The British instrument maker and engineer James Watt (1736-1819) developed an efficient steam engine which was a universal source of power and thereby provided one of the most essential technological components of the early industrial revolution.

James Watt was born on Jan. 19, 1736, in Greenock, Scotland, the son of a shipwright and merchant of ship's stores. He received an elementary education in school, but of much more interest to him was his father's store, where the boy had his own tools and forge and where he skillfully made models of the ship's gear surrounding him. In 1755 he was apprenticed to a London mathematical instrument maker; at that time the trade primarily produced navigational and surveying instruments. A year later he returned to Scotland. By late 1757 Watt was established in Glasgow as "mathematical instrument maker to the university."

About this time Watt met Joseph Black, who had already laid the...