Watts Celebrates 150 Years

By John Vastyan

When Joseph Edwin Watts arrived in America in the 19th century, he found a country engaged in a spirited expansion of both its western territory and its eastern industrial base. At the time, America was a heroic land where an individual could make their own mark, profit by their talents and carve out a future of their choosing.

Watts was among the first of a group of workers who would remake New England’s powerhouse textile industry in Lawrence, Mass.; a new town that had been built on faith in American ingenuity to harness more effectively the immense power of the Merrimack River for modern industrial production. Earlier success in capturing the river’s water power had led to the founding of Lowell, Mass., which quickly became the showpiece of the American textile industry.

It was in Lowell that the water turbine was invented — a device that was far more efficient than old water wheels in translating the energy of falling water into the rotary power used throughout the mills. In 1845, a group of industrialists, investors and mill owners formed a corporation to establish an industrial center in Lawrence where no community had existed before. 

The Essex Co., as the group was known, created a plan for an independent machine shop, which became the forerunner to Joseph E. Watts’ later enterprise. To deliver water from a well-designed and engineered dam in Lawrence, the group also constructed the North Canal. 

In 1848, after nearly three years of work and a substantial investment in waterworks — including a large dam, and canal — Lawrence’s first mill was commissioned. Lawrence grew to a population of more than 12,000 by 1853. 

After a brief move to New Hampshire in 1867, Joseph E. Watts had settled in at the Pacific Mills as a machinist. At the time, a machinist was a mechanical jack of-all-trades — machinists fabricated metal parts, adjusted and repaired the mill machinery, performed plumbing tasks and oversaw the great boilers used to produce steam for processing wool. Watts quickly proved he had a head for learning new skills. 

Watts chose to leave the employ of Pacific Mills in 1874. He set up an independent machine shop in Lawrence where he subcontracted his work to the mills. The business flourished, so he shared in the growing wealth of the nation; his operations moved to larger and larger facilities. In 1893, Watts constructed a monumental, block-sized brick building in Lawrence. It was equipped with the latest up-to-date machinery, recognized as the best built and most completely equipped machine shop in Lawrence. 

The textile mills of Lawrence, for which Watts supplied products, were the most advanced and complicated manufacturing concerns in the mid-and-late 19th century. Their sheer size made them pioneers in industrial systems we take for granted today — automatic sprinklers, fire-protection pumping systems and large, steam boiler heating systems. 

Much of Watts’ success lay in his inventiveness. Sometime after 1881, Watts began to seek patent protection for his innovations, mostly related to pressure-reducing valves. Before his death in 1894, he had received a total of 18 patents for valves needed by the textile industry. Watts had managed to accomplish what individual inventors always dream of — he created a humble device that proved essential to many industries. 

In essence, Joseph E. Watts had planted the seed for a control valve industry. The significance of Watts’ accomplishments was not lost on Robert F. Pickels, a Lawrence construction engineer. Pickels had overseen a machine shop employing 300 men and had worked as a draftsman and designer for the forerunner to the General Electric Co. 

Pickels’ business partner, George W. Dodson, knew a thing or two about the residential plumbing and heating business. In May 1895, for an unrecorded sum, Pickels and Dodson purchased the Watts business, patent rights, buildings and goodwill from Amelia Watts, Joseph’s widow. 

Pickels’ technical acumen and Dodson’s practical abilities were a good match for the new company. By September, the pair had quadrupled Watts’ volume of business and had doubled the workforce, expanding to two of the three floors of the new building Watts had erected in 1893, just two years earlier. 

The Watts Regulator Co. still sold gravity-controlled regulators invented by Joseph E. Watts, but Pickels had capitalized on improved materials technology. New metallurgy made dependable and long-lasting metal springs available, and rubber processing had matured to the point where rubber gaskets had become reliable.

As a result, several new regulator valve designs incorporated both springs and rubber gaskets. These later versions were much smaller than Watts’ designs, which required lever arms and external weights. Because these regulators were small, they would fit into the limited space available for household plumbing and heating. In this way, Robert Pickels laid the groundwork for the next direction of the Watts Regulator Co.

After nearly a quarter century at the helm, Pickels put Watts up for sale. In the fall of 1918, a trio of Lawrence men each invested $25,000 to purchase Watts Regulator: Burchard Everett Horne; his uncle Herbert W. Horne; and a mutual friend, Norman Anderson. Within a year, Burchard Horne had acquired Anderson’s share of the business and soon purchased his uncle’s portion as well. The transfer marked a new era for Watts Regulator as a family-owned-and operated business. 

Fast forward a few decades to the 1980s: the company began restructuring its management team while preparing for its first public stock offering, which finally took place at the end of August of 1986. The firms of Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc. and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation were the primary underwriters for the initial offering of 4.5 million shares of Class A common stock. Shares of Watts Industries, trading as WATTA on the NASDAQ exchange, were offered at $16.50 per share. Today, Watts is traded on the NYSE exchange under the ticker symbol WTS.

Perhaps one of the most significant undertakings for Watts was its response to the Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act, introduced in January 2011. The law stated that by January 2014, all U.S. water systems providing water for human consumption needed to use materials, devices and components meeting new “lead-free” requirements. The legislation had sweeping impact on the industry because bronze, which had been the industry standard, contains naturally occurring levels of lead. 

Watts made the courageous and visionary decision to open a dedicated lead-free foundry, allowing Watts to control its own destiny in the U.S. and position the company as a trusted source for lead-free products. 

Watts also took a leadership role in educating the industry about leadfree metals as a founding member of the “Get the Lead Out” Consortium. Not only did Watts need to construct a modern foundry, but it also had to reinvent thousands of products. 

Having the vision to make bold decisions such as going public and investing in a lead-free future are just a few of the hallmarks of Watts’ legacy as an iconic industry leader.

Two Major Product Milestones

The T&P valve was revolutionary for the proper protection of hot-water supply tank systems. Domestic hot-water supply tanks and heaters had long been recognized as potentially dangerous, for the buildup of excess heat inside a tank that could lead to explosion. The initial solution to this problem was to equip domestic hot-water tanks with pressure relief valves. When the internal pressure built up beyond a certain limit, the valve opened to drain the heat-expanded water.

In 1935, the American Gas Association in effect rewarded Watts’ efforts by sponsoring an American Standard 221-22 for T&P valves. But this standard was not immediately embraced at the local level. Watts set to work making the case for water heater safety. More information can be found in their film, “Danger Explosion Lurks.”

Backflow is the reversal of the normal flow of water in a system. As an example, opening a fire hydrant outside a building can create a vacuum in the water-supply line, drawing water out of pipes back into the main supply. In December 1970, a Cincinnati winery left a water-supply valve open after flushing out wine fermentation tanks. During a subsequent fermentation, a diluted burgundy back flowed from vats into the city supply line and ultimately out of the kitchen faucets of nearby homeowners. The fermentation tanks were operating at a higher pressure than the city water system. 

The creation of a complete line of backflow preventers marked Watts’ movement even further into the plumbing and waterworks industry. The company joined the American Water Works Association and the ASSE in order to participate in their code-making processes. ASSE set standards for each type of backflow preventer; Watts worked closely with the organization to ensure that its backflow preventers met or exceeded ASSE standards. 

Growing understanding of the hazards of backflow also helped Watts’ stature in the industry. In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act, which led to regulatory mandates for cross-connection control programs. 

John Vastyan owns Common Ground, a trade communications firm based in Manheim, Pennsylvania.