James Watt

James Watt was born in Scotland in 1736. He was a very sickly child and because of that, was not well educated. He spent a lot of his time finding out about clockwork mechanisms, and so his father sent him to London to become a mathematical instrument maker. On his return to Scotland, he was given a job and the use of a workshop at Glasgow University.

While he was working there, a colleague brought him a steam engine to be repaired. The type of engine was called a Newcomen Engine and was very inefficient. It needed to be continually heated up and then cooled down for the steam to be used. Watt realised that if he could cool the steam somewhere away from the main part of the engine, he could produce a much more efficient, faster and safer engine. He called his idea a condenser.

To help him manufacture his new idea, Watt joined Matthew Boulton, a Birmingham engineer, and together they produced lots of these new engines. To begin with, they were used to pump out water, that continually flooded the Cornish tin and copper mines. However, they were soon being used for spinning and weaving in mills, and then for propelling ships.

63 years after his death, the British Association decided to honour him and gave his name to a unit of electrical power, so today you can see Watt's name on every light bulb in the world.

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