RT Journal Article
T1 Watt's workshop
A1 Ben Russell
YR 2014
VO 1
IS Spring 2014
K1 Bennet Woodcroft
K1  Birmingham
K1  consumption
K1  Heathfield
K1  industry
K1  industrial enlightenment
K1  James Watt
K1  making
K1  mechanical engineering
K1  museum
K1  Patent Office Museum
K1  sculpture-copying
K1  Watt
K1  Watt�s workshop
K1  workshop
AB Accounts of the life of Scottish engineer James Watt have tended to take a rather monocular approach to his life’s work – primarily concentrating on the steam engine. However, the evidence of Watt’s workshop, preserved at the Science Museum, points to the diverse nature of his interests, and particularly to the close integration of philosophical and pragmatic elements in his work. Here is the workplace of one of the savant-fabricants that Britain’s ‘Industrial Enlightenment’ depended upon. All was, however, underpinned by physical work and the creation of tangible artefacts that took into account a range of factors at once technological, entrepreneurial, aesthetic and consumer-driven, a point worth emphasising in consideration both of Britain’s industrial revolution and the recent debate about a re-balancing of the UK economy towards manufacturing.
NO Science Museum technical file T/1924-792, B Woodcroft to J W Gibson-Watt, 28 September 1863
NO The glasses were returned to Woodcroft by the then tenant’s daughter, along with a ‘kindly expressed’ note. See Science Museum technical file T/1924-792, M Pemberton to F P Smith, 6 May 1864, and B Woodcroft to J Romilly, 7 May 1864
NO Science Museum technical file T/1924-792
NO Science Museum technical file T/1924-792, J W Gibson-Watt to Woodcroft, 27 September 1863
NO Science Museum technical file T/1924-792, F Pettit-Smith to J W Gibson-Watt, 28 September 1863
NO Science Museum technical file T/1924-792, J W Gibson-Watt to B Woodcroft, 30 September 1863
NO Science Museum inv 1863-15
NO The kettle was probably not originally made as a piece of experimental kit; it was most likely a cooking set or similar, for travelling purposes.
NO Both these engines were acquired in 1861. Science Museum inv 1861-45 and 1861-46
NO ‘Craftsman and Engineer’ was the subtitle to H W Dickinson’s 1936 biography of Watt. MacLeod & Tann, ‘From engineer to scientist...', p 397
NO See for example, Miller, D P, 2000, ‘“Puffing Jamie”: The Commercial and Ideological Importance of being a “Philosopher” in the case of the reputation of James Watt (1736-1819)’, History of Science, xxxviii, pp 1–24
NO For a fuller account of Watt’s activities in making musical instruments, see Wright, M T, 2002, ‘James Watt: Musical Instrument Maker’, in The Galpin Society Journal, L, pp 104–29
NO For more on Watt’s work at Delftfield, see Hills, R L , 2001, ‘James Watt and the Delftfield Pottery, Glasgow’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland , cxxxi, pp 375–420
NO Science Museum inv. 1924-792/627
NO The small pieces of sculpture, though stored for a long time inside the workshop, were acquired separately from the rest of the objects. See Science Museum inv 1926-1075
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/140106
UL http://journal.sciencemuseum.org.uk/browse/2014/watts-workshop/
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WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30