[Fac-simile of an old print.]
CHAPTER V.
James Watt—Lineage and Birthplace—Boyhood and Apprenticeship.
James Watt was born at Greenock, on the Clyde, on the 19th of January, 1736. His parents were of the middle class, industrious, intelligent, and religious people, with a character for probity which had descended to them from their “forbears,” and was cherished as their proudest inheritance. James Watt was thus emphatically well-born. His father and grandfather both held local offices of trust, and honourable mention is made of them in the records of Greenock. His grandfather, Thomas Watt, was the first of the family who lived in that neighbourhood. He had migrated thither from the county of Aberdeen, where his father was a small farmer in the time of Charles I. It is supposed that he took part with the Covenanters in resisting the Marquis of Montrose in his sudden descent upon Aberdeen at the head of his wild Highlanders in the autumn of 1644; and that the Covenanting farmer was killed in one of the battles that ensued. The district was ravaged by the victorious Royalists; the crops were destroyed, cattle lifted, dwellings burnt; and many of the inhabitants fled southwards for refuge in more peaceful districts. Hence Thomas Watt’s migration to Cartsdyke, where we find him settled as a teacher of navigation and mathematics, about the middle of the seventeenth century.
CRAWFORDSBURN HOUSE, NEAR GREENOCK.
Cartsdyke, or Crawfordsdyke, was then a village situated a little to the east of Greenock, though now forming part of it. Crawfordsburn House, still standing, was the residence of the lord of the manor, and is a good specimen of the old-fashioned country mansion. It is beautifully situated on the high ground overlooking the Clyde. In former times a green slope stretched down from it towards the beach, along which lay the village, consisting of about a hundred cottages, mostly thatched. Cartsdyke was, however, in early times, a place of greater importance than Greenock. It had a pier, which Greenock as yet had not; and from this pier the first Clyde ship which crossed the Atlantic sailed for Darien in 1697. What little enterprise existed in the neighbourhood was identified with Cartsdyke rather than with Greenock; and hence Thomas Watt’s preference for it, in setting up there as a teacher. He, too, like his sire, seems to have been a sturdy Covenanter; for we find him, in 1683, refusing to take the test in favour of prelacy, and he was consequently proclaimed to be a “disorderly schoolmaster officiating contrary to law.” He nevertheless continued the teaching of the mathematics, in which he seems to have prospered, as, besides marrying a wife, he shortly after bought the house and garden which he occupied, and subsequently added to his possessions a tenement in the neighbouring village of Greenock.
From the nature of his calling, it is obvious that he must have been a thoughtful and intelligent person;[51] and that he was a man of excellent character is clear from the confidence he inspired in those who had the best opportunities of knowing him. When William and Mary were confirmed in their occupancy of the British throne, shortly after the Revolution of 1688, one of the first acts of Mr. Crawford, of Crawfordsburn, the feudal superior, was to appoint Thomas Watt baillie of the barony—a position of local importance, involving the direction of public affairs within the limits of his jurisdiction.
A few years later, the Kirk Session of Greenock, having found him “blameless in life and conversation,” appointed him an Elder of the parish, when it became part of his duty to overlook not only the religious observances, but the manners and morals, of the little community. Kirk Sessions did not then confine themselves to ecclesiastical affairs, but assumed the function of magistrates, and almost exercised the powers of an inquisition. One of their most important duties was to provide for the education of the rising generation, in pursuance of the injunction of John Knox, “that no father, of what estate or condition that ever he may be, use his children at his own fantasie, especially in their youthhead; but all must be compelled to bring up their children in learning and virtue,”—words which lie at the root of much of Scotland’s mental culture, as well as, probably, of its material prosperity. In 1696 the Act was passed by the Scotch Parliament which is usually regarded as the charter of the Scotch parish-school system; and in the following year the Kirk Session of Greenock proceeded to make provision for the establishment of their parish school, which continued until the Town Council superseded it by the Grammar School, at which James Watt, the future engineer, received the best part of his school education.
After holding the offices of Presbytery Elder and Kirk Treasurer for some time, Thomas Watt craved leave to retire into private life. He was seventy years old, and felt infirmities growing upon him. The plea was acknowledged, and the request granted; and on his retirement from office the Kirk Session recorded on their minutes that Thomas Watt had been found “diligent and faithful in the management of his trust.” He died at the age of 92, and was buried in the old kirkyard of Greenock, where his tombstone is still to be seen. He is there described as “Professor of Mathematics in Crawfordsdyk.” Not far from his grave lie, “mouldering in silent dust,” the remains of Burns’s Highland Mary, who died while on a visit to a relative at Greenock.
Two sons survived the “Professor,” John and James, who were well settled in life when the old man died. John, the elder, was trained by his father in mathematics and surveying; for some time officiating under him as clerk to the barony of Cartsdyke, and afterwards removing to Glasgow, where he began business on his own account. In the year that his father died (1734) he made the first survey of the river Clyde; but he died shortly after, and the map was published by his nephew. James, the engineer’s father, was bound apprentice to a carpenter and shipwright at Cartsdyke, and on the expiry of his term he set up business for himself in the same line at Greenock.