7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

anxiety. A youthful sympathizer with the French
Revolution, he had been criticized in Parliament for
presenting in 1792 an address from the Manchester
Constitutional Society to the Société des Amis de la
Constitution in Paris. After being cleared of political
suspicion on his return home two years later, however, he
and Boulton’s son, Matthew, took over the management
of the new firm.
Watt’s long retirement was saddened by the deaths of
a son by his second marriage, Gregory, and of many of his
close friends. Nevertheless, he travelled with his wife to
Scotland and to France and Germany when the Peace of
Amiens was signed in 1802 and continued to work in the
garret of his house, which he had equipped as a workshop.
There he invented a sculpturing machine with which he
reproduced original busts and figures for his friends. He
also acted as consultant to the Glasgow Water Company.
His achievements were amply recognized in his lifetime:
he was made doctor of laws of the University of Glasgow
in 1806 and a foreign associate of the French Academy of
Sciences in 1814 and was offered a baronetcy, which he
declined.

Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier

respectively, (b. Aug. 26, 1740, Annonay, France—d. June 26, 1810,
Balaruc-les-Bains); (b. Jan. 6, 1745, Annonay, France—d. Aug. 2, 1799,
enroute from Lyon to Annonay)

T

he Montgolfier brothers, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-
Étienne, were French pioneer developers of the
hot-air balloon who conducted the first untethered flights.
Modifications and improvements of the basic Montgolfier
design were incorporated in the construction of larger