Industrial Revolution Biographies | James Watt Biography

Born January 19, 1736

Greenock, Scotland

Died August 25, 1819

Heathfield, England

Scottish engineer, inventor

"The problem of which Watt solved a part is not the problem of inventing a machine, but the problem of using and storing the forces of nature which now go to waste."

—Andrew Carnegie on James Watt.

James Watt is often credited with inventing the steam engine, but this distinction belongs to others. Instead, he adapted the invention of others to make the steam engine a practicable means of providing power to operate a wide range of machines. Such machines were the hallmark of the Industrial Revolution, a period of fast-paced economic change that began in Great Britain in the middle of the eighteenth century. In this sense, James Watt could be described as the father of the Industrial Revolution.

Watt's steam engine was the...