He was a quick learner and mastered his craft in one year. Aged 19 he returned to Glasgow, where he set up his own business. Before long he was recognised as a high-quality engineer, and employed on the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Caledonian Canal. He was also involved in the improvement of harbours and in the deepening of Scottish rivers, including the Forth and the Clyde. The men became friends, and Watt provided model engines for Black to use in his lectures on the properties of heat.
Walking in a park near the Clyde, he suddenly he realised how he could make the standard Newcomen steam engine more efficient. He could use a separate chamber to condense steam without cooling the rest of the engine.
In , Watt started a business in Birmingham with investor Matthew Boulton to manufacture his improved steam engine. Watt and Boulton became leading figures in the Industrial Revolution. Watt continued to make improvements to steam engines, and patented other important inventions, such as the rotary engine and a steam locomotive. His achievements were recognised by fellow scientists.
They were also key members of the Lunar Society, a group that included many prominent British scientists and industrialists, such as Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood. In , Watt and Boulton established a new firm, which their sons would take over by the beginning of the 19th century, when their main patents expired. After , Watt spent much of his time traveling throughout Europe with his second wife, Ann, with whom he had two children. His first wife, with whom Watt had produced several other children, had died in Watt's death came in He is buried next to his longtime partner, Boulton, in Birmingham.
During the course of his work with the steam engine, Watt developed the concept of horsepower as a unit of power output. Since his engines replaced animals as a source of power, to Watt it seemed natural to describe the power of the engines in terms of how many horses would have been required to generate it.
Watt established one unit of horsepower to be equivalent to 33, pounds lifted one foot per minute. In honor of his work related to efficiency and power, a unit of power commonly used for both electricity and mechanics, the watt , was named after him. James Watt. Category: Pioneers. British Broadcasting Corporation Home.
James Watt, c. James Watt was born in Greenock on 18 January His father was a prosperous shipwright. Watt initially worked as a maker of mathematical instruments, but soon became interested in steam engines. The first working steam engine had been patented in and by the time of Watt's birth, Newcomen engines were pumping water from mines all over the country. In around , Watt was given a model Newcomen engine to repair.
He realised that it was hopelessly inefficient and began to work to improve the design. He designed a separate condensing chamber for the steam engine that prevented enormous losses of steam.
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