| Description | A bundle of seven letters, most from James Watt to Dr. William Small, with one from Matthew Boulton to James Watt, announcing the death of Small.
There are in fact two packets here:
Item No. 1 is actually a piece of paper folded around 4 incomplete letters, with
‘ Fragments of Letters from Mr Watt to Dr. W. Small, found by me in this state in 1852. J.P.M.’ in black ink, written by J.P.Muirhead. and ‘4 fragments. F.S.B.’ written in red ink in a different hand.
This, and letters 2 to 7 were enclosed in another bundle wrapper with ‘Dr Small's Letters. Jan[uar]y 1768 to March 1774. Dr. Small died 27 Feb[ruar]y 1775’, written in black ink by James Watt jr., and ‘ No. 1 to 7 and 4 fragments of letters’, written in red ink, by another hand.
The letters were numbered in red ink.
The letters were not arranged in chronological order, but have been re sorted into such an order, with the fragments at the end..
There is a conspectus of old and new numbers at the end of the list.
The correspondent’s name and the date has, in some cases, been written on the letter by James Watt jr. If a summary was given, this is added in italics.
Any summary in square brackets has been given by the cataloguer.
Many of these letters have been partially transcribed for the ‘Extracts from Correspondence’ in James P. Muirhead’s three volume work The Mechanical Inventions of James Watt, (London, 1854). Some have been numbered at the head of the letter, in pencil, by J.P.Muirhead and this number is that of the published letter. This is given below at the end of the summary, as, for example: (Muirhead no.6). |