James Watt descendant welcomes renaming of University of Glasgow's School of Engineering

摘要

Two hundred years after the death of James Watt, the University of Glasgow is renaming its School of Engineering after him—with the blessing of one particular member of staff who has a family connection to Watt. Debbie Beales, who works in the university's health, safety and wellbeing unit, recently discovered that her family line leads six generations back directly to James Watt. He was working as an instrument maker at the university of Glasgow, when he improved a Newcomen steam engine by adding a separate condenser that made it vastly more efficient. That was in 1765, and he died on 25 August 1819 (in Birmingham).