Friday 30 August to Sunday 1 September 2019

University of Birmingham Arts Building, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT

Friday 30 August

16.30 – 17.00
Registration and drinks reception

17.00 – 17.15
Introduction
Malcolm Dick

17.15 – 17.40
‘Reimagining Watt’s world’, Kathleen Bell

17.40 – 18.30
Keynote 1 and book launch
‘The Life and Legend of James Watt: Collaboration, Natural Philosophy, and the Improvement of the Steam Engine’, David Philip Miller

Paperbacks of the book will be available for sale at a reduced rate

18.30 – 20.00

Drinks and buffet dinner

Saturday 31 August

9.00 – 9.30
Registration and refreshments

9.30 – 9.40
Introduction
Malcolm Dick

9.40 – 10.20
Keynote 2
‘Thinking outside the box’: James Watt, a mechanic who became an engineer’, Peter Jones

10.20 – 10.30
Comfort break

10.30 – 11.45
Session A: Representations of Watt

‘James Watt in print - a survey’, Martin Killeen

 ‘From machine to man to myth and back again: representation of James Watt and the Boulton & Watt beam engine at the National Museum of Scotland’, Kate Bowell

 ‘Does size matter? James Eckford Lauder and his monumental memorialisation of Watt’, Helen Smailes

11.45 – 12.05
Refreshments break

12.05 – 13.20
Session B: Watt and the Steam Engine

‘The first working Watt steam engine in the world – servant to a water wheel’, George Demidowicz 

‘Innovation: whisky, copper & sugar’, William Whitehead

 ‘James Watt and the Crank Company’, John Townley

13.20 – 14.10
Lunch

14.10 – 15.25
Session C: Contextualising the Steam Engine

‘James Watt in context: steam engine building 1776-1800’, John Kanefsky

 ‘The steam engine and the sugar isles: the use of James Watt’s steam engine in the sugar plantations of the British West Indies (1783-1820)’, Alastair Learmont 

‘The dark side of steam: boiler explosions in the nineteenth-century West Midlands’, Sarah Jordan

15.25 – 15.45
Refreshments break

15.45 – 17.00
Session D: Beyond Steam: Watt the Innovator

‘James Watt: the inveterate inventor’, Jim Andrews  

‘Diverse perspectives on James Watt’s letter-copier process’, Roger Farnham 

‘Interrupted experiments in optics - James Watt and the extemporised camera obscura, Rose Teanby

17.00 – 17.20
Refreshments break

17.20 – 18.35
Session E: Legacies

‘The Watt Institution: James Watt’s legacy in Greenock’, Lorraine Murray 

‘Innovations in steam power in Greenock in the 1920s: the Orchard Sugar Refining Company Limited and steam ploughing’, Heather Holmes

‘Evidence, provenance and a ‘tin ear’: the case for James Watt’s musical instruments’, Nina Baker

18.35 - 18.50
Break and drinks reception

18.50 - 19.30
Keynote 3
’James Watt & Co, industrializing gas technology’, Leslie Tomory

19.30 - 21.00
Buffet dinner

Sunday 1 September

9.00 – 9.30
Registration and refreshments

9.30 – 9.40
Introduction
Malcolm Dick

9.40 – 10.20
Keynote 4
“Of material service to him”: Margaret Miller Watt and Ann McGregor Watt, wives of James Watt’, Kate Croft

10.20 – 10.30
Refreshments Break

10.30 – 11.45
Session F: Watt and His Family

‘Ill health and some remedies in the papers of James Watt and family’, Fiona Tait

‘Gregory Watt in primary material: a preliminary investigation’, Harry Wilkins

‘The personal documents of James Watt’, Eleanor Beestin

11.45 – 12.05
Refreshments break

12.05 – 13.20
Session G: Sons and Associates

‘Gregory Watt and Humphrey Davy’s early chemistry’, Frank James

‘Clever, but eccentric friends: James Watt junior. and Thomas Cooper during the Age of Revolutions’, Sami Pinarbasi

‘James Watt junior, Richard Bridgens & Aston Hall’, Chris Rice

13.20 – 14.10
Lunch

14.10 – 15.25
Session H: Apprentices and Engineers

“Idle & saucy”: apprentice boys at Soho Foundry’, Caitlin Russell

‘Hidden histories: Boulton & Watt’s skilled engineers’, Christopher Olive

‘Genius from below: James Watt through William Playfair’s eyes’, Jean-François Dunyach

15.25 – 15.45
Refreshments break

15.45 – 17.00
Session I: Reassessments

‘The aunt with the kettle’, Frances Green

‘James Watt’s patent for the separate condenser: revisionism revisited’, Alessandro Nuvolari’

‘Curatorial Cultures: H W Dickinson, James Watt and the history of technology, 1919-1930’, Ben Russell

17.00 – 17.10
Break

17.10 – 17.50
Keynote 5

‘From apples to watts: power and its meaning in the twenty-first century’, Stuart Hillmansen

17.50 – 18.00
Conclusion
Malcolm Dick