JAMES WATT, born in Greenock,
January 19, 1736, had the advantage, so highly prized in Scotland, of being
of good kith and kin. He had indeed come from a good nest. His
great-grandfather, a stern Covenanter, was killed at Bridge of Dee,
September 12, 1644, in one of the battles which Graham of Claverhouse fought
against the Scotch. He was a farmer in Aberdeenshire, and upon his death the
family was driven out of its homestead and forced to leave the district.
Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt, was born in 1642, and found his way to
Crawford's Dyke, then adjoining, and now part of, Greenock, where he founded
a school of mathematics, and taught this branch, and also that of
navigation, to the fishermen and seamen of the locality. That he succeeded
in this field in so little and poor a community is no small tribute to his
powers. He was a man of decided ability and great natural shrewdness, and
very soon began to climb, as such men do. The landlord of the district
appointed him his Baron Bailie, an office which then had important judicial
functions. He rose to high position in the town, being Bailie and Elder, and
was highly respected and honored. He subsequently purchased a home in
Greenock and settled there, becoming one of its first citizens. Before his
death he had established a considerable business in odds and ends, such as
repairing and provisioning ships; repairing instruments of navigation,
compasses, quadrants, etc., always receiving special attention at his hands.
The sturdy son of a sturdy Covenanter, he refused to take the test in favor
of prelacy (1683), and was therefore proclaimed to be a disorderly
school-master "officiating contrary to law." He continued to teach, however,
and a few years later the Kirk Session of Greenock, notwithstanding his
contumacy, found him "blameless in life and conversation," and appointed him
an Elder, which required him to overlook not only religious observances, but
the manners and morals of the people. One of the most important of these
duties was to provide for the education of the young, in pursuance of that
invaluable injunction of John Knox, "that no father, of what estate or
condition that ever he may be, use his children at his own "fantasie,
especially in their youthhood, but all must be "compelled to bring up their
children in learning and it Here we have, at its very birth, the doctrine of
compulsory education for all the people, the secret of Scotland's progress.
Great as was the service Knox rendered in the field ecclesiastical, probably
what he did for the cause of public education excels it. The man who
proclaimed that he would never rest until there was a public school in every
parish in Scotland must stand for all time as one of the foremost of her
benefactors; probably, in the extent and quality of the influence he exerted
upon the national character through universal compulsory education, the
foremost of all.
The very year after Parliament passed the Act of 1696, which at last
fulfilled Knox's aspirations, and during the Eldership of Watt's
grandfather, Greenock made prompt provision for her parish school, in which
we may be sure the old "teacher of mathematics" did not fail to take a
prominent part.
Thomas Watt's son, the father of the great inventor, followed in his
father's footsteps, after his father's death, as shipwright, contractor,
provider, etc., becoming famous for his skill in the making of the most
delicate instruments. He built shops at the back of his house, and such were
the demands upon him that he was able to keep a number of men, sometimes as
many as fourteen, constantly at work. Like his father, he became a man of
position and influence in the community, and was universally esteemed.
Prosperity attended him until after the birth of his famous son. The loss of
a valuable ship, succeeded by other misfortunes, swept away most of the
considerable sum which he had made, and it was resolved that James would
have to be taught a trade, instead of succeeding to the business, as had
been the intention.
Fortunate it was for our subject, and especially so for the world, that he
was thus favored by falling heir to the best heritage of all, as Mr. Morley
calls it in his address to the Midland Institute—" the necessity at an
"early age to go forth into the world and work for the means needed for his
own support." President Garfield's verdict was to the same effect, "The best
"heritage to which a man can be born is poverty." The writer's knowledge of
the usual effect of the heritage of milliondom upon the sons of millionaires
leads him fully to concur with these high authorities, and to believe that
it is neither to the rich nor to the noble that human society has to look
for its preservation and improvement, but to those who, like Watt, have to
labor that they may live, and thus make a proper return for what they
receive, as working bees, not drones, in the social hive. Not from palace or
castle, but from the cottage have come, or can come, the needed leaders of
our race, under whose guidance it is to ascend.
We have a fine record in the three generations of the Watts,
great-grandfather, grandfather and father, all able and successful men,
whose careers were marked by steady progress, growing in usefulness to their
fellows; men of unblemished character, kind and considerate, winning the
confidence and affection of their neighbors, and leaving behind them records
unstained.
So much for the male branch of the family tree, but this is only half. What
of that of the grandmothers and mothers of the line—equally important? For
what a Scotch boy born to labor is to become, and how, cannot be forecast
until we know what his mother is, who is to him nurse, servant, governess,
teacher and saint, all in one. We must look to the Watt women as carefully
as to the men; and these fortunately we find all that can be desired. His
mother was Agnes Muirhead, a descendant of the Muirheads of Lachop, who date
away back before the reign of King David, 1122. Scott, in his "Minstrelsy of
the Scottish Border," gives us the old ballad of "The Laird of Muirhead,"
who played a great part in these unsettled days.
The good judgment which characterised the Watts for three generations is
nowhere more clearly shown than in the lady James Watt's father courted and
finally succeeded in securing for his wife. She is described as a
gentlewoman of reserved and quiet deportment, "esteemed by her neighbours
for graces of person as well as of mind and heart, and not less
distinguished "for her sound sense and good manners than for her it temper
and excellent housewifery." Her likeness is thus drawn, and all that we have
read elsewhere concerning her confirms the truth of the portrait. Williamson
says that the lady to whom he (Thomas Watt) was early united in marriage was
Miss Agnes Muirhead, a gentlewoman of good understanding and superior
endowments, whose excellent management in household affairs would seem to
have contributed much to the order of her establishment, as well as to the
every-day happiness of a cheerful home. She is described as having been a
person above common in many respects, of a fine womanly presence, ladylike
in appearance, affecting in domestic arrangements—according to our
traditions—what, it would seem was considered for the time, rather a
superior style of living. What such a style consisted in, the reader shall
have the means of judging for himself. One of the author's informants on
such points more than twenty years ago, a venerable lady, then in her
eighty-fifth year, was wont to speak of the worthy Bailie's wife with much
characteristic interest and animation. As illustrative of what has just been
remarked of the internal economy of the family, the old lady related an
occasion on which she had spent an evening, when a girl, at Mrs. Watt's
house, and remembered expressing with much naïveté to her mother, on
returning home, her childish surprise that "Mrs. Watt had two candles
lighted on the table!" Among these and other reminiscences of her youth, one
venerable informant described James Watt's mother, in her eloquent and
expressive Done, as, "a braw, braw, woman—none now to be seen like her."
There is another account from a neighbor, who also refers to Mrs. Watt as
being somewhat of the grand lady, but always so kind, so sweet, so helpful
to all her neighbors.
The Watt family for generations steadily improved and developed. A great
step upward was made the day Agnes Muirhead was captured. We are liable to
forget how little of the original strain of an old family remains in after
days. We glance over the record of the Cecils, for instance, to find that
the present Marquis has less than one four-thousandth part of the Cecil
blood; a dozen marriages have each reduced it one- half, and the recent
restoration of the family to its pristine greatness in the person of the
late Prime Minister, and in his son, the brilliant young Parliamentarian, of
whom great things are predicted already, is to be credited equally to the
recent infusion into the Cecil family of the entirely new blood of two
successive brides, daughters of commoners who made their own way in the
world. One was the mother of the late statesman, the other his wife and the
mother of his sons. So with the Watt family, of which we have records of
three marriages. Our Watt, therefore, had but one-eighth of the original
Watt strain; seven- eighths being that of the three ladies who married into
the family. Upon the entrance of a gentlewoman of Agnes Muirhead's qualities
hung important results, for she was a remarkable character with the
indefinable air of distinction, was well educated, had a very wise head, a
very kind heart and all the sensibility and enthusiasm of the Celt, easily
touched to fine issues. She was a Scot of the Scots and a storehouse of
border lore, as became a daughter of her house, Muirhead of Lachop.
Here, then, we have existing in the quiet village of Greenock in 1736,
unknown of men, all the favorable conditions, the ideal soil, from which
might be expected to appear such "variation of species" as contained that
rarest of elements, the divine spark we call genius. In due time the
"variation" made its appearance, now known as Watt, the creator of the most
potent instrument of mechanical force known to man.
The fond mother having lost several of her children born previously was
intensely solicitous in her care of James, who was so delicate that regular
attendance at school was impossible. The greater part of his school years he
was confined most of the time to his room. This threw him during most of his
early years into his mother's company and tender care. Happy chance! What
teacher, what companionship, to compare with that of such a mother! She
taught him to read most of what he then knew, and, we may be sure, fed him
on the poetry and romance upon which she herself had fed, and for which he
became noted in after life. He was rated as a backward scholar at school,
and his education was considered very much neglected.
Let it not be thought, however, that the lad was not being educated in some
very important departments. The young mind was absorbing, though its
acquisitions did not count in the school records. Much is revealed of his
musings and inward development in the account of a visit which he paid to
his grandmother Muirhead in Glasgow, when it was thought that a change would
benefit the delicate boy. We read with pleasant surprise that he had to be
sent for, at the request of the family, and taken home. He kept the
household so stirred up with his stories, recitations and continual
ebullitions, which so fairly entranced his Grannie and Grandpa and the
cousins, that the whole household economy was disordered. They lost their
sleep, for "Jamie" held them spellbound night after night with his wonderful
performances. The shy and contemplative youngster who had tramped among the
hills, reciting the stirring ballads of the border, had found an admiring
the astonished audience at last, and had let loose upon them.
To the circle at home he was naturally shy and reserved, but to his Grannie,
Grandpa, and Cousins, free from parental restraint, he could freely deliver
his soul. His mind was stored with the legends of his country, its romance
and poetry, and, strong Covenanters as were the Watts for generations, tales
of the Martyrs were not wanting. The heather was on fire within Jamie's
breast. But where got you all that perferidurn Scotorum, my wee
mannie—that store of precious nutriment that is to become part of yourself
and remain in the core of your being to the end, hallowing and elevating
your life with ever-increasing power? Not at the grammar school we trow. No
school but one can instil that, where rules the one best teacher you will
ever know, genius though you be—the school kept at your mother's knee. Such
mothers as 'Watt had are the appointed trainers of genius, and make men good
and great, if the needed spark be there to enkindle: "Kings they make gods,
and meaner subjects kings."
We have another story of Watt's childhood that proclaims the coming man.
Precocious children are said rarely to develop far in later years, but Watt
was pre-eminently a precocious child, and of this several proofs are
related. A friend looking at the child of six said to his father, "You ought
to "send your boy to a public school, and not allow "him to trifle away his
time at home." "Look how "he is occupied before you condemn him," said the
father. He was trying to solve a problem in geometry. His mother had taught
him drawing, and with this he was captivated. A few toys were given him,
which were constantly in use. Often he took them to pieces, and out of the
parts sometimes constructed new ones, a source of great delight. In this way
he employed and amused himself in the many long days during which he was
confined to the house by ill health.
It is at this stage the steam and kettle story takes its rise. Mrs.
Campbell, Watt's cousin and constant companion, recounts, in her memoranda,
written in 1798:
Sitting one evening with his aunt, Mrs. Muirhead, at the tea-table, she
said: "James Watt, I never saw such an idle boy; take a book or employ
yourself usefully; for the last hour you have not spoken one word, but taken
off the lid of that kettle and put it on again, holding now a cup and now a
silver spoon over the steam, watching how it rises from the spout, and
catching and connecting the drops of hot water it falls into. Are you not
ashamed of spending your time in this way?"
To what extent the precocious boy ruminated upon the phenomenon must be left
to conjecture. Enough that the story has a solid foundation upon which we
can build. This more than justifies us in classing it with "Newton and the
Apple," "Bruce and the Spider," "Tell and the Apple," "Galvani and the
Frog," "Volta and the Damp Cloth," "Washington and His Little Hatchet," a
string of gems, amongst the most precious of our legendary possessions. Let
no rude iconoclast attempt to undermine one of them. Even if they never
occurred, it matters little. They should have occurred, for they are too
good to lose. We could part with many of the actual characters of the flesh
in history without much loss; banish the imaginary host of the spirit and we
were poor indeed. So with these inspiring legends; let us accept them and
add others gladly as they arise, inquiring not too curiously into their
origin.
While Watt was still in boyhood, his wise father not only taught him writing
and arithmetic, but also pro- vided a set of small tools for him in the shop
among the workmen—a wise and epoch-making gift, for young Watt soon revealed
such wonderful manual dexterity, and could do such astonishing things, that
the verdict of one of the workmen, Jamie has a "fortune at his finger-ends,"
became a common saying among them. The most complicated work seemed to come
naturally to him. One model after another was produced to the wonder and
delight of his older fellow workmen. Jamie was the pride of the shop, and no
doubt of his fond father, who saw with pardonable pride that his promising
son inherited his own traits, and gave bright promise of excelling as a
skilled handicraftsman.
The mechanical dexterity of the Watts, grandfather, father and son, is not
to be belittled, for most of the mechanical inventions have come from those
who have been cunning of hand and have worked as manual laborers, generally
in charge of the machinery or devices which they have improved. When new
processes have been invented, these also have usually suggested themselves
to the able workmen as they experienced the crudeness of existing methods.
Indeed, few important inventions have come from those who have not been thus
employed. It is with inventors as with poets; few have been born to the
purple or with silver spoons in their mouths, and we shall plainly see later
on that had it not been for Watt's inherited and acquired manual dexterity,
it is probable that the steam engine could never have been perfected, so
often did failure of experiments arise solely because it was in that day
impossible to find men capable of executing the plans of the inventor. His
problem was to teach them by example how to obtain the exact work required
when the tools of precision of our day were unknown and the men themselves
were only workmen of the crudest kind. Many of the most delicate parts, even
of working engines, passed through Watt's own hands, and for most of his
experimental devices he had himself to make the models. Never was there an
inventor who had such reason to thank fortune that in his youth he had
learned to work with his hands. It proved literally true, as his fellow-
workmen in the shop predicted, that "Jamie's fortune was at his
finger-ends."
As before stated, he proved a backward scholar for a time, at the grammar
school. No one seems to have divined the latent powers smoldering within.
Latin and Greek classics moved him not, for his mind was stored with more
entrancing classics learned at his mother's knee: his heroes were of nobler
mould than the Greek demigods, and the story of his own romantic land more
fruitful than that of any other of the past. Busy working man has not time
to draw his inspiration from more than one national literature. Nor has any
man yet drawn fully from any but that of his native tongue. We can no more
draw our mental sustenance from two languages than we can think in two. Man
can have but one deep source from whence come healing waters, as he can have
but one mother tongue. So it was with Watt. He had Scotland and that
sufficed. When the boy absorbs, or rather is absorbed by, Wallace, The
Bruce, and Sir John Grahame, is fired by the story of the Martyrs, has at
heart page after page of the country's ballads, and also, in more recent
times, is at home with Burns' and Scott's prose and poetry, he has little
room and less desire, and still less need, for inferior heroes. So the dead
languages and their semi-supernatural, quarrelsome, sell-seeking heroes
passed in review without gaining admittance to the soul of Watt. But the
spare that fired him came at last—Mathematics. "Happy is "the man who has
found his work," says Carlyle. Watt found his when yet a boy at school.
Thereafter never a doubt existed as to the field of his labors. The choice
of an occupation is a serious matter with most young men. There was never
room for any question of choice with young Watt. The occupation had chosen
him, as is the case with genius. "Talent does "what it can, genius what it
must." When the goddess lays her hand upon a mortal dedicated to her shrine,
concentration is the inevitable result; there is no room for anything which
does not contribute to her service, or rather all things are made
contributory to it, and nothing that the devotee sees or reads, hears or
feels, but some way or other is made to yield sustenance for the one great,
overmastering task. The gods send "thread for a web begun," because the web
absorbs everything that comes within reach. So it proved with Watt.
At fifteen, he had twice carefully read "The Elements of Philosophy"
(Gravesend), and had made numerous chemical experiments, repeating them
again and again, until satisfied of their accuracy. A small electrical
machine was one of his productions with which he startled his companions.
Visits to his uncle Muirhead at Glasgow were frequent, and here he formed
acquaintance with several educated young men, who appreciated his abilities
and kindly nature; but the visits to the same kind uncle "on the bonnie,
"bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond," where the summer months were spent, gave the
youth his happiest days. Indefatigable in habits of observation and
research, and devoted to the lonely lulls, he extended his knowledge by long
excursions, adding to his botanical and mineral treasures. Freely entering
the cottages of the people, he spent hours learning their traditions,
superstitions, ballads, and all the Celtic lore. He loved nature in her
wildest moods, and was a true child of the mist, brimful of poetry and
romance, which he was ever ready to shower upon his friends. An omniverous
reader, in after life he vindicated his practice of reading every book he
found, alleging that he had it yet read a book or conversed with a companion
it gaining information, instruction or amusement." Scott has left on record
that he never had met and conversed with a man who could not tell him
something he did not know. Watt seems to have resembled Sir Walter, it spoke
to every man he it as if he were a brother "—as indeed he was—one of the
many fine traits of that noble, wholesome character. These two foremost
Scots, each supreme in his sphere, seem to have had many social traits in
common, and both that fine faculty of attracting others.
The only "sport" of the youth was angling, "the most fitting practice for
quiet men and lovers of it the "Brothers of the Angle," according to Izaak
Walton, "being mostly men of mild and gentle "disposition." From the ruder
athletic games of the school he was debarred, not being robust, and this was
a constant source of morbid misery to him, entailing as it did separation
from the other boys. The prosecution of his favorite geometry now occupied
his thoughts and time, and astronomy also became a fascinating study. Long
hours were often spent, lying on his back in a grove near his home, studying
the stars by night and the clouds by day.
Watt met his first irreparable loss in 1753, when his mother suddenly died.
The relations between them had been such as are only possible between mother
and son. Often had the mother said to her intimates that she had been
enabled to bear the loss of her daughter only by the love and care of her
dutiful son. Home was home no longer for Jamie, and we are not surprised to
find him leaving it soon after she who had been to him the light and leading
of his life had passed out of it.
Watt now reached his seventeenth year His father's affairs were greatly
embarrassed. It was clearly seen that the two brothers, John and James, had
to rely for their support upon their own unaided efforts. John, the elder,
some time before this had taken to the sea and been shipwrecked, leaving
only James at home. Of course, there was no question as to the career he
would adopt. His fortune "lay at his fingers' ends," and accordingly lie
resolved at once to qualify himself for the trade of a mathematical
instrument maker, the career which led him directly in the pathway of
mathematics and mechanical science, and enabled him to gratify his
unquenchable thirst for knowledge thereof.
Naturally Glasgow was decided upon as the proper place in which to begin,
and Watt took up his abode there with his maternal relatives, the Muirheads,
carrying his tools with him.
No mathematical instrument maker was to be found in Glasgow, but Watt
entered the service of a kind of jack-of-all-trades, who called himself an
"optician" and sold and mended spectacles, repaired fiddles, tuned spinets,
made fishing-rods and tackle, etc. Watt, as a devoted brother of the angle,
was an adept at dressing trout and salmon flies, and handy at so many things
that he proved most useful to his employer, but there was nothing to be
learned by the ambitious youth.
His most intimate schoolfellow was Andrew Anderson, whose elder brother,
John Anderson, was the well- known Professor of natural philosophy, the
first to open classes for the instruction of working-men in its principles.
He bequeathed his property to found an institution for this purpose, which
is now a college of the university. The Professor came to know young Watt
through his brother, and Watt became a frequent visitor at his house. He was
given unrestricted access to the Professor's valuable library, in which he
spent many of his evenings.
One of the chief advantages of the public school is the enduring friendships
boys form there, first in importance through their beneficial influence upon
character, and, second, as aids to success in after life. The writer has
been impressed by this feature, for great is the number of instances he has
known where the prized working-boy or man in position has been able, as
additional force was required, to say the needed word of recommendation,
which gave a start or a lift upward to a clearly-cherished schoolfellow. It
seems a grave mistake for parents not to educate their sons in the region of
home, or in later years in colleges and universities of their own land, so
that early friendships may not be broken, but grow closer with the years.
Watt at all events was fortunate in this respect. His schoolmate, Andrew
Anderson, brought into his life the noted Professor, with all his knowledge,
kindness and influence, and opened to him the kind of library he most
needed.