, p. 310.
82 Ibid., p. 309.
83 J. Stock, Development of the Chemical Balance (London, 1969), p. 2.
84 Ibid., p. 11.
85 Aikin, A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles Round Manchester, p. 525.
86 Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770, p. 106.
87 Donovan, Philosophical Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment, p. 107.
88 Clow and Clow, The Chemical Revolution, pp. 544–5. For a recent overview of Combrune’s work, see J. Sumner, ‘Michael Combrune, Peter Shaw and Commercial Chemistry: The Boerhaavian Chemical Origins of Brewing Thermometry’, Ambix, LIV/1 (2007), pp. 5–29.
89 J. Golinsky, ‘“Fit Instruments”: Thermometers in Eighteenth-century Chemistry’, in Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, ed. F. L. Holmes and T. H. Levere (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 185–210, pp. 187–8.
90 Smith, The Laboratory, vol. I, p. 402.
91 Robinson and McKie, Partners in Science, p. 115.
92 W. White, All Round the Wrekin (London, 1860), p. 299.
93 Ibid., p. 304.
94 F. L. Holmes and T. H. Levere, ‘Introduction: A Practical Science’, Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry (Cambridge, 2000), pp. vii–xviii, p. ix; Black, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, vol.
I, p. 288.
95 L. Stewart, ‘Assistants to Enlightenment: William Lewis, Alexander Chisholm and Invisible Technicians in the Industrial Revolution’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, LXII, pp. 17–29: p. 24.
96 Science Museum, Josiah Wedgwood: ‘The Arts and Sciences United’ (Barlaston, 1978), pp. 29, 31–3.
97 Black, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, vol. I, p. 293.
98 Ibid., p. 333.
99 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 331; R. Anderson, ‘Joseph Black’, p. 99.
100 Miller, James Watt: Chemist, p. 85.
101 Donovan, Philosophical Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment, p. 182.
102 Robinson and McKie, Partners in Science, p. 28.
103 Donovan, Philosophical Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment, p. 182.
104 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 366.
105 Black, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, vol. I, pp. 36–7.
106 Robinson and McKie, Partners in Science, p. 418.
107 Ibid., p. 77.
108 Miller, ‘Seeing the Chemical Steam through the Historical Fog’, p. 62.
109 R. L. Hills, Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine (Cambridge, 1989), p. 53. There is some disagreement over when Watt’s walk on Glasgow Green took place; it may have been 1764. Thanks to Jim Andrew for pointing this out.
110 H. Hamilton, ‘The Failure of the Ayr Bank, 1772’, Economic History Review, VIII/3 (1956), pp. 405–17: p. 412.
111 Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, p. 127.
Chapter Four: Gentlemen of Merit and Ingenuity, 1765–81
1 Henry Dickinson and Rhys Jenkins, James Watt and the Steam Engine, 2nd edn (London, 1989), pp. 113–14.
2 R. L. Hills, James Watt, vol. II: The Years of Toil, 1775–1785 (Ashbourne, 2005), p. 59.
3 J. R. Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer: Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century (Aldershot, 1998), p. 174.
4 J. Bisset, A Poetic Survey Round Birmingham; with a Brief Description of the Different Curiosities and Manufactories of the Place. Intended as a Guide for Strangers (Birmingham, 1800), p. 25.
5 S. Timmins, ‘The Industrial History of Birmingham’, in The Resources, Products and Industrial History of Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District, ed. S. Timmins (London, 1866), pp. 207–24: p. 221.