INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and his Family 
formerly held at Doldowlod House, now at Birmingham Central Library

Part 1: Correspondence, Papers & Business Records, 1687-1819

In Series Three of this microfilm project, Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History, we make available all the private papers of James Watt and family which were housed at Doldowlod House in Wales, until their acquisition by Birmingham Central Library in 1994. Much of this material relates closely to the collections we have already microfilmed in Series One, especially the Boulton & Watt collection, the Matthew Boulton Papers and Muirhead I-IV. The Doldowlod material fills some important gaps and provides correspondence, notebooks and other papers of paramount importance in their own right.

There is excellent correspondence with the following:

 - Aimé Argand (Swiss physician and scientist) writes about Argand lamps made at Soho, water companies in Paris, visits to French country houses and to see Ministers as well as about James Watt junior's foreign tour.
 - Sir Joseph Banks (scientist and President of the Royal Society, 1778-1820). Letters cover many different subjects including lamp glass, gunpowder, the medical use of gases, shrievalty and coinage.
  - Dr Thomas Beddoes (physician and founder of the Pneumatic Institute at Clifton in Bristol). Dr Beddoes and Erasmus Darwin write about the medical uses of gases (a particularly full series of letters revealing much about the practical implementation of Beddoes' ideas).
  - Claude-Louis Berthollet (French chemist) sends telling eye-witness accounts of French work on the theory of dyeing and bleaching, the problems of establishing the new chemical nomenclature of the 1780s, and the difficulties of life during the French Revolution.
  - Dr Joseph Black (Scottish chemist and physician) writes about his experiments in medical chemistry. Letters to and from Black are included here. JWP 4/12 provides a series of letters from James Watt to Dr Joseph Black covering the full range of the men's shared interests. These letters span a variety of subjects from the firing of delft and stoneware, the manufacture of alkali from salt, the invention and manufacture of scientific instruments, the copying-press, the drawing of plans for canals and harbour improvements, the steam engine to discussions of patent law.
  - Matthew Boulton (entrepreneur and engineer). An exchange of ideas, suggestions and instructions between Boulton and Watt on all aspects of the Boulton & Watt business.
  - William Chapman (engineer) on business matters.
  - Charles Clagget (maker of musical instruments in Dublin) Clagget suggests forming a partnership with Watt, writes about violins and other instruments.
  - William and Henry Creighton (engine erectors and agents) in letters to Gregory Watt discuss lead mines, geology, architecture, a tour of Scotland and business affairs.
  - Erasmus Darwin (physician) on inventions and experiments.
  - Sir Humphry Davy (scientist) Humphry Davy describes his galvanic experiments, including a particularly choice letter on the battery, 1801. Other letters describe his experiments with electricity.
  - Maria Edgeworth and Richard Lovell Edgeworth (daughter and father, both authors) write about a scheme for a tunnel under the Menai Straits.
  - Robert Fulton (American scientist and pioneer of steam navigation) discusses various inventions.
  - Joseph Fry (physician and entrepreneur) writes about manganese metal, Warltire's lectures and about Hornblower's Radstock engine.
  - Samuel Galton junior (a Quaker merchant and gunsmith in Birmingham, who began a series of chemical experiments in the 1770s) provides many letters on canal business.
  - Thomas Henry (chemist and surgeon-apothecary in Manchester) writes about experiments with chemical bleaching, infringements of his patents and on Watt's pneumatic medical apparatus.
  - Dr James Hutton (geologist) writes about minerals.
  - Dr William Irvine (chemist) including letter discussing the success of James Watt's engine.
  - James Keir (chemist) writes about experiments with alkali and about copying machines.
  - James Lind (physician, cousin of James Keir and close friend of James Watt during his Glasgow days) provides letters concerning scientific instruments, ballooning and other attempts at aerial flight, medicine, electrical machines and the legal disputes with the Hornblowers.
  - Jean Hyacinthe de Magellan (scientific investigator working on reflecting instruments) writes about his scientific work.
  - William Murdock (engineer) discusses engineering projects.
  - Joseph Priestley (scientist and thelogian). Priestley writes about phlogiston, inflammable air, the Lunar Society, and of his losses in the riots (the archive also contains a 1782 manuscript catalogue of his library [C1/411]).
  - John Rennie (civil engineer). Rennie writes to criticise Telford's bridge plans, about Northfleet Dockyard and other engineering projects.
  - Professor John Robison writes about a wide range of scientific matters.
  - Dr John Roebuck (inventor and founder of manufactory of Sulphuric Acid at Prestonpans in 1749, creator of the Carron Company; he sold his interests in the Watt engine to Matthew Boulton in 1773). He writes about his financial affairs and the sale of his business interests in the 1770s, events in Scotland and the Carron Iron Works.
  - William Small (taught philosophy, science and mathematics as Professor of Natural Phiosophy at the College of William and Mary in America, before travelling to England and becoming Matthew Boulton's family physician and a key member of the Lunar Society). There are numerous letters to James Watt offering advice and encouragement, particularly on early engine experiments and on the making of accurate scientific instruments.
  - Jonathan Stokes (protegé of William Withering, interested in pneumatic chemistry, botany and the classification of fossils and plants). He writes about a watch and his scientific work.
  - Thomas Telford (engineer). Telford writes of his surveying and his designs for London Bridge, the Caledonian Canal and other projects, especially surveys of Scotland.
  - James Watt's father (James Watt of Greenock, 1698-1782). In addition to the correspondence between father and son, there are account books and other business papers reflecting his father's activities in Scotland. Also included are the surveying papers and mathematical notes of John Watt of Crawfordsdyke. This links up with material already covered in the Muirhead collection.
  - James Watt's first wife (Margaret Miller, died 1773): see especially JWP 4/4 and 4/63.
  - James Watt's sons (James Watt Junior and Gregory Watt). Of particular note are James Watt junior's letters describing his travels in Europe, especially news from Paris in early 1790s. Gregory Watt describes his stay with the Davys and his tour in Germany, Switzerland and France.
  - Josiah Wedgwood (master potter at Etruria factory in Staffordshire; Chairman of the General Chamber of Manufacturers). Josiah Wedgwood writes about Cornwall (where he and Watt both had business interests), china stone and clay, furnace pipes and the firing details for different porcelains, the slave trade, trade and tariffs, and the political influence of the Chamber of Manufacturers. There is also much reference to Lunar Society business. In JWP C1/10 Wedgwood describes visits to Sir Richard Arkwright. Watt's letters to Wedgwood were returned to James Watt junior in the 19th century, so both sides of the important correspondences are present in the original, as well as in the retained copies.
  - William Withering (physician, botanist and mineralogist). A whole range of letters cover prescriptions, experiments and money matters.

The overall quality and regularity of the correspondence with scientific and technological figures in England, Scotland, on the Continent of Europe and even wider afield is remarkable. This stretches far beyond members of the Lunar Society and includes important industrialists such as Samuel Whitbread, William Wilkinson, Sir Richard Arkwright, David Dale and Samuel Garbett.

As Nicholas Kingsley points out in his introduction to the collection:

"These are sources that will illuminate areas of great current concern to historians of science, many of whom are now far more interested in the relations between science and experimental and industrial practice than was the case when Robinson and Musson published selections of the letters from this archive in the early 1970s. Moving into the realm of business history and the difficult transfer between invention and realisation, the letters from Aimé Argand about the Argand lamp are likely to be a rich source for any study of the financing of innovation in the eighteenth century, as will be Watt's correspondence with Roebuck, Small and Boulton about the financing of the steam engine."

There are also letters from Henry Smeathman about the abolition of slavery, trade with West Africa, the black poor in London and their possible re-settlement in Sierra Leone.

A complete file of Watt's own outgoing letters, largely in press-copies (from 1779 onwards) but supplemented by original letters to his family and retained holograph drafts, are an important part of this archive.

Among the earliest letters are those Watt wrote to his father from London in 1755-56 when he was serving his apprenticeship. He describes his work in detail, especially instrument making and surveying, but also gives a fascinating view of London life, with a young man's ever-present fear of naval impressment. Letters for 1774-1775 describe to his father the events following his arrival in Birmingham, see JWP 4/60. For later years, the press-copy letters form a full record of Watt's side of his many correspondences. The recipients include Dr Joseph Black, Josiah Wedgwood, Robert Muirhead, James McGrigor, Gilbert Hamilton, Captain Marr, J H de Magellan, Matthew Boulton, James Keir, William Chapman and many others. Many of Watt's original letters survive in other collections, but for some correspondents these copies will be the only sources. Although some of the copies have faded, the majority are still fresh and legible, and as exact copies, have greater textual authority than most retained copies of the period.

The correspondence is the main focus of Parts 1 and 2 of Series Three. However, other important sections included in Parts 2 and 3 are:

Diaries, account books and memoranda books
These reveal much about James Watt and his working methods. There are inventories of his tools, scientific instruments and accounts of expenditure. The diaries include details of trips to London, a visit to the Hawkesbury Colliery and details of his engines. His small octavo journal for 4 January - 2 July 1779 records his thoughts on the Paris water supply, drawings for the Poldice steam pipe, lists of other drawings made and letters written, provides information on his health, the visits of Wilkinson and Darwin to Soho, a report on a leaking engine and how it was repaired as well as offering details on his experiments with copying machines.

Business records: instrument making
Again there is much evidence about working practices, the making of scientific instruments, mathematical calculations and the precise attention to detail.

Business records: surveying
These papers cover the period c1755-1774 and include work on surveys of the River Clyde, the Port of Glasgow, Ayr harbour, numerous canals, Watt's Report to HM Commissioners for managing the annexed estates in Scotland concerning the isthmuses of Tarbert and Crinan, a Report and Survey on the Rivers Forth and Devon with Lord Cathcart's notes and remarks upon Watt's work, survey work for the construction of Hamilton Bridge and Rutherglen Bridge as well as various schemes for road construction.

Business records: steam engines
Covering this crucial area of Watt's business there are a wealth of different papers ranging from a volume of Copy specifications of various inventions from Thomas Savery's patent of 1698 to Robert Cameron's patent of 1784, compiled no doubt with regard to one of Watt's many patent applications, drawings of an engine for the Carron Company, Acts of Parliament, manuscript copies of all James Watt's specifications and mechanical improvements, correspondence through to details of individual experiments.

Papers concerning Watt's various legal battles
These record his ongoing troubles with the Hornblowers and in particular: The steam engine patent extension of 1775, legal cases including Boulton versus Bull, 1781-1799 and also Boulton & Watt versus Hornblower & Maberly, 1775-1799.

Business records: copying machines
The copying machine was a most important contribution by James Watt to commercial practice allowing the easy making of press copy letters, which remained a central facet of all businesses until the advent of the typewriter in the late nineteenth century. JWP C1/39 contains the parchment patent of 1780.

Family Papers of Gregory Watt and James Watt Junior
Gregory Watt was the only son of James Watt's second marriage. A young man of great promise, with an excellent knowledge of the classics, Gregory suffered prolonged ill health and died at the early age of 27. For health reasons Gregory lodged for a time in Cornwall with Humphry Davy's mother, and this resulted in young Davy's introduction to Dr Thomas Beddoes and his first employment in the world of science. Excellent letters in the collection from Davy to James Watt reporting on Gregory's health and his own galvanic experiments can be found in JWP C1/21 and 6/33. Gregory travelled extensively in France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany in 1801-04, keeping journals full of attractive sketches and writing long and interesting letters to his father and brother. James Watt never really recovered from the tragedy of Gregory's early death in 1804, and for the rest of his life he kept his son's schoolbooks by him in a trunk in his garret workshop. Gregory's only publication was a paper on basalt.

James Watt junior's papers are very important because of his central role in carrying on the Boulton & Watt business along with Matthew Boulton's son from the late 1790s onwards. James Watt junior joined the firm in 1794. He was responsible for the building of the new factory (the Soho Foundry) to manufacture engines ready for immediate sale. This was completed in 1795. James Watt junior developed the business in various new directions, in particular steam navigation, after 1800. There are excellent letters in the collection both to and from the American steamboat pioneer, Robert Fulton. A new focus became necessary with the expiry of the engine patent in 1800 and dwindling royalty revenue from the old business of erecting engines on licence.

As Nicholas Kingsley mentions, the earlier papers of the two young Watts, like their father's correspondence with R L Edgeworth and some other of his Lunar Society friends, will be of considerable interest to scholars of the history of education. These papers have already furnished much material for Eric Robinson's 'Training the Captain's of Industry' in Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969).

"The importance of these papers to historians of science, technology, industry, the economy, applied art and society in the Industrial Revolution cannot be over-estimated."
Professor Jennifer Tann, Consultant Editor, University of Birmingham

"If Dr James Hutton wishes to make a geological map of Cornwall he writes to Watt; if Dr Priestley wishes to have a careful observer of his experiments on gases it is to Watt that he turns; if Berthollet wants to know of the practical developments in chlorine bleaching he consults the man to whom he first explained the properties of gas, James Watt..."
Eric Robinson and A G Musson authors of James Watt and the Steam Revolution (London 1969) and the collection of essays in Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution which draw heavily on the Doldowlod material, now made more widely accessible to researchers throughout the world through this project to comprehensively microfilm all these papers.