Boulton Watt patents

The steam-power systems in Trevithick s youth were massive hut lightly loaded low-pressure engines. This technology was controlled by Boulton Watt, whose business acumen had extended patents far beyond their normal expiration dates. The royalties typically took one-third of the savings in fuel over the Newcomen atmospheric engine. Another necessary evil was the expense of fuel, as coal was not locally mined. Cornish engineers worked incessantly to design and invent their way past these limitations. 

Working around the Watt patents, he ensured safety while progressively raising the pressure of his systems to ten times atmospheric pressure, avoiding Watt s condenser altogether. This threat to the income of Boulton Watt was met vcitli a court injnnction to stop the construction and operation of Trevithick s systems. Boulton Watt had ruined... 

Retiring from their business just as the patents began to expire in 1800, the firm of Boulton Watt was turned over to the junior Boulton and Watt as its industrial preeminence slipped away and royalties dwindled. Watt s friends and family aged and passed. 

As we have already seen, in the 1790s, narratives of Watt s steam engine improvements were produced in connection with the patent trials of that decade in which Boulton Watt confronted legally people whom they regarded as pirates of their engines. John Robison s testimony in Boulton Watt v. Horn-blower and Maberley was his first venture into describing Watt s route to the separate condenser. In the course of his testimony Robison emphasized the philosophical nature of Watt s approach, saying that all became science in his hands . 

He concentrated on the steam and boiler design and reeeived for his vertical steam boiler and an improved Savery-type steam engine the patent in 1791. The experimental boat Polacca was tried on Passaic River, but proved unsuccessful. In 1800 Stevens became consulting engineer for the water supply of New York City. He convinced the directors that steam pumping should be used, but Boulton Watt engines were adopted. 

Watt became very despondent, and in his anxiety to relieve Dr. Roebuck of the financial losses that threatened he looked around for other help. This luckily came to hand in the person of Matthew Boulton, the son of a Birmingham engineer, whom Watt had met during a journey to London for the purpose of securing his patent. Thus was set up the famous partnership of Boulton and Watt that so greatly enriched the profession of engineering."... 

---