James watt why was he important

James Watt was an inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements in steam engine technology drove the Industrial Revolution. Watt did not invent the steam engine. Steam engines were already in existence, mainly being used to pump water out of mines. He made important changes to the design, increasing efficiency and making steam engines cheaper to run.

James Watt was born in Greenock in He was not a healthy child and was educated at home for most of his early years. His father was a carpenter and shipwright who set himself up in business as a merchant and ship-owner. Watt liked to make models and repair nautical instruments in his father's workshop. In Watt went to London to be an apprentice scientific instrument maker.

He was a quick learner and mastered his craft in one year. Aged 19 he returned to Glasgow, where he set up his own business. With so many modifications, the steam engines found in many mills and factories in the late s bore little resemblance to the Newcomen engines that had dominated the market earlier in the century. The increasing demand for Watt steam engines eventually made both Watt and Boulton considerable fortunes and garnered them substantial renown.

In , the partners were elected into the Royal Society of London. They were also key members of the Lunar Society, a group that included many prominent British scientists and industrialists, such as Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood. In , Watt and Boulton established a new firm, which their sons would take over by the beginning of the 19th century, when their main patents expired. After , Watt spent much of his time traveling throughout Europe with his second wife, Ann, with whom he had two children.

His first wife, with whom Watt had produced several other children, had died in Watt's death came in He is buried next to his longtime partner, Boulton, in Birmingham. During the course of his work with the steam engine, Watt developed the concept of horsepower as a unit of power output. Since his engines replaced animals as a source of power, to Watt it seemed natural to describe the power of the engines in terms of how many horses would have been required to generate it.

Watt established one unit of horsepower to be equivalent to 33, pounds lifted one foot per minute. British Broadcasting Corporation Home. James Watt, c. James Watt was born in Greenock on 18 January His father was a prosperous shipwright. Watt initially worked as a maker of mathematical instruments, but soon became interested in steam engines.

The first working steam engine had been patented in and by the time of Watt's birth, Newcomen engines were pumping water from mines all over the country. In around , Watt was given a model Newcomen engine to repair. He realised that it was hopelessly inefficient and began to work to improve the design. He designed a separate condensing chamber for the steam engine that prevented enormous losses of steam.