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Early indications that the weekend's Times article has disturbed the hagiography around James Watt. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/da2c9752-acee-11ea-adef-7962e28cd764?shareToken=b9e698f095b72c249a05a5731946c83c I don't think the question should be why was article published, instead why was there such an uncritical British WattFest just last.
Firstly, I'm a reluctant, unintentional scholar of Watt. He came into my view as part of research on the University of Glasgow's Slavery report in 2018 (he donated a bequest in 1808). With help of @uofglibrary I sourced microfilms from this collection: http://www.ampltd.co.uk/digital_guides/industrial_revolution/nature%20and%20scope%20of%20the%20microfilm%20project.aspx
Simultaneously, Dr Malcom Dick of UofBirmingham invited me to contribute to this. Malcolm had foresight to realise Watt's murky past required a fresh eye (the connections had been previously mooted). And Fiona Tait, archivist, who catalogued B&W collection https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/51539/
I was later successful in fellowship application to @HistoryWM which allowed me to go to the archives, which resulted in this podcast (and contributed to ongoing chapter). https://historywm.com/podcasts/james-watt-and-slavery-the-untold-story This has been online since Sept. 2019, but can appreciate why story prominent now.
There is a plethora of evidence that allows Watt's hagiography to be rewritten, and allows the importance of wealth from Atlantic slavery to be written into his story: as it might have been from the start.
His father, James Watt senior (1698-1782) was involved with the Atlantic trades in Greenock for c.20 years. Representatives traded tobacco, sugar and occasionally trafficked enslaved people in North Carolina & WI. eg. BA&C, MS3219/1/100, ‘James Hunter to James Watt’, 5 June 1740
Watt's apprenticeship fees in London in 1755-6 were twenty guineas (£21 sterling). Watt revealed he had drawn £20 sterling ‘according to your [his father’s] orders’, presumably to pay the apprenticeship fee.
This was no rags to riches story; instead the privileged son of a colonial merchant was subsidised in London over a year to learn new skills. £21 was seven years wages of a servant in 1750s (not including living costs, which his father also paid).
On his return to Glasgow in September 1756, he immediately acted as agent for his father’s business, trading general goods and, on occasion, slave-grown produce. On 27 September 1756 Watt junior noted a ‘great error’ in the prices charged in the tobacco account.
A key episode refers to the importation of a black child, Frederick in 1762.
‘ Greenock 17 March 1762'
Re[ceive]d from John Watt[:] a Black Boy which I promise to deliver to Mr John Warrand
Merch[an]
t
in Glasgow
Walter McAdam’
[MS 3219/3/71b/61]
‘ Greenock 17 March 1762'
Re[ceive]d from John Watt[:] a Black Boy which I promise to deliver to Mr John Warrand
Merch[an]
t
in Glasgow
Walter McAdam’
[MS 3219/3/71b/61]
See also [MS 3219/3/71b/62], which describes ‘ List of Cloths for Black Boy March 1762’.
Birmingham Archives have recently provided an updated list of these transcriptions. See here: http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/app_themes/customer/images/bah-source-Slavery%20in%20Archives%20of%20Soho.pdf
Birmingham Archives have recently provided an updated list of these transcriptions. See here: http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/app_themes/customer/images/bah-source-Slavery%20in%20Archives%20of%20Soho.pdf
I photographed a letter in Birmingham Archives MS 3219/3/92/96 related to the trafficking of the child to a Scottish gentry family. The above pdf says addressed to 'James Watt'. In fact, the letter was addressed to 'James Watt junior'.
In other words - and this was a revelation to me, and I presume most other people - it was the great improver, James Watt (1736- 1819), not James Watt senior (1698-1782) involved.
This letter says: ‘I am surprised I have never heard anything of my Black boy. If he is not gone North I beg
you will send him by the first opportunity directed for Brodie House near Forres'. [1/2]
you will send him by the first opportunity directed for Brodie House near Forres'. [1/2]
I shall be glad to have your answer in course of post and an account of what he has cost you since his
arrival at Greenock and the cost of my Letters. I am sensible you have been at a good deal of
Trouble upon my account'.
arrival at Greenock and the cost of my Letters. I am sensible you have been at a good deal of
Trouble upon my account'.
Now we can speculate if James Watt was operating for his father, his brother or his own account. This seems irrelevant. There is direct, verifiable evidence that a Scottish gentry owner a) presumed James Watt was in charge of the child, and b) had worked hard on his own account.
It is verifiable James Watt's a) father was involved with slave trading, b) he supported his sons education which would otherwise have been impossible, c) Watt himself involved with colonial commerce for years in Glasgow, which one 1 occasion involved trafficking of a child.
In Capitalism and Slavery, historian Eric Williams also argued capital accumulated from the West India trades by merchant houses underpinned the financing of the Boulton & Watt steam engine. See Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, (London: Andre Deutsch edn., 1964), pp.102-3.
In Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams argued capital accumulated from the West India trades by merchant houses underpinned the financing of the Boulton & Watt steam engine. See Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, (London: Andre Deutsch edn., 1964), pp.102-3.
It is doubtful whether James Watt exported steam-engines to Caribbean planters and in fact, there is direct evidence that he was queasy with the relationship in 1791 (likely reputational). But the above evidence reveals he had no such questions of morality in 1760s Scotland.
