James watt biography patent

(b Greenock, Scotland, 19 January 1736; d Heathfield, England, 19 August 1819), engineering, chemistry.

Although Watt’s achievements as an inventor and an engineer have been fully recognized and universally honored, the dependence of his technical work on contemporary science and his own scientific research have long provoked sharp differences of opnion.

Watt’s grandfather and father had both followed technical pursuits: the former, Thomas, as a teacher of surveying and navigation (“professor of the mathematicks”) and the latter, James, as a shipwright and maker and supplier of nautical instruents.

His mother, Agnes Muirhead (or Muireheid), was descended from a family that had at one time been prominent in Scottish life. Owing to his fragile health Watt’s attendance at elementary school was somewhat irregular, but he nonetheless attained some proficiency in geometry (in which he showed great interest), Latin, and Greek.

Schooling, however, composed only the les