| Description | The contents of this file were formerly in a portfolio entitled:
Jas. Watt 1819 to 1826
This is the title recorded in the Inventory compiled by the Assay Office in 1921, but unfortunately the portfolio was subsequently discarded. Under Matthew Robinson Boulton's scheme of arrangement the file was probably placed in Box K. I with the earlier files of Watt correspondence, though by 1921 it was in Box K. II.
According to the original titles of the files, the period covered by preceding file overlapped the period covered by the present one. The reason for this is unclear. The correspondence for the period 1819-1821 will now be found in the file "James Watt Jr. 1808-1821." In the arrangement adopted by the Assay Office the break between Boxes also occurred at the end of 1821, and this may represent the original arrangement.
The documents are arranged in two chronological sequences, as follows:
Letters. (1-122)
Copies. (123-143)
The Copies of outgoing letters were docketed in red ink to distinguish them from the incoming Letters. They include one original letter by Matthew Robinson Boulton (137), which was apparently later returned by Watt because the press-copy Boulton had taken from it was incomplete.
In the following List, the copy documents are all press-copies, unless stated otherwise. The summaries in quotation-marks are taken from the contemporary dockets. |