| Description | In the Catalogue of Papers compiled by William D. Brown about 1791 is listed a file under the following title:
Jas Watt. Letters 1768 to 1790
The file was probably at that time in the form of a bundle. Later its contents were divided between several portfolios, and the present file corresponds to the third of these, the title of which was, according to the Assay Office Inventory, January 1921:
Jas. Watt Jas. Watt jun. 1785 to 1791
Unfortunately the portfolio was subsequently discarded. Under M. R. Boulton's arrangement, the file was placed in Box K. I, though it arrived at the Assay Office in Box I II.
According to the Assay Office Catalogue, the letters from 24 Jan. to 17 Aug. 1788 were formerly in one packet, as were those from 20 Jan. to 3- Dec. 1789, 26 Jan. to 29 Dec. 1790, and 11 Jan. to Dec. 1791.
46a is not docketed and was evidently formerly folded up inside another letter (not necessarily from Watt or to Boulton), but its origin has not been ascertained.
The miscellaneous steam engine memoranda (194-195) placed at the end of the sequence were transferred to this file while the Papers were in the custody of the Assay Office [The sheet on which they are listed in the Assay Office Catalogue was evidently inserted after it was first compiled, as is of a slightly different colour to the rest]. Three items listed in this file in the Assay Office Catalogue have now been transferred to the Albion Mill file, where they appear to belong; indeed they may have been transferred from there.
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