(m. 26 Feb. 1752, d. 19 Dec. 1804), daughter of Thomas Bright, formerly Liddell, of Badsworth, Yorkshire, he left no issue. His honours became extinct. His estates devolved upon his nephew, William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, second earl Fitzwilliam [q. v.]
In the National Portrait Gallery and at Buckingham Palace are three-quarter-length portraits of Rockingham copied from the original, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the collection of Lord Fitzwilliam. Another copy was exhibited by Lord Hardwicke at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1884, and was part of the Mildmay collection dispersed at Christie's in 1893. For engravings see Lodge's ‘Portraits’ and ‘Rockingham's Memoirs’ by Albemarle. Other portraits of Rockingham are a whole-length by Reynolds at Windsor Castle, and a three-quarter-length by Wilson, of both of which there are engravings in the British Museum. A mausoleum at Wentworth Park contains his statue by Nollekens, the pedestal inscribed with his eulogy by Burke (cf. ‘Speech on American Taxation,’ 19 April 1774, Burke's Speeches, ed. 1816, i. 212).
Rockingham was an old whig of sterling honesty who, during a long period of adversity, contended manfully against a corrupt system of government. He was, however, by no means a great statesman. His policy towards America and Ireland was mere opportunism. At the commencement of the Wilkes affair he erred by defect, and towards its close by excess, of zeal. In his just jealousy of the influence of the crown he showed a disposition to push economy to the verge of cheeseparing, while he ignored the far weightier question of the reform of the representative system.
[Albemarle's Memoirs of Rockingham; Keppel's Life of Keppel; Grenville Papers, ed. Smith; Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ed. Le Marchant, revised by Russell Barker; Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, ed. Doran; Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham; Grafton's Autobiogr. ed. Anson; Almon's Polit. Reg. 1767, p. 203; Protests of the Lords, ed. Rogers; Parl. Hist. vol. xvi–xxiii.; Cavendish's Debates of the House of Commons, i. 576, 581–7, 606–7; Addit. MSS. 9828 f. 103, 32723–33108; Wraxall's Hist. and Posth. Memoirs, ed. Wheatley; Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne; Buckingham's Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George III; Chatham's Corresp.; Burke's Corresp.; Memorials and Corresp. of Charles James Fox, ed. Lord John Russell, i. 115, 154, 206; Corresp. of John, fourth Duke of Bedford, ed. Lord John Russell; Earl Russell's Life of Charles James Fox, i. 278 et seq.; Trevelyan's Early History of Charles James Fox; Gent. Mag. 1782, i. 359; Ann Reg. 1782, Chron. p. 239; Allen's Yorkshire, i. 121, iii. 172; Doyle's Official Baronage; Burke's Extinct Peerage; Adolphus's Hist. of Engl.; Bisset's Hist. of the Reign of George III; Massey's Hist. of Engl.; Lecky's Hist. of Engl.; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. App. p. 222, 4th Rep. App. pp. 399, 402, 5th Rep. App. pp. 210–11, 252, 255–8, 6th Rep. App. p. 24, 8th Rep. App. ii. 121, 9th Rep. App. iii. 13, 14, 24, 25, 61, 132, 10th Rep. App. i. 390, vi. 13, 24, 31–2, 11th Rep. App. iv. 399, v. 331, 12th Rep. App. x. 53, 59, 14th Rep. App. i. 11, 18, App. x. 15th Rep. App. v. 145–8.]
WATT, JAMES (1736–1819), engineer, born at Greenock on 19 Jan. 1736, was grandson of Thomas Watt (1642–1734), a teacher of mathematics, surveying, and navigation at Crawfordsdyke, near Greenock. The father, James Watt (1698–1782) of Greenock, appears to have been a man of many pursuits: carpenter and joiner, builder and contractor, mathematical instrument maker—to some extent at least (for it appears he ‘touched’ compass needles)—a shipowner, and a merchant. This last calling is that by which he is described in certain of the town papers, and this is the calling stated on the tombstone erected by his son, James Watt, in 1808. He was much respected and esteemed, and in 1751 was made chief magistrate of Greenock. He died in 1782, in his eighty-fourth year. About 1728 he had married Agnes Muirhead; she appears to have been a most exemplary and devoted wife and mother. Prior to the birth of James, the engineer, she had sustained the loss of two sons and an only daughter, who died in infancy; three years afterwards another son, John Watt, was born, who died at sea in 1763, at the age of twenty-four. The mother predeceased her husband in 1755, at the age of fifty-two.
James Watt, the son, was always delicate, and suffered throughout his life from severe attacks of headache. He lived with his parents till his eighteenth year. He was first sent to a school in Greenock, kept by one M'Adam, and was jeered at by his fellows as being dull and spiritless, a condition due, no doubt, to his feeble health. Subsequently, when thirteen years of age, he began to study geometry, and at once showed the greatest possible interest in the subject. He then went to the Greenock grammar school, where he acquired Latin and some Greek. During his boyhood he was a diligent worker in his father's shop so far as regards the making of models, and gave early evidence of his great manual dexterity and of his power to turn
