| Ref No | MS 3219/3/3/3/3 |
| Finding Number | MS 3219/3/98 |
| Title | Incoming letters to James Watt of Greenock concerning general business, orders and shipping in Europe, North America, Antigua etc. |
| Level | File |
| Date | 1740 - 1746 |
| Description | 53 items. There are 7 bundles of papers arranged by year, some containing only one item. the letters include mainly shipping orders from agents in America, Antigua and Europe, and insurance papers for ships and cargoes, especially of tar, turpentine, pitch etc.
The 1741 bundle includes many letters from Neil Buchanan about insurance, and losses of the ships 'Diligence' and 'Mary & Jean', and accounts of a robbery committed by the Ensign John Dalrymple in Jamaica.
The 1745 bundle includes information on the prices and types of tobacco in Hamburg.
The 1746 bundle includes letters from Archibald Cochran, merchant in Antigua, about his brother John, whom he wishes to come out to join him. He also mentions that he is to marry 'a young lady of this island' with a fortune of £3,000 - £4,000. |
| Extent | 1 |
| Format | File |
| Related Material | A single receipt from 1744 was discovered at Doldowlod in 2002 and donated to the City Archives. It is listed in the ‘Later additions to the papers of James Watt and Family’ part of the MS 3219 catalogue.
The Watt and Muirhead papers were microfilmed by Adam Matthew Publications as part of Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History. ‘Muirhead I’ was published in Series One: part 2 in 1993; ‘Muirhead II-IV’ in Series One: parts 6 and 8, in 1997; and the ‘James Watt Papers’ in Series Three, in 1999. All the microfilms are available in Birmingham City Archives. |
| Physical Description | Papers and correspondence |
| Access Status | Open |
| Arrangement | These have not been listed in detail. |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Three Generations of Watts. Extracts from the Doldowlod Papers, by Julian Gibson-Watt (1995), has a section on the trading correspondence of James Watt of Greenock and on the Finlay & Cation papers. [B&W Pamphlets G/7] |