| Description | The Inventory compiled by the Assay Office in 1821 are listed two files under the following titles:
Jas. Watt Sr. Jas. Watt Jr. 1808 to 1821
Jas. Watt. Jas. Watt junr. Funeral of J. Watt 1808 to 1821
The latter appears to be the one referred to elsewhere with the reference as cC2. It is not clear why there should be two files for the same two correspondents covering exactly the same period. It is possible that a mistake was made when compiling the Inventory, but as the original portfolios have been discarded this is a difficult point to settle. In spite of the prominence given to the name of the elder Watt in the title, most of the documents in this file are letters from, or copies of letters to, James Watt Jr. The papers relating to the funeral of James Watt are now in the James Watt Papers, still in their original yellow paper wrapper, marked as follows:
J Watt's / Decease / & / Funeral / 1819
Obituary / & Biographical Notices. &c.
Matthew Robinson Boulton evidently extracted these documents from the present file and passed them to his partner.
According to the original titles, the period covered by the two files named above overlapped the period covered by the succeeding file. The reason for this is unclear. All the letters for the period 1819-1821 have now been placed in the present file, and the next file begins in 1822.
A certain number of the documents were at one time gathered together in a packet labelled:
Letters of James Watt (Junr)
March to Novr 1821
(Not pubd)
about Calcutta Mint-illness, death
and burial (at Phantassie) of Rennie Wm
Murdock's illness
The label is fixed to a page of the The Railway News, 22 Oct. 1864 (146), which served as a wrapper. The purpose for which this selection was made is unknown. The packet was evidently disturbed before the Assay Office Catalogue was compiled, for by that time it contained only the letters between 11 Aug. and 7 Oct.
With the exception of this label, the documents are now arranged in two chronological sequences, as follows:
Letters. (1-126)
Copies. (127-145)
In the following List the copies are all press-copies, except where otherwise stated. The summaries in quotation-marks are taken from the contemporary dockets.
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