Part 17

Richard Watson, celebrated both as an able theologian, and as a professor of chemistry, was born at Haversham, near Kendal in Westmoreland. His ancestors had been farmers of their own estates for several generations, and his father, a younger son, was for forty years the head master of the Grammar-school at Haversham, but had resigned his duties about the period of the birth of his son Richard. Young Watson received his education at this school, and about a year after his father's death, in 1753, was sent on an exhibition of 50_l._ belonging to the school, to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a sizar on the 3rd of November, 1754. All he had, besides his exhibition, to carry him through college, was a sum of 300_l._ which his father had left him, but he set bravely to work, to make his way to independence by hard study and hard living; his dress is said at first to have been a coarse mottled Westmoreland coat, and blue yarn stockings.

In May, 1757, he obtained a scholarship, and in the September following, while still only a junior soph, he began to take pupils, continuing to be employed, first as private, then as a college tutor, until in October, 1767, he became one of the head tutors of Trinity College. Meanwhile Watson had taken his degree of B.A. in January, 1759, being classed as second wrangler, which he seems to have considered, and not without reason, as the place of honour for the year; the senior wrangler, who was a member of St. John's, having, as it was generally believed, been unfairly preferred to him.

In October, 1760, he was elected a fellow of his college, and in November, 1764, on the death of Dr. Hadley, he was unanimously elected by the senate to the professorship of chemistry, although at that time he knew nothing of the science. Watson did not, however, disappoint the confidence that was placed by others in his abilities. With the assistance of an operator, whom he immediately sent for from Paris, and by shutting himself up in his laboratory, he acquired such an acquaintance with his new subject, as to enable him in about fourteen months to read his first course of lectures, which were honoured with a numerous attendance, and proved highly successful. Other courses followed which were equally well received; and, in 1768, he printed a synopsis of the principles of the science, under the title of 'Institutiones Metallurgicæ.'

Watson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1769, and for some years afterwards contributed many chemical papers to the 'Philosophical Transactions.' In 1771 he published 'An Essay on the Subjects of Chemistry, and their General Divisions.' In 1781 he published two volumes 12mo. of 'Chemical Essays;' a third appeared in 1782; and a fourth in 1786 completed the work, which has often been reprinted, and was long very popular. In connection with his chemical professorship, Watson obtained from Government, by proper representations, a salary of 100_l._ for himself, and for all future professors. He also paid some attention to theoretical and practical anatomy, as having a certain relation to the science of chemistry.

In October, 1771, on the death of Dr. Rutherforth, he unexpectedly obtained the lucrative and important office of Regius Professor of Divinity, and in that capacity, held the Rectory of Somersham in Huntingdonshire. At this time he had neither taken his degree of B.D. or D.D., and by his own account, seems to have known little more of theological learning than he did of chemistry seven years before. Yet such was his good fortune, or the reputation that he had established, for carrying an object whenever he took it in hand, that no other candidate appeared for the professorship, while his eloquence and ingenuity supplied the want of deeper erudition, and attracted as numerous audiences to the exercises in the schools at which he presided, as had ever attended his chemical lectures.

Watson himself, in the anecdotes of his life, gives the following account of this circumstance:--"I was not, when Dr. Rutherforth died, either Bachelor or Doctor in Divinity, and without being one of them I could not become a candidate for the Professorship. This puzzled me for a moment, I had only seven days to transact the business in, but by hard travelling, and some adroitness, I accomplished my purpose, obtained the King's mandate for a Doctor's degree, and was created Doctor on the day previous to that appointed for the examination of the candidates. Thus did I, by hard and incessant labour for seventeen years, attain at the age of thirty-four, the first office for honour in the University; and, exclusive of the mastership of Trinity College, I have made it the first for profit; I found the Professorship not worth quite 330_l._, and it is now worth 1000_l._ at least."

Watson's clerical preferment after this was very rapid. In 1773, through the influence of the Duke of Grafton, he obtained possession of a sinecure rectory in North Wales, which he was enabled to exchange during the course of the following year for a prebend in the Church of Ely. In 1780 he succeeded Dr. Plumtree as archdeacon of that diocese; the same year he was presented to the Rectory of Northwold in Norfolk, and in the beginning of the year following, received another much more valuable living, the Rectory of Knaptoft in Leicestershire, from the hands of the Duke of Rutland, who had been his pupil at the University. Lastly, in July, 1782, he was promoted to the bishopric of Llandaff, by the Prime Minister of that period Lord Shelburne, who hoped thereby both to gratify the Duke of Rutland, and also to secure an active partisan.

Watson, however, proved a very unmanageable bishop, and during the course of his political career was singularly free and independent in his sentiments. One of his first acts was to publish in 1783, 'A Letter to Archbishop Cornwallis on the Church Revenues, recommending an equalization of the Bishoprics.' This he did in spite of all that could be said to make him see that it would embarrass the Government, and at the same time do nothing to forward his own object. And so he continued to take his own way, and was very soon left to do so, without any party or person seeking either to guide or stop him.

In 1783 Bishop Watson had married the eldest daughter of Edward Wilson of Dalham Tower in Westmoreland. In the year 1789 he retired from politics and betook himself to an estate which he had at Calgarth, on the banks of Winandermere, occupying himself in educating his family, and in agricultural improvements, especially planting, for which he received a medal from the Society of Arts in 1789.

Previous to this, in 1786, his friend and former pupil, Mr. Luther, of Ongar in Essex, had left him an estate which he sold for more than 20,000_l._ Bishop Watson died on the 4th of June, 1816, in his seventy-ninth year. His writings are very numerous and miscellaneous in their character; some of the more well known are:--an 'Apology for Christianity,' written in 1776 in answer to Gibbon; a 'Collection of Theological Tracts, selected from various Authors, for the use of the Younger Students in the University,' in six volumes 8vo., 1785; 'Apology for the Bible, in a series of Letters addressed to Thomas Paine,' 1796; and, 'An Address to the People of Great Britain,' which went through fourteen editions, 1798.

One of the best practical results of his chemical studies was the suggestion which he made to the Duke of Richmond, at that time Master of the Ordnance, respecting the preparation of charcoal for gunpowder, by burning the wood in close vessels, a process very materially improving the quality of the powder, and which is now generally adopted.--_Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, written by himself._ London, 1817.--_Memoir by Dr. Thomas Young, Encyclopædia Britannica._--_English Cyclopædia._

JAMES WATT, LL.D., F.R.S. L. and E., &c.

MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE.

Born at Greenock on the Clyde, 1736. Died August 25, 1819.

To James Watt, philosopher, mechanician, and civil engineer, whose genius perfected the control of one of the greatest revealed powers yet given to man, may well be applied the saying of Wellington, "That which makes a great general makes a great artist, the power and the determination to overcome difficulties." Born with a sickly temperament, and prevented thereby from attending school, or indulging in the usual healthy play of children, Watt, unassisted by others, devoted his time to study, and in retirement and reflection laid the foundation of knowledge destined to bear such ample fruit. In addition to mere book knowledge, he early exhibited a partiality for mechanical contrivances and operations, and this determined him to commence his career as a mathematical instrument maker. For this purpose he set out for Glasgow in 1754, but owing to the limited resources of the town at that period, he finally decided on going to London, where, after great difficulty, he was apprenticed for a twelvemonth to an instrument maker in Finch Lane. At the end of his apprenticeship Watt, having become enfeebled from over attention to work, repaired to Greenock to recruit his health, and ultimately returned to Glasgow, where he was established by the authorities, within the precincts of the college as mathematical instrument maker to the University. In process of time Watt's shop became a favourite resort for professors as well as students, and he counted among his visitors Professor Simson, Drs. Black, Dick, and Moor;[47] but his most intimate friend, and the one most closely connected with his after life, was John Robison, a student at Glasgow, afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University, to whom the honour is due of having first directed Watt's attention to the steam-engine. The event which actually led to the commencement of his invaluable discoveries on this subject, was the entrusting to him the repair of a small model of Newcomen's engine, which the college possessed. In his endeavours to put this engine into working order, Watt was led to investigate thoroughly the properties of steam upon which its action depended; and ultimately in the spring of 1765, after many trials and untiring perseverance, he arrived at the great and simple idea of a separate condenser, into which the steam expanded; thereby preventing that wasteful expenditure of heat, which was the necessary result of the old plan of condensing the steam in the working cylinder, by admitting a jet of cold water directly under the piston. In addition to this Watt surrounded the cylinder with a second casing to be filled with the surplus steam, for the purpose of preventing radiation of heat, and closed in the top (which in Newcomen's engine had been left open for the sake of the pressure of the atmosphere upon the piston) by putting a cover on, with a hole and stuffing box for the piston rod to slide through; a plan which enabled steam pressure to be used in place of atmospheric. Newcomen's engine, at this time used only for pumping out water in mines, thus became a true steam-engine of immense power, capable of being worked with economy, and of being turned to the various uses to which science has since applied it. For these great improvements a patent, dated January 5, 1769, was taken out by Watt and Dr. Roebuck, the founder of the Carron iron works, with whom Watt had become acquainted. Little, however, was done for some years in manufacturing engines on a large scale; Roebuck fell into difficulties, while Watt, harassed, depressed in spirits, and in want of money, was forced to obtain employment as a civil engineer and land-surveyor. Among the many works that he was engaged on in this capacity may be mentioned: the Crinan Canal, afterwards completed by Rennie; the deepening of the river Clyde; improvements in the harbours of Ayr, Port Glasgow, and Greenock; the building of bridges at Hamilton and Rutherglen; and lastly, surveying and estimating a line of canal between Fort William and Inverness, which was subsequently executed by Telford on a larger scale than was then proposed, under the name of the Caledonian Canal. In the latter half of the year 1773 Roebuck's affairs came to a crisis; and Watt, through the agency of Dr. Small, having been brought into relation with Mr. Boulton, a man possessing an intimate knowledge of business, with extended views and a liberal spirit of enterprise, an arrangement was entered into between them, and the firm of Boulton and Watt established at Soho. This was the turning point in Watt's fortunes; under the vigorous management of Boulton, his great invention at length began to be appreciated, and the saving of fuel was found to be nearly three-fourths of the quantity consumed by Newcomen's engine. In 1775 an extension of the original patent until the year 1800 was obtained. This gave a fresh stimulus to Watt's fertile brain, and resulted in patents being taken out, between the years 1781-1785, for the rotatory motion of the sun and planet wheels (the crank having been pirated by Wasbrough), _the expansive principle of working steam_; _the double engine_; _the parallel motion_; _the smokeless furnace_; _the float to regulate the supply of water into the boiler_; and _the governor_. At a later period Watt also invented the indicator, by means of which the actual horse power of an engine could be ascertained. This beautiful series of inventions in a measure may be said to have perfected the machine, and at the present time the condensing steam engine differs in no material respect from the engine as Watt left it.

While residing at Birmingham, Mr. Watt's house became the resort of many learned men. In the meetings of the Lunar Society, held at Soho House, originated his experiments on water, and between him and Cavendish is the honour divided of having first promulgated the theory of its composition. During the dispute which arose upon this subject, Watt's reply, on a friend regretting that another should have carried off this honour, is worth recording, as showing the modest dignity of his character: "It matters not," said he, "whether Cavendish discovered this or I, it is discovered."

In the year 1800 Mr. Watt, having acquired an ample competency, ceased to take an active part in the business of the firm, and the remainder of his life was spent in retirement; but his active mind, still unwearied, continued to follow its natural bent. On two occasions afterwards, in 1811 and 1812, he gave proofs of the undiminished powers of his inventive genius. In the one instance he was induced, by his grateful recollections of his residence in Glasgow, to assist the proprietors of the waterworks there with a plan for supplying the town with better water, by means of a suction pipe laid across the Clyde to reach to the other side, where water of a very superior quality might be procured. This pipe was formed of cast iron, with flexible joints, after the manner of a lobster's tail, so as to accommodate itself to the bed of the river, and fully answered the purpose for which it was designed. In the other instance he was prevailed upon, by the earnest solicitation of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to attend a deputation of the Navy Board, and to give, with his friend Captain Huddart and Mr. J. Jessop, an opinion upon the works then carrying on at Sheerness Dockyard, and the further ones projected by Messrs. Rennie and Whitby. On this occasion he no less gratified the gentlemen associated with him by the clearness of his general views, than by his knowledge of the details; and he received the thanks of the Admiralty for his services. In 1814 he yielded to the wishes of his friends, of Dr. Brewster especially, and undertook a revision of Professor Robison's articles on steam and steam-engines for an early edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, which he enriched with valuable notes, containing his own experiments on steam, and a short history of his principal improvements upon the engine itself. Among other mechanical contrivances of Mr. Watt's may be mentioned: a machine for copying letters; an instrument for measuring the specific gravity of fluids; a regulator lamp; a plan for heating buildings by steam; and a contrivance for drying linen. In his eighty-third year, Mr. Watt was still occupied in inventing a machine for copying statues, but this remained unfinished, death arrested his hand; he died in the year 1819, at Heathfield, in Staffordshire; and thus, full of years and honours, ended the life of a man who, though born in a secluded village town, and reared in comparative poverty, was yet enabled, by persevering industry and the happy gifts of nature, to contribute so greatly to the commercial prosperity of the world.

Mr. Watt was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1784, of the Royal Society of London in 1785, and a corresponding member of the Batavian Society in 1787. In 1806 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the spontaneous and unanimous vote of the Senate of the University of Glasgow; and in 1808 he was elected, first a corresponding, and afterwards a foreign member of the Institute of France. A few years before his death it was intimated to him, by a message from Sir Joseph Banks, that, to use the words of Mr. Muirhead, the highest honour usually conferred in England on men of literature and science--namely a baronetcy, was open to him, should he desire it; but, although Watt felt flattered by this intimation, he determined, after consulting with his son, to decline the honour.

Five statues have been erected to the memory of this illustrious man, of which number the one in Westminster Abbey, by Chantrey, bears on its pedestal the famous inscription by Lord Brougham:--

NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH BUT TO SHEW THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNT TO HONOUR THOSE WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE THE KING HIS MINISTERS AND MANY OF THE NOBLES AND COMMONERS OF THIS REALM RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO JAMES WATT WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE STEAM ENGINE ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX.

--_Muirhead's Translation of Arago's Historical Eloge of James Watt._ London, 1839.--_Memoir, by his son J. Watt_, _Encyclopædia Britannica_.--_Quarterly Review_, October, 1858.

WILLIAM H. WOLLASTON, M.D., P.R.S. &c.

Born August 6, 1766. Died December 22, 1828.

William Hyde Wollaston was born at East Dereham, a village sixteen miles from Norwich. His father was an astronomer of some eminence, who in the year 1800 published an extensive catalogue of the northern circumpolar stars. After a preparatory education, Wollaston entered at Caius College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.B. in 1787, and that of M.D. in 1793; soon afterwards he became a Tancred Fellow. During his residence at Cambridge, he devoted himself more to the study of astronomy than any other science.

On leaving Cambridge in 1789, he settled at Bury St. Edmunds, and began to practise as a physician, but met with so little success, that he soon removed to London. Shortly after his arrival, he became a candidate for the office of Physician to St. George's Hospital, but was defeated by the election of his principal opponent, Dr. Pemberton. It is stated that this circumstance had such an effect on Wollaston, that he declared, in a moment of pique, he would abandon the profession, and never more write a prescription, were it for his own father. This statement is, however, contradicted in a biographical notice of him, contained in the reports of the Astronomical Society, where it is affirmed that he continued to practise physic in London to the end of the year 1800, when an accession of fortune determined him to relinquish a profession he never liked, and to devote himself entirely to science.

On the 9th of May, 1793, Wollaston was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in June, 1797, appeared his first contribution to the 'Philosophical Transactions,' being a paper 'On Gouty and Urinary Concretions.' From this period until his decease, Wollaston was a constant contributor to the 'Transactions,' as well as to various scientific journals. His papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions' amount to thirty-nine, and, in addition to strictly chemical subjects, include memoirs in astronomy, optics, mechanics, acoustics, mineralogy, crystallography, physiology, and botany.

On the 30th of November, 1804, he was elected Junior Secretary to the Royal Society; and on the death of Sir Joseph Banks, in June, 1820, succeeded him in the President's chair, until the anniversary, November 30th of the same year, when he retired in favour of Sir Humphry Davy, to whom, at the election, he gave the whole weight of his influence.

In the years 1804-5 Wollaston first made known to the world the existence of the two metals, palladium and rhodium, which he found were contained in the ore of platinum, associated with osmium and iridium, two metals discovered about the same time by Mr. Tennant. In 1809 he showed that the supposed new metal, tantalum, was identical with columhium, previously discovered by Mr. Hatchett; and shortly before his death, he transmitted to the Royal Society a communication, constituting the Bakerian lecture of 1828, in which he fully describes his ingenius method of rendering platinum malleable. From this invention he is stated to have acquired more than 30,000_l._

Dr. Wollaston's knowledge was more varied, and his tastes less exclusive, than any other philosopher of his time, except Cavendish; but optics and chemistry are the two sciences in which he made the greatest discoveries. To him we owe the first demonstration of the identity of galvanism and common electricity, and the first explanation of the cause of the different phenomena exhibited by them. Dr. Wollaston was accustomed to carry on his experiments in the greatest seclusion, and with very few instruments; he was also endowed with an extreme neatness of hand, and invented the most ingenious methods of determining the properties and constituents of very minute quantities of matter. It is related by Dr. Paris (in his Life of Davy), that a foreign philosopher once calling on Wollaston with letters of introduction, expressed a great desire to see his laboratory. "Certainly," replied Wollaston, and immediately produced a small tray, containing some glass tubes, a blowpipe, two or three watch-glasses, a slip of platinum, and a few test-tubes.

Another anecdote is told of him, that, having been engaged one day in inspecting a monster galvanic battery constructed by Mr. Children, he accidentally met, on his way home, a brother chemist, who knew of Mr. Children's grand machine, and uttered something about the inconvenience of it being of such an enormous size; on this Wollaston seized his friend by the button, led him into a bye corner, where, taking from his waistcoat pocket a tailor's thimble which contained a galvanic arrangement, and pouring into it the contents of a small phial, he astonished his friend by immediately heating a platinum wire to a white heat. He also produced platinum wire so extremely fine as to be nearly imperceptible to the naked eye.