What's this about Watt

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Q. �Tell me more.

A.� Before Watt made his name as the grandfather of steam, he earned his living by making musical instruments. In the 1760s, Watt was churning out guitars, fiddles and cheap flutes from his Glasgow workshop.

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Q.� An honest enough trade, surely

A.� Yes. But Michael Wright, curator of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum in London, has taken a closer look at James Watt's workshop, rescued and re-created at the South Kensington museum. He discovered a complete set of tools for making flutes and stamp that said T LOT.

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Q.� So

A.� That stands for Thomas Lot, the Parisian craftsman who is to flutes what Stradivarius is to violins. Among the possession was also a stamp bearing Watt's name. That one is well-made, of a type that would have been bought from a professional stampmaker. But the Thomas Lot stamp bears all the marks of being made by an amateur, Mr Wright says. It is made of loose letters that have been filed to size and then set in a lump of tin or lead, says Wright.

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Q.� And he reckons it was used for forgery

A.� Mr Wright told New Scientist: 'It's not improbable that Watt thought there was an advantage in putting a famous name on his flutes ... There may be other explanations, but it does look as if Watt may have attempted to pass off his own work in a way that we would regard as dishonest.'

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Q.� Would he have got away with it

A.� An experienced musician would soon have spotted the difference between a real Lot flute and an imitation. But, Mr Wright believes, there were plenty of young men around who were caught up in the fashion for flute-playing. They would have easily been conned.

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Q.� How famous was Watt

A.� Watt, a mathematician by training, shot to fame for a creative stroke in 1765 that transformed the first primitive steam engines into the powerhouses of the Industrial Revolution. He was asked to repair a Newcomen steam engine. He did just that, but also worked out how to make the engine more efficient.

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In 1773, he moved to Birmingham, went into partnership with Matthew Boulton, and began making steam engines four times more powerful than Newcomen's. In 1781, he made a rotary motion steam engine, and by 1800, when he died, there were about 500 Watt engines at work in British factories. He died a rich man.

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In 1882, the unit of electrical power was named the watt in his honour.

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Steve Cunningham