James Watt the younger

James Watt Junior, FRS (5 February 1769 – 2 June 1848) was a Scottish engineer, businessman and activist.

He was born on 5 February 1769, the son of James Watt by his first wife Margaret Miller, and half-brother of Gregory Watt. He was educated at Winson Green near Birmingham, by Rev. Henry Pickering. His father was unable to find a better school, though dissatisfied with his son's progress.

At age 15 Watt spent a year at the Bersham Ironworks of John Wilkinson; and then went to Geneva. There he lodged with Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure, and knew Marc-Auguste Pictet and Jean-André Deluc. Subsequently, he studied German in Eisenach.

In 1788 Watt returned to England and a position in the textile trade in Manchester. Initially he worked at Taylor & Maxwell, makers of fustian, where Charles Taylor was a partner. Watt worked there in the counting-house. He was then employed by the Manchester radical Thomas Walker, changing jobs just before the Priestley Riots of July 1791.

The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society was just one of a number of intellectual groups in Manchester at that period: Walker, Watt, Thomas Cooper and Samuel Jackson were leaders in the discussion of liberal reform and the views of Adam Smith. Watt became secretary of the Society in 1790, with John Ferriar. At this point Watt's interests were rather broad: Jacob Joseph Winterl the Hungarian chemist, Christoph Meiners, the Dictionary of Chemistry started by James Keir.

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