James Watt

The inventor James Watt is one of the areas most famous historical figures. Lauded all around the globe as the man that brought the world the steam engine and he came from Greenock. He was born on the 19th of January 1736.

Watts father was a ship owner, ship wrght and contractor. His mother, Agnes Muirhead, was a highly educated woamn from a wealthy distinguished family who taught her son from school. Both his parents were also dilligent Covenanters and Presbyterians. The young James dislayed a facility for numbers and exceptional manual dexterity. He also had a great love for Scottish history and folk lore.

Watt left home for London when he was 18, to study instrument making.  This followed the death of his mother died and a decline in his father's health.

He came back to Scotland after twelve months to open a business in Glasgow. However, his application was refused, becaius ehe hasd not completed a seven years apprenticeship with The Glasgow Guild of Hammermen. An officlal body for workmen or labourers that use hammers and artisans.

James overcame this set back when, in 1758, he was taken under the wing of three noted proessors from the University of Glasgow.They sey him up in a lab and one of the professors, the chemist and phycisist Joseph Black, became a close friend.

In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret Miller, with whom he had five children, two of whom lived to adulthood. She died in childbirth in 1772. In 1777 he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, who survived him. She died in 1832.

Watt had a brother by the name of John. He was shipwrecked when James was 17.