The Newcomen family have long since become extinct in Dartmouth. They are said to have left the place long ago, and gone northward; but we have been unable to trace them. The Newcomens appear to have occupied a respectable position in Dartmouth down to about the middle of the last century. Their burying-place was in the north-side chapel of the fine old parish church of the town, where several tablets are erected to their memory. Amongst others, there is one to William Newcomin, Attorney-at-Law, who died the 24th of August, 1745, aged 57, supposed to have been a brother, and another of the same name, who died in 1787, aged 65, supposed to have been a son of the ironmonger.

Thomas Newcomen was a man of strong religious feelings, and from an early period of his life occupied his leisure in voluntary religious teaching. He belonged to the sect of Baptists; and the place was standing until recently in which he regularly preached. When he afterwards went into distant parts of the country on engine business, he continued to devote his Sundays to the same work. How he first came to study the subject of steam is not known. Mr. Holdsworth says a story was current in Dartmouth in his younger days, and generally believed, that Newcomen conceived the idea of the motive power to be obtained from steam by watching the tea-kettle, the lid of which would frequently rise and fall when boiling; and, reasoning upon this fact, he contrived, by filling a cylinder with steam, to raise the piston, and by immediately injecting some cold water, to create a vacuum, which allowed the weight of the atmosphere to press the piston down, and so give motion to a pump by means of a beam and rods.[39]

It is probable that Newcomen was well aware of the experiments of Savery on steam while the latter was living at Modbury, about fifteen miles distant. It will be remembered that Savery was greatly hampered in his earlier contrivances by the want of skilled workmen; and as Newcomen had the reputation of being one of the cleverest blacksmiths in the county, it is supposed that he was employed to make some of the more intricate parts of Savery’s engine. At all events, he could scarcely fail to hear from the men of his trade in the neighbourhood, what his speculative neighbour at Modbury was trying to compass in the invention of an engine for the purpose of raising water by fire. He was certainly occupied in studying the subject about the same time as Savery; and Switzer says he was well informed that “Mr. Newcomen was as early in his invention as Mr. Savery was in his, only the latter being nearer the Court, had obtained the patent before the other knew it; on which account Mr. Newcomen was glad to come in as a partner to it.”[40]

Another account[41] states that a draft of Savery’s engine having come under Newcomen’s notice, he proceeded to make a model of it, which he fixed in his garden, and soon found out its imperfections. He entered into a correspondence on the subject with the learned and ingenious Dr. Hooke, then Secretary to the Royal Society, a man of remarkable ingenuity, and of great mechanical sagacity and insight. Newcomen had heard or read of Papin’s proposed method of transmitting motive power to a distance by creating a vacuum under a piston in a cylinder, and transmitting the power through pipes to a second cylinder near the mine. Dr. Hooke dissuaded Newcomen from erecting a machine on this principle, as a waste of time and labour; but he added the pregnant suggestion, “could he (meaning Papin) make a speedy vacuum under your piston, your work were done.”

The capital idea thus cursorily thrown out—of introducing a moveable diaphragm between the active power and the vacuum—set Newcomen at once upon the right track. Though the suggestion was merely that of a thoughtful bystander, it was a most important step in the history of the invention, for it contained the very principle of the atmospheric engine. Savery created his vacuum by the condensation of steam in a closed vessel, and Papin created his by exhausting the air in a cylinder fitted with a piston, by means of an air-pump. It remained for Newcomen to combine the two expedients—to secure a sudden vacuum by the condensation of steam; but, instead of employing Savery’s closed vessel, he made use of Papin’s cylinder fitted with a piston. After long scheming and many failures, he at length succeeded, in the year 1705,[42] in contriving a model that worked with tolerable precision; after which he sought for an opportunity of exhibiting its powers in a full-sized working engine. It ought to be mentioned, that in the long course of experiments conducted by Newcomen with the object of finding out the new motive power, he was zealously assisted throughout by one John Calley, a glazier of Dartmouth, of whom nothing further is known than that he was Newcomen’s intimate friend, of the same religious persuasion, and afterwards his partner in the steam-engine enterprise.

Newcomen’s engine may be thus briefly described:—The steam was generated in a separate boiler, as in Savery’s engine, from which it was conveyed into a vertical cylinder underneath a piston fitting it closely, but moveable upwards and downwards through its whole length. The piston was fixed to a rod, which was attached by a joint or a chain to the end of a lever vibrating upon an axis, the other end being attached to a rod working a pump. When the piston in the cylinder was raised, steam was let into the vacated space through a tube fitted into the top of the boiler, and mounted with a stopcock. The pump-rod at the further end of the lever being thus depressed, cold water was applied to the sides of the cylinder, on which the steam within it was condensed, a vacuum was produced, and the external air, pressing upon the top of the piston, forced it down into the empty cylinder. The pump-rod was thereby raised; and the operation of depressing and raising it being repeated, a power was thus produced which kept the pump continuously at work. Such, in a few words, was the construction and action of Newcomen’s first engine.

It will thus be observed that this engine was essentially different in principle from that of Savery. While the latter raised water partly by the force of steam and partly by the pressure of the atmosphere, that of Newcomen worked entirely by the pressure of the atmosphere, steam being only used as the most expeditious method of producing a vacuum. The engine was, however, found to be very imperfect. It was exceedingly slow in its motions; much time was occupied in condensing the contained steam by throwing cold water on the outside of the cylinder; and as the boiler was placed immediately under the cylinder, it was not easy to prevent the cold water from splashing it, and thus leading to a further loss of heat. To remedy these imperfections, Newcomen and Calley altered the arrangement; and, instead of throwing cold water on the outside of the cylinder, they surrounded it with cold water. But this expedient was also found inconvenient, as the surrounding water shortly became warm, and ceased to condense until replaced by colder water; but the colder it was the greater was the loss of heat by condensation, before the steam was enabled to fill the cylinder again on each ascent of the piston.

Clumsy and comparatively ineffective though the engine was in this form, it was, nevertheless, found of some use in pumping water from mines. In 1711 Newcomen and Calley made proposals to the owners of a colliery at Griff, in Warwickshire, to drain the water from their pits, which until then had been drained by the labour of horses; but, the owners not believing in the practicability of the scheme, their offer was declined. In the following year, however, they succeeded in obtaining a contract with Mr. Back, for drawing the water from a mine belonging to him near Wolverhampton. The place where the engine was to be erected being near to Birmingham, the ironwork, the pump-valves, clacks, and buckets, were for the most part made there, and removed to the mine, where they were fitted together. Newcomen had great difficulty at first in making the engine go; but after many laborious attempts he at last partially succeeded. It was found, however, that the new method of cooling the cylinder by surrounding it with cold water did not work so well in practice as had been expected. The vacuum produced was very imperfect, and the action of the engine was both very slow and very irregular.

While the engine was still in its trial state, a curious accident occurred which led to another change in the mode of condensation, and proved of essential importance in establishing Newcomen’s engine as a practicable working power. The accident was this: in order to keep the cylinder as free from air as possible, great pains were taken to prevent it passing down by the side of the piston, which was carefully wrapped with cloth or leather; and, still further to keep the cylinder air-tight, a quantity of water was kept constantly laying on the upper side of the piston. At one of the early trials the inventors were surprised to see the engine make several strokes in unusually quick succession; and on searching for the cause, they found it to consist in a hole in the piston, which had let the cold water in a jet into the inside of the cylinder, and thereby produced a rapid vacuum by the condensation of the contained steam. A new light suddenly broke upon Newcomen. The idea of condensing by injection of cold water directly into the cylinder, instead of applying it on the outside, at once occurred to him; and he proceeded to embody the expedient which had thus been accidentally suggested, as part of his machine. The result was the addition of the injection-pipe, through which, when the piston was raised and the cylinder was full of steam, a jet of cold water was thrown in, and the steam being suddenly condensed, the piston was at once driven down by the pressure of the atmosphere.

An accident of a different kind shortly after led to the improvement of Newcomen’s engine in another respect. To keep it at work, one man was required to attend the fire, and another to turn alternately the two cocks, one admitting the steam into the cylinder, the other admitting the jet of cold water to condense it. The turning of these cocks was easy work, usually performed by a boy. It was, however, a very monotonous duty, though requiring constant attention. To escape the drudgery and obtain an interval for rest, or perhaps for play, a boy named Humphrey Potter, who turned the cocks, set himself to discover some method of evading his task. He must have been an ingenious boy, as is clear from the arrangement he contrived with this object. Observing the alternate ascent and descent of the beam above his head, he bethought him of applying the movement to the alternate raising and lowering of the levers which governed the cocks. The result was the contrivance of what he called the scoggan,[43] consisting of a catch worked by strings from the beam of the engine. This arrangement, when tried, was found to answer the purpose intended. The action of the engine was thus made automatic; and the arrangement, though rude, not only enabled Potter to enjoy his play, but it had the effect of improving the working power of the engine itself; the number of strokes which it made being increased from six or eight to fifteen or sixteen in the minute. This invention was afterwards greatly improved by Mr. Henry Beighton, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, who added the plug-rod and hand-gear. He did away with the catches and strings of the boy Potter’s rude apparatus, and substituted a rod suspended from the beam, which alternately opened and shut the tappets attached to the steam and injection cocks.

Thus, step by step, Newcomen’s engine grew in power and efficiency, and became more and more complete as a self-acting machine. It will be observed that, like all other inventions, it was not the product of any one man’s ingenuity, but of many. One contributed one improvement, and another another. The essential features of the atmospheric engine were not new. The piston and cylinder had been known as long ago as the time of Hero. The expansive force of steam and the creation of a vacuum by its condensation had been known to the Marquis of Worcester, Savery, Papin, and many more. Newcomen merely combined in his machine the result of their varied experience, and, assisted by the persons who worked with him, down to the engine-boy Potter, he advanced the invention several important stages; so that the steam-engine was no longer a toy or a scientific curiosity, but had become a powerful machine capable of doing useful work.

The comparative success which attended the working of Newcomen’s first engine at the colliery near Wolverhampton, shortly induced other owners of coal-mines to adopt it. There were great complaints in the north, of the deeper mines having become unworkable. All the ordinary means of pumping them clear of water had failed. In their emergency, the colliery-owners called Newcomen and Calley to their aid. They were invited down to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the neighbourhood of which town they erected their second and third engines. They were next summoned to Leeds, and erected their fourth engine at Austhorpe, in 1714. It was the sight of this engine at work which first induced Smeaton, when a boy, to turn his attention to mechanics, and eventually led him to study the atmospheric-engine, with a view to its improvement. The cylinder of the engine erected at Austhorpe, like those which had preceded it, was about 23 inches in diameter, and made about fifteen strokes a minute. The pumps, which were in two lifts, and of 9 inches bore, drew the water from a depth of 37 yards. The patentees had 250l. a year for working and keeping the engine in order. Calley superintended its erection, and afterwards its working; but he did not long survive its completion, as he died at Austhorpe in 1717.

The next engines were erected by Newcomen in Cornwall, where there was as great a demand for increased pumping-power as in any of the collieries of the north. The first of Newcomen’s construction in Cornwall was erected in 1720, at the Wheal Fortune tin mine, in the parish of Ludgvan, a few miles north-east of Penzance. The mine was conducted by Mr. William Lemon, the founder of the fortunes of the well-known Cornish family. He was born in a humble station in life, from which he honourably raised himself by his great industry, ability, and energy. He began his career as a mining-boy; was at an early age appointed one of the managers of a tin-smelting house at Chiandower, near Penzance; and after the experience gained by him in that capacity he engaged in the working of the Wheal Fortune mine. With the help of Newcomen’s engine, the enterprise proved completely successful; and after realising a considerable sum he removed to Truro, and began working the great Gwennap mines on such a scale as had never before been known in Cornwall.[45]

The Wheal Fortune engine was on a larger scale than any that had yet been erected, the cylinder being 47 inches in diameter, making about fifteen strokes a minute. It drew about a hogshead of water at each stroke, from a pump 30 fathoms deep, through pit-barrels 15 inches in diameter, and its performances were on the whole regarded as very extraordinary. The principal objection to its use consisted in the very large quantity of coal that it consumed and the heavy cost of maintaining it in working order. There was a great waste, especially in boilers, the making of which was then ill understood. Smeaton relates that in the course of four years’ working of the first Austhorpe engine, not fewer than four boilers were burnt out. The Wheal Fortune engine, however, answered its purpose. It kept down the water sufficiently to enable Mr. Lemon to draw up his tin, and on leaving the mine, he took with him to Truro a clear sum of ten thousand pounds. The engine-house is now in ruins, and presents a highly picturesque appearance, as seen from the heights of Trewal, reminding one of a Border Peel rather than of a mining engine-house.

Another of Newcomen’s engines was erected about the same time at the Wheal Rose mine, a few miles north of Redruth. The engineer appointed to superintend its erection was Joseph Hornblower, who came from Staffordshire for the purpose about the year 1725. Mr. Cyrus Redding, one of Hornblower’s descendants, says, “how he became in any way connected with Newcomen must have arisen from the latter being at Bromsgrove, when he visited Mr. Potter, who got him to build one of his newly-invented engines at Wolverhampton in 1712.”[46] Another engine was afterwards erected by Hornblower at Wheal Busy, or Chacewater, and a third at Polgooth—all rich and well-known mines in Cornwall.

Though the use of Newcomen’s engine rapidly extended, nothing is known of the man himself during this time. All over the mining districts his name was identified with the means employed for pumping the mines clear of water, and thereby enabling an important branch of the national industry to be carried on; but of Newcomen’s personal history, beyond what has been stated above, we can gather nothing. It is not known when or where he died, whether rich or poor. The probability is that, being a person of a modest and retiring disposition, without business energy, and having secured no protection for his invention, it was appropriated and made use of by others, without any profit to him, whilst he quietly subsided into private life. It is supposed that he died at Dartmouth about the middle of last century; but no stone marks the place where he was laid. The only memorial of Newcomen to be found at his native place is the little steam-boat called by his name, which plies between Totness and Dartmouth.

During Newcomen’s lifetime the proposal was revived of applying the steam-engine to the propelling of ships. Since Papin’s time nothing had been accomplished in this direction. Now that the steam-engine was actively employed in pumping mines, it was natural enough that the idea should be revived of applying it to navigation. The most enthusiastic advocate of the new power was Jonathan Hulls, a native of Campden, in Gloucestershire, where he was born in 1699. He married a wife in 1719, before he was out of his teens; an act of indiscretion in which, however, he had the example of one no less distinguished than Shakspeare. Living as he did in an inland country place, it seems remarkable that he should have directed his attention to the subject of steam-navigation. We find him making experiments with models of boats on the river Avon, at Evesham, and in course of time he duly matured his ideas and embodied them in his patent of 1736.[47] He proposed to place a Newcomen engine on board a tow-boat, and by its means to work a paddle-wheel placed at the stern. His method of converting the rectilinear motion of his piston into a rotary one was ingenious, but, like Savery, he missed the crank on the paddle-shaft, and many years passed before this simple expedient was adopted.[48] “The work to be done by this machine,” said he, “will be upon particular occasions, when all other means yet found out are wholly insufficient. How often does a merchant wish that his ship were on the ocean, when, if she were there, the wind would serve tolerably well to carry him on his intended voyage, but does not serve at the same time to carry him out of the river he happens to be in, which a few hours’ work of the machine would do. Besides, I know engines that are driven by the same power as this is, where materials for the purpose are dearer than in any navigable river in England; therefore experience demonstrates that the expense will be but a trifle to the value of the work performed by those sort of machines, which any person that knows the nature of those things may easily calculate.” His treatise was illustrated by a drawing, of which the following is a copy on a reduced scale.

The inventor, aware of the novelty of his proposal and of the readiness of the public to ridicule novelties, deprecated rash censure of his project, and only claimed for it a fair and unprejudiced trial. In order to exhibit the powers of his steam-boat, he constructed an engine in 1737, and had it fixed on board a little vessel for trial in the river Avon at Evesham. The trial was not satisfactory, and the engine was taken on shore again. “A failure! A failure!” cried the spectators, who stigmatised the projector as an ass. The prophet had, indeed, no honour whatever in his own country. Long after his steam-boat experiment had been forgotten, these lines about him were remembered:—

Not much more is known of Jonathan Hulls’s history. In 1754 he published, in conjunction with two others, a treatise on ‘The Art of Measuring made Easy, by the help of a new Sliding-rule;’ and shortly after ‘The Malt-maker’s Instructor;’ but nothing more was heard of Jonathan Hulls’s steam-boat.

We return to the Newcomen engine, which became increasingly employed as a pumping power in all the mining districts. Borlase, writing in 1758, says that “fire-engines” were then in regular use at North Downs near Redruth, Pitt-louarn, Polgooth, Wheal-rith, Pool, Dolcoath, Herland, and many other places.[50] Indeed there was scarcely a tin or copper mine of any importance in Cornwall that had not one or more of Newcomen’s engines at work. They were also in general use in Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Northumberland. In the latter counties, where they were principally used for pumping water out of the coal mines, fuel was ready at hand, cheap and abundant. But in Cornwall it was otherwise. The coal had to be brought thither from a great distance, partly by sea and partly by land, and the cost of carriage was very heavy. It, therefore, became an object of much importance to reduce the consumption of fuel, to prevent the profits of the mines being absorbed by the heavy cost of working the pumps. This, indeed, was the great objection to Newcomen’s engine, especially in Cornwall. The consumption of fuel at some mines was so enormous, that it was doubtful whether the cost of steam did not exceed that of an equal amount of horse power, and it became more and more difficult to realise even a bare margin of profit. The two engines at Wheal Rose and Wheal Busy, near Chacewater, of 66 and 72 inches diameter, consumed each about thirteen tons of coal daily. To relieve the mining interest, in some measure, from this charge, government allowed a drawback of five shillings a chaldron on coal; but in some cases this was found insufficient, and it began to be complained that the consumption of coal was so great, that the mines were barely paying.

Invention, however, was constantly at work, and new improvements were from time to time introduced, with the object of economising fuel and increasing the efficiency of the engine. Among the ingenious men who devoted themselves to this work, were Payne, Brindley, and Smeaton. Of these, the last especially distinguished himself by his improvements of the Newcomen engine, which he may be said to have carried to the highest perfection of which it was capable. His famous Chacewater engine was the finest and most powerful work of the kind which had until then been constructed, and it remained unrivalled until superseded by the invention of Watt, to whose life and labours we now proceed to direct the attention of the reader.

JAMES WATT:
HIS BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE: MECHANICAL INSTRUMENT MAKER, SURVEYOR, AND INVENTOR.

CHAPTER V.
James Watt—Lineage and Birthplace—Boyhood and Apprenticeship.

James Watt was born at Greenock, on the Clyde, on the 19th of January, 1736. His parents were of the middle class, industrious, intelligent, and religious people, with a character for probity which had descended to them from their “forbears,” and was cherished as their proudest inheritance. James Watt was thus emphatically well-born. His father and grandfather both held local offices of trust, and honourable mention is made of them in the records of Greenock. His grandfather, Thomas Watt, was the first of the family who lived in that neighbourhood. He had migrated thither from the county of Aberdeen, where his father was a small farmer in the time of Charles I. It is supposed that he took part with the Covenanters in resisting the Marquis of Montrose in his sudden descent upon Aberdeen at the head of his wild Highlanders in the autumn of 1644; and that the Covenanting farmer was killed in one of the battles that ensued. The district was ravaged by the victorious Royalists; the crops were destroyed, cattle lifted, dwellings burnt; and many of the inhabitants fled southwards for refuge in more peaceful districts. Hence Thomas Watt’s migration to Cartsdyke, where we find him settled as a teacher of navigation and mathematics, about the middle of the seventeenth century.

Cartsdyke, or Crawfordsdyke, was then a village situated a little to the east of Greenock, though now forming part of it. Crawfordsburn House, still standing, was the residence of the lord of the manor, and is a good specimen of the old-fashioned country mansion. It is beautifully situated on the high ground overlooking the Clyde. In former times a green slope stretched down from it towards the beach, along which lay the village, consisting of about a hundred cottages, mostly thatched. Cartsdyke was, however, in early times, a place of greater importance than Greenock. It had a pier, which Greenock as yet had not; and from this pier the first Clyde ship which crossed the Atlantic sailed for Darien in 1697. What little enterprise existed in the neighbourhood was identified with Cartsdyke rather than with Greenock; and hence Thomas Watt’s preference for it, in setting up there as a teacher. He, too, like his sire, seems to have been a sturdy Covenanter; for we find him, in 1683, refusing to take the test in favour of prelacy, and he was consequently proclaimed to be a “disorderly schoolmaster officiating contrary to law.” He nevertheless continued the teaching of the mathematics, in which he seems to have prospered, as, besides marrying a wife, he shortly after bought the house and garden which he occupied, and subsequently added to his possessions a tenement in the neighbouring village of Greenock.

From the nature of his calling, it is obvious that he must have been a thoughtful and intelligent person;[51] and that he was a man of excellent character is clear from the confidence he inspired in those who had the best opportunities of knowing him. When William and Mary were confirmed in their occupancy of the British throne, shortly after the Revolution of 1688, one of the first acts of Mr. Crawford, of Crawfordsburn, the feudal superior, was to appoint Thomas Watt baillie of the barony—a position of local importance, involving the direction of public affairs within the limits of his jurisdiction.

A few years later, the Kirk Session of Greenock, having found him “blameless in life and conversation,” appointed him an Elder of the parish, when it became part of his duty to overlook not only the religious observances, but the manners and morals, of the little community. Kirk Sessions did not then confine themselves to ecclesiastical affairs, but assumed the function of magistrates, and almost exercised the powers of an inquisition. One of their most important duties was to provide for the education of the rising generation, in pursuance of the 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 youthhead; but all must be compelled to bring up their children in learning and virtue,”—words which lie at the root of much of Scotland’s mental culture, as well as, probably, of its material prosperity. In 1696 the Act was passed by the Scotch Parliament which is usually regarded as the charter of the Scotch parish-school system; and in the following year the Kirk Session of Greenock proceeded to make provision for the establishment of their parish school, which continued until the Town Council superseded it by the Grammar School, at which James Watt, the future engineer, received the best part of his school education.

After holding the offices of Presbytery Elder and Kirk Treasurer for some time, Thomas Watt craved leave to retire into private life. He was seventy years old, and felt infirmities growing upon him. The plea was acknowledged, and the request granted; and on his retirement from office the Kirk Session recorded on their minutes that Thomas Watt had been found “diligent and faithful in the management of his trust.” He died at the age of 92, and was buried in the old kirkyard of Greenock, where his tombstone is still to be seen. He is there described as “Professor of Mathematics in Crawfordsdyk.” Not far from his grave lie, “mouldering in silent dust,” the remains of Burns’s Highland Mary, who died while on a visit to a relative at Greenock.

Two sons survived the “Professor,” John and James, who were well settled in life when the old man died. John, the elder, was trained by his father in mathematics and surveying; for some time officiating under him as clerk to the barony of Cartsdyke, and afterwards removing to Glasgow, where he began business on his own account. In the year that his father died (1734) he made the first survey of the river Clyde; but he died shortly after, and the map was published by his nephew. James, the engineer’s father, was bound apprentice to a carpenter and shipwright at Cartsdyke, and on the expiry of his term he set up business for himself in the same line at Greenock.

About the beginning of the last century, Greenock, now one of the busiest ports in the kingdom, was but a little fishing-village, consisting of a single row of thatched cottages lying parallel with the sandy beach of the Frith of Clyde, in what was then known as “Sir John’s little bay.” Sir John Shaw was the superior, or lord of the manor, his mansion standing on a height overlooking the town,[52] and commanding an extensive view of the Clyde, from Roseneath to Dumbarton. Across the water lay the beautiful north shore, broken by the long narrow sea-lochs running far away among the Argyleshire hills. Their waters, now plashed by the paddles of innumerable Clyde steamers, were then only disturbed by the passing of an occasional Highland coble; whilst their shores, now fringed with villages, villas, and mansions, were as lonely as Glencoe.

Greenock was in a great measure isolated from other towns by impassable roads. The only route to Greenock, on the west, lay along the beach, and when strong winds raised a high tide the communication was entirely cut off. Greenock was separated from Cartsdyke, on the east, by the Ling Burn, which was crossed by a plank, afterwards supplanted by an old ship’s rudder; and it was about the middle of the century before a bridge was built across the stream. The other provisions of the place for public service and convenience were of a like rude and primitive character: thus, Greenock could not boast of a public clock until about the middle of the last century, when a town clock was mounted in a wooden steeple. Till then, a dial, still standing, marked the hours when the sun shone, and a bell hung upon a triangle summoned the people to kirk and market. Besides the kirk, however, there was another public building—the Black Hole, or prison, which, like the other houses in the place, was covered with thatch. Before the prison were placed the “jougs,” as a terror to evil-doers, as well as a few old pieces of cannon, taken from one of the ships of the Spanish Armada wrecked near Pencores Castle. The Black Hole, the jougs, and the cannon were thought necessary precautions against the occasional visits to which the place was subject from the hungry Highlandmen on the opposite shores of the firth.[53]

The prosperity of Greenock dates from the year 1707, shortly after the Union with England. The British Parliament then granted what the Scottish Parliament had refused—the privilege of constructing a harbour. Before that time there was no pier,—only a rude landing-stage which Sir John Shaw had provided for his barge in the “Little Bay;” but the fishermen’s boats and other small craft frequenting the place were beached in the usual primitive way. Vessels of burden requiring to load or unload their cargoes did so at the pier at Cartsdyke above referred to. When the necessary powers were granted to make a harbour at Greenock, the inhabitants proceeded to tax themselves to provide the necessary means, paying a shilling and fourpence for every sack of malt brewed into ale within the barony; ale, not whisky, being then the popular drink of Scotland. The devotion of the townspeople to their “yill caups” must have been considerable, as the harbour was finished and opened in 1710, and in thirty years the principal debt was paid off.

In course of time Greenock was made a custom-house port, and its trade rapidly increased. The first solitary vessel, freighted with Glasgow merchandise for the American colonies, sailed from the new harbour in 1719; and now the custom-house dues collected there amount to more than six times the whole revenue of Scotland in the time of the Stuarts.

Here James Watt, son of the Cartsdyke teacher of mathematics, and father of the engineer, began business about the year 1730. His occupation was of a very miscellaneous character, and embraced most branches of carpentry. He was a housewright, shipwright, carpenter, and undertaker, as well as a builder and contractor, having in the course of his life enlarged the western front of Sir John Shaw’s mansion-house, and designed and built the Town-hall and Council-chambers. To these various occupations Mr. Watt added that of a general merchant. He supplied the ships frequenting the port with articles of merchandise as well as with ships’ stores. He also engaged in foreign mercantile ventures, and held shares in several ships.

Three months after the death of his father, to a share of whose property he succeeded, Mr. Watt purchased a house on the Mid-Quay Head, at the lower end of William-street, with a piece of ground belonging to it, which extended to the beach. On this piece of ground stood Watt’s carpenter’s shop, in which a great deal of miscellaneous work was executed—household furniture and ships’ fittings, chairs, tables, coffins, and capstans, as well as the ordinary sorts of joinery; while from his stores he was ready to supply blocks, pumps, gun-carriages, dead-eyes, and other articles used on board ship. He was ready to “touch” ships’ compasses, and to adjust and repair nautical instruments generally; while on an emergency he could make a crane for harbour uses—the first in Greenock having been executed in his shops, and erected on the pier for the convenience of the Virginia tobacco-ships beginning to frequent the harbour. These multifarious occupations were necessitated by the smallness of the place, the business of a single calling being as yet too limited to yield a competency to an enterprising man, or sufficient scope for his powers.

Being a person of substance and respectability, Mr. Watt was elected by his fellow townsmen to fill various public offices, such as trustee for the burgh fund, town councillor, treasurer, and afterwards baillie or chief magistrate. He also added to his comfort as well as to his dignity by marrying a wife of character, Agnes Muirhead, a woman esteemed by her neighbours for her graces of person, as well as of mind and heart. She is said to have been not less distinguished for her sound sense and good manners than for her cheerful temper and excellent housewifery.[54] Such was the mother of James Watt. Three of her five children died in childhood; John, her fifth son, perished at sea when on a voyage to America in one of his father’s ships; and James, the fourth of the family, remained her only surviving child. He was born in the house which stood at the corner between the present Dalrymple-street and William-street, since taken down and replaced by the building now known as the “James Watt Tavern.”

From his earliest years James Watt was of an extremely fragile constitution, requiring the tenderest nurture. Struggling as it were for life all through his childhood, he acquired an almost feminine delicacy and sensitiveness, which made him shrink from the rough play of robust children; and hence, during his early years, his education was entirely conducted at home. His mother taught him reading, and his father a little writing and arithmetic. His mother, to amuse him, encouraged him to draw with a pencil on paper, or with chalk upon the floor; and his father supplied him with a few tools from the carpenter’s shop, which he soon learnt to handle with expertness. In such occupations he found the best resource against ennui. He took his toys to pieces, and out of the parts ingeniously constructed new ones. The mechanical dexterity which he thus cultivated even as a child was probably in a great measure the foundation upon which he built the speculations to which he owes his glory; nor, without his early mechanical training, is there reason to believe that he would afterwards become the improver and almost the creator of the steam-engine.

The invalid thus passed his early years almost entirely in the society of his mother, whose gentle nature, strong good sense, and unobtrusive piety, exercised a most beneficial influence in the formation of his character. Nor were his parents without their reward; for as the boy grew up to manhood he repaid their anxious care with obedience, respect, and affection. Mrs. Watt was in after life accustomed to say that the loss of her only daughter, which she had felt so severely, had been fully made up to her by the dutiful attentions of her son.

Spending his life indoors, without exercise, his nervous system became preternaturally sensitive. He was subject to violent sick headaches, which confined him to his room for weeks together; and it almost seems a marvel that, under such circumstances, he should have survived his boyhood. It is in such cases as his that indications of precocity are generally observed; and parents would be less gratified at their display if they knew that they are usually the symptoms of disease. Several remarkable instances of this precocity are related of Watt. On one occasion, when he was bending over the hearth with a piece of chalk in his hand, a friend of his father said, “You ought to send that boy to a public school, and not allow him to trifle away his time at home.” “Look how my child is occupied,” said the father, “before you condemn him.” Though only six years old, it is said he was found trying to solve a problem in geometry.

On another occasion he was reproved by Mrs. Muirhead, his aunt, for his indolence at the tea-table. “James Watt,” said the worthy lady, “I never saw such an idle boy as you are: 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, catching and counting the drops it falls into.” In the view of M. Arago, the little James before the tea-kettle becomes “the great engineer, preparing the discoveries which were soon to immortalize him.” In our opinion the judgment of the aunt was the truest. There is no reason to suppose that the mind of the boy was occupied with philosophical theories on the condensation of steam, which he compassed with so much difficulty in his maturer years. This is more probably an afterthought borrowed from his subsequent discoveries. Nothing is commoner than for children to be amused with such phenomena, in the same way that they will form air-bubbles in a cup of tea, and watch them sailing over the surface till they burst. The probability is that little James was quite as idle as he seemed.

When he was at length sent to Mr. M‘Adam’s commercial school, the change caused him many trials and much suffering. He found himself completely out of place in the midst of the boisterous juvenile republic. Against the tyranny of the elders he was helpless; their wild play was most distasteful to him; he could not join in their sports, nor roam with them along the beach, nor shy stones into the water, nor take part in their hazardous exploits in the harbour. Accordingly they showered upon him contemptuous epithets; and the school being composed of both sexes, the girls joined in the laugh. He shone as little in the class as in the playground. He did not possess that parrot power of learning and confidence in self necessary to achieve distinction at school; and he was even considered dull and backward for his age.[55] His want of progress may, however, in some measure be accounted for by his almost continual ailments, which sometimes kept him for weeks together at home. It was not until he reached the age of about thirteen or fourteen, when he was put into the mathematical class, that his powers appeared to develop themselves, and from that time he made rapid progress.

When not quite fourteen, he was taken by his mother for change of air to Glasgow, then a quiet place without a single long chimney, somewhat resembling a rural market-town of the present day. He was left in charge of a relation, and his mother returned to Greenock. But he proved so wakeful during the visit, and so disposed to indulge in that habit of storytelling, which even Sir Walter Scott could afterwards admire in him, that Mr. Watt was very soon written to by his friend, and entreated to return to Glasgow and take home his son. “I cannot stand the excitement he keeps me in,” said Mrs. Campbell; “I am worn out for want of sleep. Every evening, before retiring to rest, he contrives to engage me in conversation, then begins some striking tale, and whether humorous or pathetic, the interest is so overpowering, that the family all listen to him with breathless attention, and hour after hour strikes unheeded.” He was taken back to Greenock accordingly, and, when well enough, was sent to the Grammar School of the town, then kept by Mr. Robert Arrol. Under him, Watt made fair progress in the rudiments of Latin and Greek; but he was still more successful in the study of mathematics, which he prosecuted under Mr. John Marr. It was only when he entered on this branch of learning that he discovered his strength, and he very soon took the lead in his class.

When at home the boy continued to spend much of his time in drawing, or in cutting or carving with his penknife, or in watching the carpenters at work in his father’s shop, sometimes trying his own hand at making little articles with the tools which lay about. In this he displayed a degree of dexterity which seemed so remarkable that the journeymen were accustomed to say of him that “little Jamie had gotten a fortune at his fingers’ ends.” Even when he had grown old he would recall to mind the pleasure as well as the profit which he had derived from working in his shirt-sleeves in his father’s shop. He was, in fact, educating himself in the most effectual manner in his own way; learning to use his hands dexterously; familiarising himself with the art of handling tools; and acquiring a degree of expertness in working with them in wood and metal, which eventually proved of the greatest value to him. At the same time he was training himself in habits of application, industry, and invention. Most of his spare time was thus devoted to mechanical adaptations of his own contrivance. A small forge was erected for him, and a bench fitted up for his special use; and there he constructed many ingenious little objects, such as miniature cranes, pulleys, pumps, and capstans. Out of a large silver coin he fabricated a punch-ladle, which is still preserved. But the kind of work which most attracted him was the repairing of ships’ compasses, quadrants, and nautical instruments, in executing which he exhibited so much neatness, dexterity, and accuracy, that it eventually led to his selection of the business he determined to follow,—that of a mathematical instrument maker.

The boy at the same time prosecuted his education at school; his improving health enabling him to derive more advantage from the instructions of his masters than in the earlier part of his career. Not the least influential part of his training, as regarded the formation of his character, consisted, as already observed, in the example and conversation of his parents at home. His frequent illnesses brought him more directly and continuously under their influence than is the case with most boys of his age; and reading became one of his chief sources of recreation and enjoyment. His fathers library-shelf contained well-thumbed volumes of Boston, Bunyan, and ‘The Cloud of Witnesses,’ with Henry the Rymer’s ‘Life of Wallace,’ and other old ballads, tattered by frequent use. These he devoured greedily, and re-read until he had most of them by heart. His father would also recount to him the sufferings of the Covenanters,—the moors and mosses which lay towards the south of Greenock having been among their retreats during the times of the persecution. Then there were the local and traditionary stories of the neighbourhood,—such as the exploits of the Greenock men under Sir John Shaw, at Worcester, in 1651,[56]—together with much of that unwritten history, heard only around firesides, which kindles the Scotchman’s nationality, and influences his future life.

We may here mention, in passing, that one of the most vividly-remembered incidents of James Watt’s boyhood was the Stuart rebellion of the “Forty-five,” which occurred when he was about ten years old. Watt himself is so intimately identified with the material progress of the nineteenth century, that it strikes one almost with surprise that he should have been a spectator, in however remote a degree, of incidents belonging to an altogether different age. The Stuart Rebellion may be said to have been the end of one epoch and the beginning of another; for certain it is that the progress of Scotland as an integral part of the British empire, and the growth of its skilled industry—which the inventions of Watt did so much to develop—appeared as if to spring from the very ashes of the rebellion. Like other lowland towns, Greenock was greatly alarmed at the startling news from the Highlands of the threatened descent of the clans. Sir John Shaw had the trades mustered for drill on the green in front of his mansion, and held them in readiness for defence of the town, in case of attack. Greenock was otherwise secure, being protected against the Highlands by the Clyde; besides, the western clans were either neutral or adhered to the house of Hanover. The Pretender with his followers passed southward by Stirling, and only approached Greenock on their return from England,—a half-starved and ill-clad, though still unbroken army. They halted at Glasgow, where they levied a heavy contribution on the inhabitants, and sent out roving parties to try their fortunes in the neighbouring towns. A small detachment one day approached Greenock, and came as near as the Clune Brae; but the townspeople were afoot, and on guard; signal was given to the ships of war moored near the old battery, and a few well-directed shots speedily sent the Highlanders to the right-about. The alarm was over for the present; but it was renewed in the following year, when the rumour reached Edinburgh that Prince Charles, hunted from the Highlands, had landed at Greenock, and lay concealed there. The consequence was that a strict search was made throughout the town, and Mr. Watt’s premises were searched like the others; but the Pretender had contrived to escape in another direction. Such was one of the most memorable incidents in the boy-life of James Watt, so strangely in contrast with the later events of his industrial career.

During holiday times, the boy sometimes indulged in rambles along the Clyde, occasionally crossing to the north shore, and strolling up the Gare Loch and Holy Loch, and even as far as Ben Lomond. He was of a solitary disposition, and loved to wander by himself at night amidst the wooded pleasure-grounds which surrounded the old mansion-house overlooking the town, watching through the trees the mysterious movements of the stars. He became fascinated by the wonders of astronomy, and was stimulated to inquire into the science by the examination of the nautical instruments which he found amongst his father’s shop-stores. For it was a peculiarity which characterised him through life, that he could not look upon any instrument or machine without being seized with a desire to understand its meaning, to unravel its mystery, and master the rationale of its uses. Before he was fifteen he had twice gone through with great attention S’Gravande’s ‘Elements of Natural Philosophy,’ a book belonging to his father. He performed many little experiments in chemistry, and even contrived to make an electrical machine, much to the marvel of those who felt its shocks. Like most invalids, he read eagerly such books on medicine and surgery as came in his way. He went so far as to practise dissection; and on one occasion he was found carrying off for this purpose the head of a child who had died of some uncommon disease. “He told his son,” says Mr. Muirhead, “that, had he been able to bear the sight of the sufferings of patients, he would have been a surgeon.”

In his solitary rambles, his love of wild-flowers and plants lured him on to the study of botany. Ever observant of the aspects of nature, the violent upheavings of the mountain-ranges on the north shores of Loch Lomond directed his attention to geology. He was a great devourer of books; reading all that came in his way. On a friend once advising him to be less indiscriminate in his reading, he replied, “I have never yet read a book without gaining information, instruction, or amusement.” This was no answer to the admonition of his friend, who merely recommended him to bestow upon the best books the time he devoted to the worse. But the appetite for knowledge in inquisitive minds is, during youth, when curiosity is fresh and unslacked, too insatiable to be fastidious, and the volume which gets the preference is usually the first which comes in the way.

Watt was not, however, a mere bookworm. In his solitary walks through the country he would enter the cottages of the peasantry, gather their local traditions, and impart to them information of a similar kind from his own ample stores. Fishing, which suited his tranquil nature, was his single sport. When unable to ramble for the purpose, he could still indulge the pursuit from his father’s yard, which was open to the sea, and the water of sufficient depth at high-tide to enable vessels of fifty or sixty tons to lie alongside.

But James Watt had now arrived at a suitable age to learn a trade; and his rambles must come to a close. His father had originally intended him to follow his own business; but having sustained some heavy losses about this time—one of his ships having foundered at sea,—and observing the strong bias of his son towards manipulative science and exact mechanics, he at length decided to send him to Glasgow, in the year 1754, when he was eighteen years old, to learn the trade of a mathematical instrument maker.

CHAPTER VI.
James Watt, Mathematical Instrument Maker.

When James Watt, a youth of eighteen, went to Glasgow in 1754 to learn his trade, the place was very different from the Glasgow of to-day. Not a steam-engine was then at work in the town; not a steam-boat disturbed the quiet of the Clyde. There was a rough quay along the Broomielaw, then, as the name implies, partly covered with broom. The quay was furnished with a solitary crane, for which there was very little use, as the river was full of sandbanks, and boats and gabberts of only six tons burden and under could then ascend the Clyde.[57] Often for weeks together not a single masted vessel was to be seen in the river. The principal buildings in the town were the Cathedral and the University. The west port, now in the centre of Glasgow, was then a real barrier between the town and the country. The ground on which Enoch-square stands consisted chiefly of gardens. A thick wood occupied the site of the present Custom-house and of that part of Glasgow situated behind West Clyde-street. Blythswood was grazing-ground. Not a house had yet been erected in Hutchinson-town, Laurieston, Tradeston, or Bridgeton. The land between Jamaica-street on the east, and Stobcross on the west, and south from Anderston-road to the river, now the most densely populated parts of Glasgow, consisted of fields and cabbage-gardens. The town had but two main streets, which intersected each other at the Cross or Market-place, and the only paved part of them was known as “The Plainstanes,” which extended for a few hundred yards in front of the public offices and the Town-hall. The two main streets contained some stately well-built houses—Flemish-looking tenements with crow-stepped gables,—the lower stories standing on Doric columns, under which were the principal booths or shops—small, low-roofed, and dismal. But the bulk of the houses had only wooden fronts and thatched roofs, and were of a very humble character. The traffic along the unpaved streets was so small, that the carts were left standing in them at night. The town was as yet innocent of police;[58] it contained no Irish immigrants, and very few Highlanders. The latter then thought it beneath them to engage in any pursuit connected with commerce; and Rob Roy’s contempt for the wabsters of Glasgow, as described by Sir Walter Scott in the novel, was no exaggeration. No Highland gentleman, however poor, would dream of condemning his son to the drudgery of trade; and even the poorest Highland cottar would shrink with loathing from the life of a weaver or a shopkeeper. He would be a hunter, a fisher, a cattle-lifter, or a soldier; but trade he would not touch—that he left to the Lowlanders.[59]