James Watt

This book explores James Watt’s early years and interests, as well as his highly successful 25-year partnership with the industrialist Matthew Boulton. But while traditional biographies of Watt concentrate on the steam engine, James Watt: Making the World Anew tells a richer story: it explores the processes by which ephemeral ideas were transformed into tangible artefacts, and places Watt within the context of Britain’s early industrial transformation. Watt’s work is emblematic of a wider culture of multifaceted artisanship, and this book probes the widely held motivation for making things, looking not only at what was produced but also why. It draws on a rich range of resources – from archival material and biographies on Watt to objects themselves, and sources from fields as diverse as ceramics, antique systems of proportion, sculpture and machine making.Generously illustrated, James Watt is a unique, expansive exploration of the engineer’s career. His life is used as a lens through which the broader practices of manufacturing in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the Industrial Revolution, are explored.Published in association with the Science Museum, London.