A Spark of Revolution

The story of William Small's life is exceptional in that it is as much a quest as it is a biography. Although Small had profound influences on Thomas Jefferson as his mentor and only professor, on James Watt as his promoter and collaborator on the steam-engine, on Matthew Boulton, as an advisor and partner to the first great industrial giant, and although he has been mentioned in past studies only as a fleeting and evanescent footnote scurrying off the bottom of the page, Small was something much more. He was the thread that bound together elements of the School of Common Sense, the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the production of the steam-engine; he was the projector of science and the Scottish Enlightenment in the universities of colonial America.