WATT, JAMES

born Jan. 19, 1736, Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scot. died Aug. 25, 1819, Heathfield Hall, near Birmingham, Warwick, Eng. Watt, oil painting by H. Howard; in the National Portrait Gallery, London Scottish instrument maker and inventor whose steam engine contributed substantially to the Industrial Revolution. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1785. Additional reading H.W. Dickinson, James Watt, Craftsman and Engineer (1936), is a scholarly biography with a bibliography and a detailed, illustrated account of all the inventions associated with the steam engine. H.W. Dickinson and H.P. Vowles, James Watt and the Industrial Revolution (1943), places Watt in this historical context.