James Watt and Heriot-Watt University

James Watt’s innovations in energy and engineering have inspired students since the origin the Edinburgh School of Arts, the world’s first mechanics institute, in 1821.

The School is now known as Heriot-Watt University.

In 2018, we caught up with Angela Edgar, the then curator at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. She talked about the foundation of the institution – and what visitors can see at the University’s Riccarton campus, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The site includes a free museum which is open to the public. 

Angela also spoke in more detail about the statue which dominates the entrance to the  University’s Riccarton site – and the foundation of the University’s Alumni Association, The Watt Club. 

The University staged an exhibition as part of the James Watt 2019 celebrations which took place across the UK.

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The University’s longstanding connections with James Watt have a special place in its museum and archive collections. Highlights include:

• Portrait in oils of James Watt by Sir William Beechey, 1801
  Watt’s favourite portrait is on display in the University Museum and Archive, Mary Burton Centre, Acquired by the University in 2002, with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Fund for Acquisitions and the Watt Club.
• Watt’s Patent Roller copying press. Maker: James Watt and Company, 1780s. This was the world’s first successful letter copying machine, which he patented in 1780. It enabled him to keep copies of his outgoing letters without having to rewrite each one.
• A model showing Watt’s improvements to Newcomen’s steam engine, made by one of the first students of Edinburgh School of Arts, James Nasmyth, inventor of the steam hammer.
• A sandstone statue of James Watt by Peter Slater, teacher of ornamental modelling at the Watt Institution and School of Arts, unveiled on 12 May 1854. Students celebrated the event by forming the Watt Club. Today the Watt Club is the oldest UK HEI alumni association and fosters lifelong links with alumni throughout the world. The statue sits at the entrance to the University’s James Watt Centre at the Edinburgh campus.
• Chantrey’s Watt Statue. Peter Slater’s statue is a copy of one of the iconic memorial sculptures of Watt by Sir Frances Chantrey. In 1996, the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral gave Heriot-Watt University a fine Carrara marble statue of Watt by Chantrey. Commissioned as a national monument to Watt, the statue originally sat in Westminster Abbey. It is currently on loan to National Museums Scotland for display in the Grand Gallery.
• A chair belonging to Watt, used in his Soho Foundry. Donated by the daughter of James Watt Junior’s accountant in 1924.
• A portrait of James Watt by W Bright Morris after the original by Charles F Von Breda, displayed in the James Watt Centre
• A portrait of James Watt in oils by Robert Harvey. Once owned by descendants of Watt’s mother, Agnes Muirhead.
• Framed proposal for James Watt memorial (Greenock)