James Watt is one of the Scottish engineers and mechanical inventors.
Watt's biography briefly
James's father had the same name and was a versatile man. He was engaged in shipbuilding and had his own warehouse with supplies for ships.
To some extent, he was an inventor and also engaged in maritime trade. The boy's mother was from a wealthy family and had a good education.
James Watt was born on January 19, 1736 in the town of Greenock. Since childhood I had health problems. Initially, he was educated at home, and his parents became his teachers.
Mom taught reading, and dad taught writing and mathematics. Due to constant illnesses, he was removed from playing with his peers, and fishing became his favorite pastime.
As a teenager, James became seriously interested in astronomy, chemical reactions, and he also really loved doing everything with his own hands. After his father gave him a carpentry kit, the boy did not stop making things, he made models of his father’s devices.
When he reached the age of entering high school, he was sent to a gymnasium. Later he goes to London to undergo informal training with Morgan.
He then returned to Scotland and started his own business. But since he has no proof of his skill, he is not allowed to work. But fortunately for him, astronomical equipment that requires cleaning and installation is brought to the city, so he became a master of scientific instruments at the university.
Becoming
Soon he and a friend opened the production of various devices and tools. This business brought good income. James Watt is completely absorbed in improving his latest invention for copying bulk objects. He died on 19 August 1819, his eternal resting place being the parish church of Handsworth.
Scientific inventions
Many scientists believe that thanks to Watt's inventions, the Industrial Revolution occurred. Some of the main inventions were:
- Steam engine and hammer,
- copy press,
- proposed to use “horsepower” as a unit of power measurement.
Steam engine
In fact, James Watt did not invent the steam engine, he only improved it. When he registered a patent for his invention, the document stated that he created a steam engine.
steam engine photo
In 1782, a mechanic created a double-acting machine that increased productivity steam engine up to four times.
Steam hammer
James patented his steam hammer in 1784. This invention consisted of a flywheel and a conventional lever hammer at that time. The first specimen weighed 54.5 kg and hit from a height of 20.3 cm.
steam hammer photo
Then he managed to improve it to a mass of striking parts of 380 kg, and the operating speed of such a hammer was 300 blows per minute.
Copy press
A patent for a copying press was filed in 1780. It was a box with compartments for pens and pencils, as well as a ruler, paper and a special compartment for carbon paper. The supply of material was enough for 24 copies.
copy press photo
In order to operate the device, it was necessary to rotate the handle. She rotated the rollers in such a way that a mirror print of the original appeared on the paper.
The rapid development of the main types of industry in England in the first half of the 18th century. and the mass introduction of working machines into production, which marked the beginning of the industrial revolution, made necessary a revolution in the steam engine. This revolution meant a transition from the private-use engine to the universal engine - the basis of the energy base of large-scale factory industry.
The need for an engine capable of powering any working machine, which was especially acute in 1760-1780, was clearly expressed in the words of the English entrepreneur Matthew Bolton: “In London, Manchester, Birmingham, people are crazy about the steam mill.” What was required was a “mill” that would transmit work not only continuously, but in the form of rotational unidirectional uniform motion and be quite economical.
James Watt (1736-1819)
A universal steam engine suitable for practical use was created by Scottish inventor James Watt. Watt, who made model cars as a child, chose the profession of a mechanic. After completing a course of study in Glasgow and London, in 1757 he began working as a mechanic at the University of Glasgow and at the same time opened a workshop for the manufacture and repair of mathematical and physical instruments. Watt became closely acquainted with many scientists, including the physicist Joseph Vlek, who studied the latent heat of evaporation of water vapor, and John Robison, then a student and later a professor of physics. Robison advised Watt to study the literature available at that time on the mechanics of steam engines: the works of Desagulier, Leupold and Belidor. Watt conducts experiments on the properties of water vapor and determines the dependence of the temperature of saturated steam on pressure. The curves he constructed closely coincide with modern data. Watt began working directly on steam engines in 1763 by repairing a model of Newcomman's operating steam pump installation. However, the model was almost inoperable, since, being geometrically similar to its industrial prototype, it differed from it in the mechanical and thermal processes occurring in it. The installation required greater wasteful consumption of steam, and therefore fuel. After five years of hard work on the model, Watt took a huge step in improving steam engines and increasing their efficiency. Initially, he came to the conclusion that the good operation of a steam-atmospheric engine depends on the fulfillment of two conditions: first, obtaining a strong vacuum under the piston due to more complete condensation of steam (for this it was necessary to cool the cylinder as much as possible); secondly, keeping the cylinder hot in order to avoid unproductive losses of steam when releasing it from the steam boiler. It is technically impossible to fulfill these conditions simultaneously in one cylinder, and Watt gave a new solution: to enclose the cylinder in a steam jacket, maintaining it constantly in a heated state, and to carry out the steam condensation in a separate condenser, equipped with a pump for pumping out condensate and air. In 1765, a model of a new engine was built, but only in 1769 was it possible to achieve its full cycle operation.
D. Watt's steam engine diagram (1775)
During his experimental work on the model, Watt received financial support from the owner of the Carron plant, Rebeck, and together with him filed an application for a patent on “methods for reducing steam consumption and, consequently, fuel in fire engines.” In addition to the indicated fundamental innovations in the engine, Watt also patented the use of excess steam pressure with exhaust into the atmosphere - in cases of insufficient water for steam condensation; the use of "rotary" machines with a unidirectionally rotating piston; and finally, the operation of incomplete condensation, i.e. with deteriorated vacuum.The last paragraph of the patent also provided for a piston seal design.
Watt's improvements contained a real opportunity to reduce steam and fuel consumption by more than half - this was a huge success towards creating an economical heat engine.
However, the first attempt in 1769 to build a pumping steam plant with a separate condenser at the Carron plant was not successful - it was not possible to ensure sufficient processing accuracy and connection density. The production of such large machines cost a lot of money, which Watt did not have at his disposal, and John Rebeck had gone bankrupt by that time.
In search of financial opportunities to build engines, Watt began to think about working outside of England. In the early 70s, the Russian government offered the English engineer “an occupation consistent with his taste and knowledge” with an annual salary of 1000 pounds. Art. However, the trip to Russia did not take place. In 1772, Watt entered into a contract with M. Bolton, the owner of an engineering company in Soho near Birmingham.
The agreement between Watt and Bolton became very effective. Bolton turned out to be an intelligent and far-sighted person and did not skimp on the costs of creating new machines. Watt remained the plant's chief mechanic until the end of his life.
The first machine with a separate condenser was created in 1774. Of interest is the design of 1777, called “Beelzebub”, in which Watt used cut-off and expansion of steam in order to increase efficiency.
By 1780, Watt's type of simple-action machine, used for pumping water, became widespread. The most reliable consumer of the engine was the mines of Cornwall: in 1778, there were over 70 Newcomen installations in this county, and in 1790, all of them, except one, were replaced by Bolton-Watt machines. A large number of them were also produced for the copper mines in Cornwallis
The success of the new engines was explained by the fact that their use significantly reduced the cost of obtaining mechanical energy.
But by the time mass production of steam engines for pumps began, there was a great demand for more advanced engines in textile, metalworking and other industries. But Watt's steam engine was still not suitable for driving working machines with rotary motion.
In 1778, Watt, at the suggestion of his partner Bolton, began improving the steam engine. He studied in detail the process of steam expansion in a cylinder, constructing for this purpose a special indicator - a device that measures the steam pressure during the expansion process. Having determined the practically advantageous degree of expansion of steam for converting heat into work. Watt proposed an expansion steam engine in 1782 and received an English patent for it. Having come up with the idea of using the second half of the cylinder, he created the so-called double-acting engine, in which the specific steam consumption was significantly reduced.
This is how Watt himself described his invention in 1782: “My second improvement in steam or fire engines is to use the elastic force of steam to move the piston up and also press it down alternately, creating a vacuum above or below the piston and at the same time using the action of steam on the piston at that end or part of the cylinder from which steam is not exhausted; a machine so constructed can give twice the amount of work or develop twice the power at the same time (with a cylinder of equal dimensions) as compared with a machine in which the active force of the steam acts on the piston in one direction only, either up or down ".
It was already a continuously operating machine, in which steam served as the source of power.
Watt also had to solve the problem of converting reciprocating motion into rotational motion; he patented five devices with the help of which this problem was solved, including the planetary gear that found application.
At the same time, Watt proposed a series of devices designed to compensate for the uneven output of work caused by the expansion of steam.
Watt's patent of 1782 secured many improvements that, it would seem, finally formed the steam engine as a universal engine. And yet that was not all.
Watt realized later that the new engine was truly universal, as evidenced by his patent of 1784. It was this patent that K. Marx refers to, introducing the definition of “universal engine” into scientific use.
From a technical point of view, this was, first of all, a satisfactory solution to the problem of converting reciprocating motion into rotational motion.
The question of converting the rocking motion of a balancer into a continuous circular motion of a shaft occupied many inventors even before Watt. Papin, for example, proposed transmission through a rack and a gear. D. Gull in 1736 developed a combination of pulleys with rope transmission as applied to ships, but these (as well as many others) attempts were not successful.
Diagram of a double-acting steam engine by J. Watt
Finally, in 1779 M. Vasbrugh and in 1780 J. Picard patented crank mechanisms in England for a steam engine. Many mechanics of the time, including the already mentioned prominent engineer Smeaton, considered this combination unacceptable: the stroke length of the piston in the cylinders of steam engines of that time was variable, and it seemed to the designers that direct transmission of motion from the other end of the balancer directly to the shaft using a connecting rod and crank was impossible . Obviously, Watt was also captive of these misconceptions until a certain time. After the issuance of the patent to Vasbro and Picard, he had to look for other ways to transform the form of movement.
What were the difficulties? When building a steam engine, problems related to kinematics and dynamics arose. The connections between the piston and the balancer, on the one hand, and the second end of the balancer with the shaft, on the other, could only be rigid. Meanwhile, it was impossible to directly connect the end of the balancer with the piston rod, since the end of the balancer described an arc, and the piston rod moved in a straight line. Initially (in a patent of 1782), Watt intended to produce a transmission from the piston to the balancer by equipping the rod with a gear strip, and to place a gear sector on the balancer. But this connection at each end of the piston stroke experienced shocks when changing direction, and the teeth could not withstand dynamic loads. So Watt began to look for another solution and found it. He used a planetary gear to connect to one end of the balancer, and connected the other end of the balancer to the engine rod using a mechanism he invented, called the Watt parallelogram - it was a flat hinge mechanism, part of the links (levers) of which formed a parallelogram. A seemingly simple solution required a lot of work from the inventor. The famous parallelogram became the subject of later research by the French scientist M.R. Prony and the Russian scientist P.L. Chebyshev and served as material for his essay “Theories of Mechanisms Known as Parallelograms” (1854); Watt himself highly valued this invention and later wrote to his son: “... although I do not particularly care about my fame, I am proud of the invention of the parallelogram more than any of the inventions that I have made.” The ingenious invention, as it is rightly called, testifying to Watt’s unusually clear geometric intuition, turned out to be only a temporary, transitory phenomenon. Subsequently, the Watt parallelogram was replaced by a conventional crank mechanism.
When creating a machine with continuous rotational motion, Watt faced, in addition to the kinematic problem, purely dynamic problems: the introduction of steam work on both sides of the piston, the use of a flywheel and a regulator acting on the steam inlet valve.
To supply steam to different cavities of the cylinder, the inventor used an automatically operating device - a spool; to reduce fluctuations in the rotation speed - a flywheel, and to automatically maintain a constant engine speed - a centrifugal regulator.
All the proposed improvements, most of which were secured by a patent in 1784, allowed Watt in the coming years to develop a type of double-action machine with continuous rotary motion, which for a long time remained unchanged and was subject to only partial modifications.
Around the same time, a Scot was working on the creation of a steam engine in England. James Watt.
Beginning in 1763, he worked on improving Newcomen's ineffective steam-atmospheric engine, which, in general, was only suitable for pumping water. It was clear to him that the main drawback of Newcomen's machine was the alternating heating and cooling of the cylinder. How can this be avoided? The answer came to Watt on a spring Sunday in 1765. He realized that the cylinder could remain hot all the time if the steam was diverted into a separate tank through a pipeline with a valve before condensation. Moreover, the cylinder can remain hot and the condenser cold if the outside of them is covered with insulating material.
In addition, Watt made several more improvements that finally turned the steam-atmospheric engine into a steam engine. In 1768, he applied for a patent for his invention. He received a patent, but for a long time he was unable to build a steam engine. It was only in 1776 that Watt's steam engine was finally built and successfully tested. It turned out to be twice as effective as Newcomen's machine.
IN 1782 year, Watt created a wonderful new machine - the first universal double-acting steam engine. He equipped the cylinder cover with a seal invented shortly before, which ensured free movement of the piston rod, but prevented steam leakage from the cylinder. Steam entered the cylinder alternately from one side of the piston, then from the other. Therefore, the piston made both a working and a return stroke with the help of steam, which was not the case in previous machines. Since in a double-acting steam engine the piston rod performed a pulling and pushing action, the previous drive system of chains and rocker arms, which responded only to traction, had to be redone. Watt developed a system of coupled rods and used a planetary mechanism to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston rod into rotational motion, used a heavy flywheel, a centrifugal speed controller, a disc valve and a pressure gauge to measure steam pressure.
The “rotary steam engine” patented by Watt was first widely used to drive machines and looms of spinning and weaving factories, and later of other industrial enterprises. Thus, Watt's steam engine became the invention of the century, marking the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
In 1785, one of Watt's first machines was installed in London at Samuel Whitbread's brewery for grinding malt. The machine did the work instead of 24 horses. Its cylinder diameter was 63 cm, the piston stroke was 1.83 m, and the flywheel diameter reached 4.27 m. The machine has survived to this day, and today it can be seen in action in the Sydney Powerhouse Museum. Watt's engine was suitable for any machine, and the inventors of self-propelled mechanisms were quick to take advantage of this.
Scottish inventor, creator of the first steam engine used in industry.
James Watt became a key figure in the Industrial Revolution.
"Actually James Watt Not was the first person to invent a steam engine. A similar device has been described Hero of Alexandria in the first century. In 1698, Thomas Savery patented a steam engine that was used to pump water, and in 1712, Englishman Thomas Newcomen patented an improved version. However, Newcomen's machine had such low productivity that it was used only for pumping water from coal mines.
Watt became interested in the steam engine in 1764, when he was repairing a model of a machine invented by Newcomen. Although Watt only studied to be a toolmaker for a year, he had great inventive abilities. He made such significant improvements in Newcomen's invention that it would be more correct to consider Watt as the inventor of the first steam engine with practical application.
The first such significant improvement, which Watt patented in 1769, was an insulated condensation chamber. He also insulated the steam cylinder, and in 1782 he invented the double-acting machine. Together with other, smaller improvements, this invention made it possible to increase the productivity of the steam engine in four or more times. In practice, increasing productivity was the difference between a pre-existing smart but not very useful machine and a technical device with enormous industrial potential.
Watt also created in 1781 a number of devices that convert reciprocating motion into rotational motion. This device greatly increased the number of users of the steam engine. In addition to various other improvements, Watt also invented (1788) the centrifugal governor, which automatically controlled the speed of the machine, the pressure gauge (1790), the meter, the level indicator, and the throttle valve.
Watt himself did not have a good business sense. However, in 1775 he entered into a business partnership with Matthew Boulton, an engineer and a very good businessman. For twenty-five years the firm of Watt and Boulton produced a large number of steam engines, and both partners became very wealthy people."
Michael Hart, 100 great people, M., “Veche”, 1998, p. 130-131.
Second wife James Watt“... hated leather aprons and her husband’s dirty hands, so Watt had to move the workshop to the attic, where he could consider himself safe from her broom and bucket of water. Even her dogs suffered from her “mania for cleanliness,” who did not dare cross the threshold without wiping their paws. When she went to bed and her husband did not follow her at the agreed time, she ordered the servant to put out his candles, even when he was receiving guests. The harsh home environment forced Watt to stay in his attic for whole days, where he prepared modest meals for himself. Every cloud has a silver lining. It’s hard to say whether Watt would have made his great discovery if he had a more affectionate and flexible wife, more riveting than the workshop.”
Dubinsky N., A woman in the life of great and famous people, M., “Respublika”, 1994, p. 261.
Max Weber in “Economic History” considered the emergence of a universal source of energy (unlimited power, independence from natural factors) as one of the moments of the beginning of the industrial revolution, along with coal (independence from firewood) and steel (independence from natural materials). The result of entrepreneurial efforts was the emergence of a spinning machine, a steam engine and high-performance weaving machines, which immediately set off the results of industrial production in England.
The “father of the steam engine” actually did not invent it, but the engine
Contrary to popular belief, James Watt, the “father of the steam engine,” did not have any engineering education, did not invent any steam engine, in his youth he only heard about the existence of some “fire engines”, was not seriously interested in steam and was not interested in all this until he was 28 years old had absolutely nothing to do with the matter. And today, in one of the first children's books, English boys find a touchingly pink story about little James, who thoughtfully watched the stream of steam coming out of the spout of the kettle. Such legends are mandatory for great people.
Three-year-old Descartes, who saw the bust of Euclid, said: “Ah!”, and Seryozha Korolev especially loved the fairy tale about the “flying carpet.” Who knows, maybe James really looked at the kettle, but the steam coming out of its spout could not give his young brain the idea of using this steam in a certain machine, if only because it had long been tamed in various such machines.
Back in 120 BC, the Alexandrian scientist Heron described his “ball of Aeolus,” rotating under the influence of two jets of steam emanating from it. In 1663, the Marquess of Worcester made a toy with a "wonderful water engine", allowing the English to argue about priority in this discovery. The dispute is quite comical, since the British themselves issued a patent for the steam engine only 35 years later, and not to the Marquis at all, but to Captain Thomas Severi, who made the machine almost simultaneously with his compatriot and namesake, the blacksmith Newcomen. The blacksmith's machine, no matter how bad it was, was still considered more perfect than the captain's machine and worked in mines and mines.
So, Watt did not invent the steam engine. And it’s not easy to name its inventor. The very idea of this engine was in the air, giving birth in different countries different models. The world was waiting for her appearance from hour to hour. The nascent industry was marking time, deprived of simple, cheap, and most importantly - powerful engine, urgently and urgently needed by her. Watt's invention was not only a great invention, it was perhaps the most desirable invention in the history of mankind. The great genius of Watt is revealed in the fact that the patent he took out in April 1784, giving a description of the steam engine, depicts it not as an invention only for special purposes, but as a universal engine of large-scale industry.
Watt monument in Birmingham
James Watt was born in the tiny Scottish town of Greenock, which became famous for nothing else either before or after this event. His grandfather taught mathematics and navigation and was respected by his fellow countrymen, who constantly elected him either as chief district judge or chairman of the church council. My father inherited some of his parent’s education, but also had the spirit of an entrepreneur. He built ships, and was a shipowner himself, and traded, and kept a warehouse of anchors, ropes and other ship equipment, and crane built, collected nautical instruments, opened a workshop. Little James sat in this workshop for hours. After fishing, which he devoted himself to with passion, working in the workshop was his favorite pastime.
As mentioned above, Watt did not receive an engineering degree. Strictly speaking, he did not receive any education at all. A frail child, constantly suffering from headaches, he studied in primary and secondary school with great interruptions and was known among his classmates as rather dull. Only when he was already 13 years old, his unconditional mathematical abilities brought him among the first students, to the great embarrassment of scoffers.
While visiting his uncle, a professor of ancient languages at the University of Glasgow, he began to conduct various experiments in chemistry and physics himself. In general, he loved to work alone, quietly, slowly, to think about what he had done and again test his thoughts in experience, and even devoted his leisure time to his inquisitive observation, which allowed him, according to the testimony of his friend and biographer Professor Robinson, “to be able to make out of everything an object of new serious study " James avoided noisy games and all sports tournaments. “He rarely got up early,” his aunt recalls in her memoirs, “but in a few hours of study he managed to do more than ordinary people do in a few days.”
Here it is, an invention...
This is how he grew up in a tiny Scottish town and this is how he grew up: a quiet, sickly, well-read, inquisitive, very observant, neat person who loved to think and tinker. He knew how to use many tools, even mastered foundry, read and knew a lot, but could not determine his future.
Origin and education did not allow him to become a simple craftsman, the lack of entrepreneurial skills prevented him from engaging in trade and organizing crafts, very limited income prevented him from entering industry, modesty and sickness prevented him from seeking his fortune in overseas lands. He was a generalist who had difficulty finding work. He was an inventor. An inventor both by character, by type of thinking, and by way of life; Surprisingly, he was an inventor without inventing anything yet.
But such a profession did not exist. And these days, how many copies have been broken in disputes over whether such a profession exists in nature at all, and whether invention should not be considered a certain inclination of nature. (I will note in parentheses that regarding people who compose not machines, but music, for example, such disputes were abandoned even before the birth of Mozart.)
And off we go...
James thought about his future life for a long time and decided to look for himself in the vocation of an optician or tool maker, somewhere near “smart” and delicate technology. There was no one to teach him this craft not only in Greenock, but throughout Scotland, and 19-year-old James went to London. It took him twelve days to reach the capital on horseback and then became an apprentice in a workshop that produced various navigational instruments. He worked very hard and, according to biographers, hardly went for a walk more than twice through the streets of London during the year of his apprenticeship.
A year later he returns to Glasgow, where he hardly establishes a mechanical workshop, and then is appointed master toolmaker at the university. “All the young people at the university,” writes Robinson, “who were at all interested in science, were familiar with Watt; his room soon became a permanent gathering place, where everyone went with all sorts of questions and perplexities, not just of a mechanical nature: linguistics, antiquities, all natural sciences, even poetry, literature and criticism - everything was discussed here with the same interest and fervor.” Watt seemed to be charged in those years with some gigantic mental charge, for which it was necessary to find a goal worthy of him.
And the goal was found. It all started when, in 1764, one of the professors at Glasgow University commissioned Watt to repair Newcomen's model of a steam engine. James got down to business without much inspiration. But, tinkering with the model and encountering a number of difficulties, he, as usual, thought about their nature and soon realized that it was not this particular ill-fated model that was to blame, but the very principles on which it was built. This is already interesting! He started working. And then one day...
Success comes to Watt
“Saturday afternoon (1765) was wonderful, and I went for a walk,” Watt later recalled. “All my thoughts were focused on solving the problem that was occupying me. I approached the shepherd’s house, and at that moment a thought flashed through my head: since steam is an elastic body, it will rush into the vacuum. If there is a connection between the cylinder and the exhaust device, the steam will penetrate there. It is there that it can be condensed without cooling the cylinder... When I reached the Golfhouse, I had a complete picture in my head of what needed to be done.”
Watt built a model that can still be seen today in the London Science Museum. 240 years ago (only 240 years!), on January 9, 1769, he received a patent for “methods for reducing the consumption of steam and, as a result, fuel in fire engines.”
And then his life can be imagined as two unequal halves. Most were periods of searching for means to improve the steam engine. He was looking for companions; and when he didn’t find them, he was forced to harness himself—there’s no way to be more precise—into work that his heart wasn’t in, which was disgusting to him.
This also began and continued according to Watt
“Nothing can be more shameful for a person than to take up his own business,” he writes in despair, working on the construction of the canal he designed. “... I am extremely apathetic, my workers do not fulfill their duties, clerks and clerks cheat me , I have the misfortune to see and understand this... I would rather agree to face a loaded cannon than to conclude trade agreements and settle scores. In short, as soon as I have to do anything with people, I am out of place; for an engineer, nature alone is completely enough to fight with it and see how it overcomes him at every step.”
But he also had happy Days. His companions take on all the documentation he hates, free him from the eternal fear of lack of money, and he works: he sketches a steamship propeller, invents a micrometer, invents a centrifugal regulator and a mechanism called the “Watt parallelogram,” which he was very proud of. But the main thing is that all these years he has been improving his car. In 1782, Watt received a patent for an expansion steam engine, and two years later - for a universal steam engine.
At first, slowly, then more and more quickly, recognition of his brainchild grows. The car is bought by mine owners, mine owners, and plant directors. And again here he is faced with the wrong side of his work - the idea machine now turns into a pure machine: no technical subtleties, no original design solutions are of interest to his customers, only profits. They suspect deception everywhere. One industrialist even thought that the car he bought made less noise than the one his colleague bought, and he got worried. On this occasion, Watt notes: “To the ignorant, noise inspires the idea of strength, and modesty in a car is just as little understood to them as in people...”
Matthew Bolton (left) became Watt's faithful companion
Watt is actively helped by Matthew Bolton, a major industrialist who was the first to understand Watt's genius, a man of great energy and high human qualities. New “fiery machines” are being built at the Bolton factories; the inventor’s new ideas are tested in well-equipped workshops, where first-class craftsmen and workers work with perhaps the highest qualifications in the world. Bolton was one of those to whom England owed the title of “workshop of the world” for many years. The company of Bolton and Watt is then inherited by their sons...
...The long-awaited days are coming when an invention begins to reward its inventor. His merits are recognized, he is a member of the Royal Society and foreign academies, he buys estates and now doesn’t have to think about tomorrow’s piece of bread. He looks in the mirror: gray hair. His youth flew by like a whirlwind. The children have already grown up...
...It is unlikely that he was happy in his family life, although his friends wrote that he was a most tender father. He buried his wife, whom he loved very much, when he was 37 years old. He married a second time and quickly found himself under the thumb of the new mistress of the house. She even taught the dog to wipe its paws on countless rugs and could order the servant to extinguish the candles when his friends were sitting in the living room. Only in his workshop was he the master...
Sadness and success accompanied Watt until his last days
At the end of his life, he travels a lot, often visits his native places, Scotland, conducts extensive correspondence, helps with advice to young inventors...
...His old age was lonely. Of the six children, only one survived his father - the eldest son; friends died, as if leaves were falling from the previously green and noisy tree of his life. Surprisingly, in his old age his health improved sharply, he forgot about headaches, his head was always fresh and clear, and his body was vigorous. Therefore, when one day he felt slightly unwell, he realized that his time had come. He met death calmly, because he knew that his duty to his descendants had been fulfilled...
Based on materials from the Akhmad Ti website, prepared by Konstantin Khitsenko