The co-ordinates
given are for the main entrance to the Science
Museum in Kensington, London. The busts are in the centre part of the museum's ground floor level..
Non-flash photography is permitted. The museum is free to visit. The museum is open every
day except 24th abd 25th December and opening hours are from 10am to 6pm with last
entry at 5:15pm.
The three stone/plaster busts are all
life-size with the centre one being the only one that has a bit of clothing
around it. The outer two are very similar and could have been created at the
same time. The centre bust seems to be of better quality than the others with a
more life-like appearance.
The Spartacus Educational website (visit link) has a
biography:
"James Watt, the eldest surviving
child of eight children, five of whom died in infancy, of James Watt (1698–1782)
and his wife, Agnes Muirhead (1703–1755), was born in Greenock on 19th January,
1736. His father was a successful merchant. According to his biographer,
Jennifer Tann: "James Watt was a delicate child and suffered from frequent
headaches during his childhood and adult life. He was taught at home by his
mother at first, then was sent to M'Adam's school in Greenock. He later went to
Greenock grammar school where he learned Latin and some Greek but was considered
to be slow. However, on being introduced to mathematics, he showed both interest
and ability."
At the age of nineteen he was sent
to Glasgow to learn the trade of a mathematical-instrument maker. After spending
a year in London, Watt returned to Scotland in 1757 where he established his own
instrument-making business. Watt soon developed a reputation as a high quality
engineer and was employed on the Forth & Clyde Canal and the Caledonian
Canal. He was also engaged in the improvement of harbours and in the deepening
of the Forth, Clyde and other rivers in Scotland.
In 1763 Watt was sent a Newcomen
steam engine to repair. While putting it back into working order, Watt
discovered how he could make the engine more efficient. Watt worked on the idea
for several months and eventually produced a steam engine that cooled the used
steam in a condenser separate from the main cylinder. James Watt was not a
wealthy man so he decided to seek a partner with money. James Watt was not a
wealthy man so he asked John Roebuck to provide financial backing for the
project. Roebuck agreed and the two men went into partnership. Roebuck held
two-thirds of the original patent (9th January 1769) in return for discharging
some of Watt's debts.
In March 1773 Roebuck became
bankrupt. At the time he owed Matthew Boulton over £1,200. Boulton knew about
Watt's research and wrote to him making an offer for Roebuck's share in the
steam-engine. Roebuck refused but on 17th May, he changed his mind and accepted
Boulton's terms. James Watt was also owed money by Roebuck, but as he had done a
deal with his friend, he wrote a formal discharge "because I think the thousand
pounds he (Boulton) he has paid more than the value of the property of the two
thirds of the inventions."
For the next eleven years Boulton's
factory producing and selling Watt's steam-engines. These machines were mainly
sold to colliery owners who used them to pump water from their mines. Watt's
machine was very popular because it was four times more powerful than those that
had been based on the Thomas Newcomen design.
Watt continued to experiment and in
1781 he produced a rotary-motion steam engine. Whereas his earlier machine, with
its up-and-down pumping action, was ideal for draining mines, this new steam
engine could be used to drive many different types of machinery. Richard
Arkwright was quick to importance of this new invention, and in 1783 he began
using Watt's steam-engine in his textile factories. Others followed his lead and
by 1800 there were over 500 of Watt's machines in Britain's mines and
factories.
Eric Hobsbawm, the author of The Age
of Revolution (1962) has argued: "Fortunately few intellectual refinements were
necessary to make the Industrial Revolution. Its technical inventions were
exceedingly modest, and in no way beyond the scope of intelligent artisans
experimenting in their workshops, or of the constructive capacities of
carpenters, millwrights, and locksmiths: the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny,
the mule. Even its scientifically most sophisticated machine, James Watt's
rotary steam-engine (1784), required no more physics than had been available for
the best part of a century."
Arthur Young pointed out in his
book, From Birmingham to Suffolk (1791): "What trains of thought, what a spirit
of exertion, what a mass and power of effort have sprung in every path of life,
from the works of such men as Brindley, Watt, Priestley, Harrison, Arkwright....
In what path of life can a man be found that will not animate his pursuit from
seeing the steam-engine of Watt?"
Watt became a member of the Lunar
Society of Birmingham. The group took this name because they used to meet to
dine and converse on the night of the full moon. Other members included Matthew
Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Day, William Small, John
Whitehurst, William Withering, Richard Lovell Edgeworth and Erasmus Darwin. The
historian, Jenny Uglow, has argued: "The members of the Lunar Society were
brilliant representatives of the informal scientific web that cut across class,
blending the inherited skills of craftsmen with the theoretical advances of
scholars, a key factor in British manufacturing's leap ahead of the rest of
Europe. Most had been entranced by mechanics in childhood in the 1730s and
1740s, when itinerant lecturers toured the country displaying electrical and
mechanical marvels."
In 1755 Watt had been granted a
patent by Parliament that prevented anybody else from making a steam-engine like
the one he had developed. For the next twenty-five years, the Boulton & Watt
company had a virtual monopoly over the production of steam-engines. Watt
charged his customers a premium for using his steam engines. To justify this he
compared his machine to a horse. Watt calculated that a horse exerted a pull of
180 lb., therefore, when he made a machine, he described its power in relation
to a horse, i.e. "a 20 horse-power engine". Watt worked out how much each
company saved by using his machine rather than a team of horses. The company
then had to pay him one third of this figure every year, for the next
twenty-five years.
James Watt died at Heathfield in
Handsworth, Birmingham, on 25th August 1819 and was buried beside Matthew
Boulton in St Mary's Church on 2nd September."