James Watt was one of the great pioneers of the steam engine. After a year in London, Watt set up in business as a mathematical instrument-maker in Glasgow (1754). The University gave him work and allowed him to set up in a room within the college grounds. It was here that a model of Thomas Newcomen's engine was sent to Watt for repair between 1763 and 1764. As he worked with the model, he noticed how difficult it was to operate and maintain, so he began to study the properties of steam, pressure, boilers and valves. He conceived the idea of introducing a separate condenser to the steam engine, improving its efficiency by a factor of about three. After a visit to England to patent his idea (granted in 1769) he teamed up with Matthew Boulton, a manufacturer based in Soho, Birmingham, to produce the engines. Watt's engine soon superseded many of the old atmospheric engines and between 1781 to 1785 he made several improvements to its design, patenting its double-action motion, smokeless furnace and 'sun-and-planet' gears to name but a few. He retired after the engine's patent rights ran out (1800) leaving the management of the Soho works to Boulton's sons and to his own son. His engine revolutionized the power and manufacturing industries of the time and he will always be associated with the term power. In 1783 he was the first to use the unit of horsepower, which has now been superseded by the SI unit of power, the watt.
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