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Matthew Boulton

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Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Born(1728-09-03)3 September 1728
Birmingham, England
Died17 August 1809(1809-08-17) (aged 80)
Birmingham, England
Occupationmanufacturing
Spouse(s)Mary Robinson (d.1759), Anne (Nancy) Robinson
Children3 daughters who died in infancy, Anne Boulton, Matthew Robinson Boulton
Parent(s)Matthew Boulton, Christiana Piers Boulton
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society, High Sheriff of Staffordshire (1794)

Matthew Boulton FRS (3 September 1728 – 17 August 1809)[1] was an English manufacturer and engineer. In 1774, he became the partner of engine maker James Watt, and the firm erected hundreds of Watt's innovative steam engines. He was a key member of the Lunar Society.

Boulton was born in 1728, the son of a Birmingham manufacturer of small metal products. He father died when Boulton was 31, but by then the younger Boulton had managed the business for several years. The younger Boulton expanded the business considerably, consolidating operations at the Soho Manufactory, which Boulton built near Birmingham. Boulton expanded the business greatly, adopting modern techniques and branching out into silver plate, ormolu and other decorative arts.

When Watt's business partner, John Roebuck got into financial difficulties and could not pay a debt to Boulton, the manufacturer accepted Roebuck's share of Watt's patent as settlement of the debt. He successfully lobbied Parliament to extend Watt's patent for an additional seventeen years, and the firm successfully developed the engine and installed hundreds of them in Britain and abroad.

Boulton sought to improve the poor state of Britain's coinage, and after several years of effort, obtained a contract in 1797 to produce the first British copper coinage in a quarter century. Boulton's "cartwheel" pieces were well-designed, difficult to counterfeit, and included the first striking of the large copper British penny, which continued until decimalization in 1971. The manufacturer retired (as did Watt) in 1800, and died in 1809.

Background

Birmingham had long been a center of the ironworking industry, and in the early 18th Century, the city entered a period of expansion. Ironworking became easier and cheaper with the transition, beginning in 1709, from charcoal to coke as a means of smelting iron.[2] Scarcity of wood in increasingly-deforested England, and discoveries of large quantities of coal in Birmingham's county of Warwickshire and the adjacent county of Staffordshire, speeded the transition.[2]

Much of the iron was forged in small foundries near Birmingham, especially in what is known as the Black Country, including nearby towns such as Smethwick and West Bromwich. The resultant thin iron sheets were transported to factories in and around Birmingham.[2] With the city far from the seacoast or the great rivers, and canals not yet built, metalworkers concentrated on small, relatively valuable pieces, especially buttons and buckles.[2] Frenchman Alexander Missen wrote that while he had seen excellent cane heads, snuff boxes and other metal objects in Milan, "the same can be had cheaper and better in Birmingham".[2] These small objects came to be known as "toys", and their manufacturers as "toymakers".[3]

Matthew Boulton descended from families who lived in and around Lichfield; his great-great-great-great grandfather, Rev. Zachary Babington, had been Chancellor of Lichfield.[4] Matthew Boulton's father, also named Matthew, was born in 1700 and had come to Birmingham from Lichfield to serve an apprenticeship; in 1723, he married Christiana Piers.[5] The elder Boulton was a toymaker with a small workshop specializing in buckles.[6] Matthew Boulton was born in 1728 and was their third child, and the second of that name; a first son named Matthew had died at the age of two in 1726.[7]

Early and family life

The elder Boulton's business continued to prosper after young Matthew's birth, and soon afterwards, the family moved to the Snow Hill area of Birmingham, then a well-to-do neighbourhood of new houses. As the local grammar school was in disrepair, the younger Matthew was sent to an academy in Deritend, on the other side of the city from Snow Hill.[8] At the age of 15, he left school; by 17, he had invented a technique for inlaying enamels in buckles which proved so popular that the resultant buckles were exported to France, then reimported to Britain and billed as the latest French developments.[9]

On 3 March 1749, Boulton married Mary Robinson, a distant cousin and the daughter of a successful mercer. Mary Robinson was wealthy in her own right. The young couple lived briefly with the bride's mother in Lichfield, and then moved to Birmingham where the elder Matthew Boulton made his son a partner at the age of 21.[9] While his son signed business letters "from father and self", he was effectively running the business by the mid-1750s, and the elder Boulton retired in 1757 and died in 1759.[10]

Matthew and Mary Boulton had three daughters in the early 1750s; all three died in infancy.[11] Mary Boulton's health deteriorated, and she died in August 1759.[11] Not long after Mary's death, Boulton began to woo her sister Anne. Marriage with a deceased wife's sister was forbidden by ecclesiastical law, though permitted at common law. The union was also opposed by Anne's brother Luke, who feared Boulton would control (and possibly dissipate) much of the Robinson family fortune. Nonetheless, Matthew and Anne married on 25 June 1760 at St. Mary's Church, Rotherhithe.[12] Boulton later advised another man who was seeking to wed his own late wife's sister:

I advise you to say nothing of your intentions but to go quickly and snugly to Scotland or some obscure corner of London, suppose Wapping, and there take lodgings to make yourself a parishioner. When the month is expired and the Law fulfilled, live and be happy ... I recommend silence, secrecy, and Scotland.[13]

The Boultons had two children, Matthew Robinson Boulton and Anne Boulton.[14] In 1764, Luke Robinson died, and his estate passed to his sister Anne and thus into Matthew Boulton's control.[15]

Innovator

Expansion of the business

With the death of his father, Matthew Boulton came into full control of the family toymaking business. He spent much of his time traveling and in London to promote his wares. He was able to have a friend present Prince Edward with a sword. The sword so interested the Prince's older brother, George, Prince of Wales that the future George III ordered one himself.[16]

The Soho Manufactory

With capital accumulated from his two marriages, and from his inheritance from his father, Boulton sought a larger site in which to expand his business. In 1761, he leased thirteen acres at Soho, then just inside Staffordshire, on which were a residence, Soho House and a rolling mill.[17] The Boultons did not initially live at Soho House; it was first occupied by Boulton relatives, and then by his first partner, John Fothergill. In 1766, Boulton required Fothergill to leave Soho House, and occupied it himself. From 1766 until his 1809 death, Matthew Boulton lived at Soho House,[17] and in 1783 his wife Anne died there, stricken suddenly with an apparent stroke.[18]

The 13 acres at Soho included common land; Boulton enclosed it, later decrying what he saw as the "idle beggarly" condition of the people who had used it.[19] By 1765, Boulton's Soho Manufactory had been erected. The warehouse, or "principal building", had a Palladian front, was 19 bays wide for loading and unloading, and contained quarters for clerks and managers on the upper stories. The structure was designed by local architect William Wyatt; at that time industrial buildings were commonly designed by engineers.[20] Other buildings contained workshops; Boulton and Fothergill invested in the most advanced metalworking equipment. The complex was admired as a modern industrial marvel.[21] While the manufactory was advanced for its time, it came with a large price tag. Before construction, the cost of the principal building alone had been estimated at £2,000[21] (about £276,000 today);[22] it proved to cost five times that amount.[21] The partnership spent over £20,000 in building and equipping the premises.[23] The total costs were not equal to the partners' means and were met only by heavy borrowing and by artful management of creditors.[21]

Among the products Boulton sought to make in his new facility were sterling silver plate, for those able to afford it, and Sheffield plate, silver-plated copper, for those less well off. Boulton and his father had long made small silver items, but there is no record of large items in either silver or Sheffield plate being made in Birmingham before Boulton did so.[24] To make items, such as candlesticks, cheaper than the London competition, Boulton made many items out of thin, die-stamped sections, which were shaped and joined together.[24] One impediment to Boulton's work was the lack of an assay office in Birmingham. While the silver toys long made by the family firm were generally too light to require assaying, Boulton's silver plate had to be sent over seventy miles to the nearest assay office at Chester to be assayed and hallmarked, with the attendant risks of damage and loss. Alternatively, they could be sent to London, but this exposed them to the risk of being copied by competitors.[25] The manufacturer wrote in 1771, "I am very desirous of becoming a great silversmith, yet I am determined not to take up that branch in the large way I intended, unless powers can be obtained to have a marking hall [assay office] at Birmingham."[26] Boulton petitioned Parliament for the establishment of an assay office in Birmingham. Though the petition was bitterly opposed by London goldsmiths, the Birmingham manufacturer was successful in getting Parliament to pass an act establishing assay offices both in Birmingham and in Sheffield, whose silversmiths had faced similar difficulties in transporting their wares.[27] While Boulton's manufacture of silver objects declined as he came to concentrate on his steam engine business, in 1780, he would have nearly a half million silver items hallmarked.[28] The silver business proved not to be profitable due to the opportunity cost of keeping capital tied up in the inventory.[29]

As part of Boulton's efforts to sell items to the wealthy, he began to sell items decorated with ormolu, previously a French specialty. Ormolu was milled gold (from the French or muolu) amalgamated with mercury, and applied to the item, which was then heated to drive off the mercury, leaving the gold decoration.[30] In the late 1760s and early 1770s, there was a fashion among the wealthy for decorated vases, and Boulton sought to cater to this craze. He initially ordered ceramic vases from his friend and fellow Lunar Society member Josiah Wedgwood, but ceramic proved unable to bear the weight of the decorations, and Boulton chose marble and other decorative stone as the material for his vases.[31] Boulton copied vase designs from classical Greek works, and borrowed works of art from collectors, merchants, and sculptors.[31] In March 1770, Boulton visited the Royal Family and sold several vases to Queen Charlotte, George III's wife.[32] Boulton ran annual sales at Christie's in 1771 and 1772, which succeeded in introducing his works to the quality, but which were not successful financially, with many works left unsold or sold below cost.[33] When the craze for vases ended in the early 1770s, Boulton was left with a large stock on his hands, much of which he disposed of in a single massive sale to Catherine the Great of Russia.[34] While Boulton continued to solicit orders, "ormolu" was dropped from the firm's business description from 1779, and when the Boulton-Fothergill partnership was dissolved by the latter's 1782 death, there were only 14 items of ormolu in the "toy room".[35]

Not all of Boulton's innovations proved successful. Boulton associated with painter Francis Egginton to mechanically reproduce paintings for middle-class homes; the manufacturer eventually abandoned the procedure.[36] Boulton and James Keir produced an alloy called "Eldorado metal" which they claimed would not corrode in water and could be used for sheathing wooden ships. After sea trials, the Admiralty rejected their claims, and the metal was used for sashes at Soho House.[37] While Boulton feared that construction of a nearby canal would damage his water supply, this did not prove the case, and in 1779 he wrote, "Our navigation goes on prosperously; the junction with the Wolverhampton Canal is complete, and we already sail to Bristol and to Hull."[38]

In the 1770s, Boulton introduced an insurance scheme for his workers, which served as the model for later schemes, allowing his workers compensation in the event of injury or illness.[39] The first of its kind in any large establishment, employees paid one-sixtieth of their wages into the Soho Friendly Society, membership in which was mandatory.[40]

Partnership with Watt

Boulton & Watt beam engine, now on display at the Kew Bridge Steam Museum, London

Boulton's Soho site proved to have insufficient power for his needs, especially in the summer when the millstream's flow was greatly reduced. Boulton realized that using an engine to either pump water back up to the millpond or to drive equipment directly would help answer his power needs.[41] Boulton had begun to correspond with James Watt in 1766, and first met with him two years later. When Watt patented his engine in 1769, he manufacturer saw that Watt's engines, which featured an innovative, separate condenser not seen in earlier steam engines and which was far more efficient than earlier engines, could power his manufactory, and might be a profitable business venture.[42]

After receiving the patent, Watt did little to develop the engine into a marketable invention, turning instead to other work. In 1772, Watt's partner, Dr. John Roebuck, got into financial difficulties, and Boulton, to whom he owed £1,200, accepted his two-thirds share in Watt's patent in satisfaction of the debt. Boulton's partner, Fothergill, refused to have any part of the speculation, and accepted cash for his share in the purchase.[42] Boulton's share, though, was worth little without Watt's efforts to improve his invention.[43] Watt's work was well known, and a number of mines which needed more efficient engines had put off purchases in the hope that Watt would soon market his invention.[44] The Newcomen steam engine was inefficient and consumed large amounts of coal; as mines became deeper, the Newcomen engine proved incapable of keeping many such mines clear of water.[45]

The manufacurer worked to persuade Watt to move from Scotland to Birmingham. A Boulton boast about Watt's talents led to an employment offer to Watt from the Russian government, and Boulton had to persuade Watt to turn it down.[46] Boulton was finally able to persuade Watt to move to Birmingham in 1774, and entered into a partnership with him the following year.[47] By 1775, six of the fourteen years of Watt's original patent had passed.[45] Thanks to Boulton's lobbying, Parliament passed an act which extended Watt's patent until 1800.[42] Boulton and Watt began work improving the engine, and, with the assistance of ironmaster John Wilkinson (brother in law of Lunar Society member Joseph Priestley), succeeded in bringing the engine to a commercially viable form.[47]

In 1776, the partnership succeeded in erecting two engines, one for Wilkinson and one at a mine in Tipton in the Black Country. Both engines were successfully installed, leading to favourable publicity for the partnership.[48] Boulton and Watt began to install engines elsewhere. The firm would rarely produce the engine itself; it would have the purchaser buy parts from a number of suppliers (at the purchaser's expense) and assemble them onsite under the supervision of a Soho engineer. The company made its profit from comparing the coal use by the machine with that of an earlier, less efficent Newcomen engine, and requiring payments of one-third of the savings annually for 25 years.[49] This pricing scheme still led to disputes, as many mines used coal of unmarketable quality to fuel the engines, which cost the mineowners only the expense of extraction.[49] Mineowners were also reluctant to make the annual payments, viewing the engines as theirs once erected, and threatening to petition Parliament to repeal Watt's patent.[50]

The county of Cornwall was a major market for the firm's engines. The southwestern county was mineral-rich, and had many mines. However, the special problems for mining there, including local rivalries and high prices for coal (which had to be imported from Wales) forced Watt,[51] and later Boulton, to spend several months a year in Cornwall overseeing installations and adjusting problems with the mineowners.[52] In 1779, the firm hired engineer William Murdoch[53], and he was eventually able to take over much of the on-site installation problems, allowing Watt and Boulton to remain in Birmingham.[49]

From 1775 to 1800, the firm produced approximately 450 engines. The firm would not let other manufacturers produce engines with separate condensers during that time, and approximately 1,000 Newcomen engines, less efficient but cheaper and not subject to the restrictions of Watt's patent, were produced in Britain in that time.[54] Still, Boulton was able to boast to James Boswell when the diarist toured Soho, "I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have—POWER."[55]

Involvement with coinage

Boulton 1790 Anglesey halfpenny; the first "coin" both struck by steam power and struck in a collar to assure roundness

By 1786, two-thirds of the coins in circulation were counterfeit, and the Royal Mint responded by shutting down, worsening the situation.[56] Few of the silver coins being passed were genuine.[57] Even the copper coins were melted down and replaced with lightweight fakes.[57] The Royal Mint would strike no copper coins for 48 years, from 1773 until 1821.[58] The gap in commerce was filled with copper tokens struck on behalf of merchants which approximated the size of the halfpenny. Boulton struck millions of these merchant pieces.[59] On the rare occasions when the Royal Mint did strike coins, they were relatively crude, with quality control nonexistent.[56]

Boulton had turned his attention to coinage in the mid 1780s; they were, after all, just another small metal product like that which he was accustomed to manufacture.[56] Boulton also had shares in several Cornish copper mines, and had a large personal stock of copper, purchased when the mines were unable to dispose of it elsewhere.[60] However, when orders for counterfeit money were sent to him, he refused them: "I will do anything, short of being a common informer against particular persons, to stop the malpractices of the Birmingham coiners."[61] In 1788, he established the Soho Mint as part of his industrial plant. The new mint included eight steam-driven presses, each of which could strike between 70 and 84 coins per minute. The firm had little immediate success getting a license to strike British coins, but was soon engaged in striking coins for the British East India Company for use in the subcontinent.[56]

The coin crisis in Britain continued. In a letter to Lord Hawkesbury (later to become Prime Minister as Earl of Liverpool} on 14 April 1789, Boulton wrote,

In the course of my journeys, I observe that I receive upon an average two-thirds counterfeit halfpence for change at toll-gates, etc. and I believe the evil is daily increasing, as the spurious money is carried into circulation by the lowest class of manufacturers, who pay with it the principal part of the wages of the poor people they employ. They purchase from the subterraneous coiners 36 shillings'-worth of copper (in nominal value) for 20 shillings, so that the profit derived from the cheating is very large."[60]

Boulton offered to strike new coins at a cost "not exceeding half the expense which the common copper coin hath always cost at his Majesty's Mint".[62] He spent much time in London lobbying for a contract to strike British coins, but in June 1790, the Pitt Government postponed a decision on recoinage indefinitely.[63] Meanwhile, the Soho Mint struck coins for the East India Company, Sierra Leone and Russia, while producing high-quality planchets, or blank coins, to be struck by national mints elsewhere[56]—the firm sent over 20 million blanks to Philadelphia to be struck into cents and half-cents by the United States Mint.[64] The high-technology Soho Mint gained increasing, and somewhat unwelcome attention: rivals attempted industrial espionage while simultaneously lobbying for Boulton's mint to be shut down.[56]

Boulton-produced 1797 "cartwheel" twopenny piece

The financial crisis reached a nadir in February 1797, when the Bank of England stopped redeeming its bills for gold. In an effort to get more money into circulation, the Government adopted a plan to issue large quantities of copper coins, and Lord Hawkesbury summoned Boulton to London on 3 March 1797, informing him of the Government's plan. Four days later, the manufacturer attended a meeting of the Privy Council, and he was awarded the contract at the end of the month.[64] According to a proclamation dated 26 July 1797, King George III was "graciously pleased to give directions that measures might be taken for an immediate supply of such copper coinage as might be best adapted to the payment of the laborious poor in the present exigency ...which should go and pass for one penny and two pennies".[65] The proclamation required that the coins weigh one and two ounces respectively, bringing the face value of the coins close to their intrinsic value.[65] Boulton made efforts to frustrate counterfeiters. Designed by Heinrich Küchler, the coins featured a raised rim with incuse, or sunken letters and numbers, features difficult for counterfeiters to match.[56] The twopence coins would measure exactly an inch and a half across, while seventeen pennies lined up would reach two feet.[56] The exact measurements and weights made it easy to detect lightweight counterfeits. He also designed proportionate halfpenny and farthing pieces, though these were not authorized by the proclamation, and though pattern pieces were struck, they never officially entered circulation. The halfpenny measured ten to a foot; the farthing twelve to a foot.[56] The large twopence gained the name "cartwheels" due to their large size,[57] while the pennies were the first of their denomination to be struck in copper.[66]

The cartwheel twopence was not struck again; much of the mintage was melted down in 1800 when the price of copper increased.[57] Boulton was awarded additional contracts in 1799 and 1806, each for the lower three copper denominations. Though the cartwheel design was used again for the 1799 penny (which was dated 1797), all other strikings used lighter planchets to reflect the rise in the price of copper, and featured more conventional designs.[64][67]

Boulton also helped deal with the shortage of silver, persuading the Government to let him overstrike the Bank of England's large stock of Spanish dollars with an English design. These coins circulated at the value of four shillings ninepence until the Royal Mint again struck large quantities of silver coin in 1816.[68]

Watt eulogized Boulton after the latter's 1809 death, stating:

In short, had Mr. Boulton done nothing more in the world than he has accomplished in improving the coinage, his name would deserve to be immortalised; and if it be considered that this was done in the midst of various other important avocations, and at enormous expense,— for which, at the time, he could have had no certainty of an adequate return,—we shall be at a loss whether most to admire his ingenuity, his perseverance, or his munificence. He has conducted the whole more like a sovereign than a private manufacturer ; and the love of fame has always been to him a greater stimulus than the love of gain. Yet it is to be hoped that, even in the latter point of view, the enterprise answered its purpose.[69]

Scientific studies and the Lunar Society

Main article: Lunar Society
Moonstones monument to Matthew Boulton, one of eight dedicated to members of the Lunar Society, Birmingham

From an early age, Boulton had interested himself in the scientific advances of his times. He studied electricity, and discarded theories that it was a manifestation of the human soul, writing "we know tis matter & tis wrong to call it Spirit".[70] Boulton called such theories "Cymeras [chimeras] of each others Brain".[70] Boulton's interest brought him into contact with other enthusiasts, such as John Whitehurst, who would also become a member of the Lunar Society.[71] In 1758, the leading experimenter with electricity, the Pennsylvania printer Benjamin Franklin journeyed to Birmingham during one of his lengthy stays in Britain, and Boulton met him and introduced the American to his friends.[72] Boulton worked with Franklin in efforts to contain electricity within a Leyden jar, and when the printer needed new glass for his "glassychord" (a mechanized version of musical glasses), he obtained it from Boulton.[73]

The manufacturer never had any formal schooling in science. Boulton associate and fellow Lunar Society member James Keir eulogized him after his death,

Mr. [Boulton] is proof of how much scientific knowledge may be acquired without much regular study, by means of a quick & just apprehension, much pratical application, and nice mechanical feelings. He had very correct notions of the several branches of natural philosophy, was master of every metallic art & possessed all the chemistry that had any relations to the object of his various manufactures. Electricity and astronomy were at one time among his favourite amusements.[74]

Despite the time constraints imposed on him by the expansion of his business, Boulton continued his "philosophical" work (as scientific experimentation was then called).[72] He wrote in his notebooks observations on the freezing and boiling pont of mercury, on people's pulse rates at different ages, on the movements of the planets, and on how to make sealing wax and disappearing ink.[75] However, Erasmus Darwin, another fellow enthusiast who would become a member of the Lunar Society, wrote him in 1763, "As you are now become a sober plodding Man of Business, I scarcely dare trouble you to do me a favour in the ... philosophical way."[76]

In 1771, Boulton wrote of a never-realized private scientific museum he desired to install at Soho House:

A round building for my Study, Library, Museum or Hobby Horsery to hold 6 handsome Book Cases with draweres in the lower parts to hold things which relate to the subjects of the books [which] are in upper parts e:gr: a Book Case containing Chymical Books should have drawers under [which] contain Metals Minerals & Fossells ... & under the Space between ye upper parts of ye Cases should be fixed such instruments as Baromotor, Thermomotor, Pyromotor; Quadrants, all sorts of Optical, Mathematical, Mechanical, Pnumatical & Philosophocal instruments also Clocks of Sundry kinds both Geographical & Syderial, Lunar & Solar System & one good regulator of time.[77]

The Birmingham-area enthusiasts, including Boulton, Whitehurst, Keir, Darwin, Watt (after moving to Birmingham), potter Josiah Wedgwood, and clergyman and chemist Joseph Priestley began to meet informally in the late 1750s. Over the course of years, this evolved into a monthly meeting near the full moon, providing light to journey home afterwards, a pattern common for clubs in Britain at the time.[74] The group eventually dubbed itself the "Lunar Society", and following the death of member Dr. William Small in 1775, who had informally coordinated communication between the members, Boulton took steps to put the Society on a formal footing.[78] They would meet on Sundays, beginning with dinner at 2 p.m., and continuing with discussions until at least eight.[78]

In addition to the scientific discussions and experiments conducted by the group, Boulton had a business relationship with some of the members. Watt and Boulton were partners for a quarter century. Boulton purchased vases from Wedgwood's pottery to be decorated woth ormolu, and contemplated a partnership with him.[79] Keir was a longtime employee and associate of Boulton, though Keir never became his partner as he hoped.[80]

In 1785, both Boulton and Watt were elected as Fellows of the Royal Society. According to Whitehurst, who wrote to congratulate the manufacturer, not a single negative vote was cast against Boulton.[3]

Though Boulton hoped his activities for the Lunar Society would "prevent the decline of a Society which I hope will be lasting,"[78] as members died or moved away, they were not replaced. In 1813, four years after Boulton's death, the Society was dissolved, and a lottery was held to dispose of its assets. Since there were no minutes of meetings, few details of the gatherings remain.[74] Historian Jenny Uglow, though, wrote of the lasting impact of the Society:

It has been said that the Lunar Society kick-started the industrial revolution. No individual or group can be said to change a society in such a way, and time and again one can see that if they hadn't invented or discovered something, someone else would have done it. Yet this small group of friends really was at the leading edge of almost every movement of its times in science, in industry and in the arts, even in agriculture ... The legacy of the Lunar men is with us still, in the making of the mdoern world, and in the inspring confidence with which all these friends, in their different ways, reached so eagerly for the moon.[81]

Later life, death, and memorials

Matthew Boulton monument by John Flaxman

With the expiry of the patent in 1800, both Boulton and Watt retired, with Boulton turning over his role to his son, Matthew Robinson Boulton. Boulton continued to run the Soho Mint, and remained involved in civic activites. He spearheaded the successful drive to build a municipal theatre in Birmingham.[82] The younger Boulton and Watt, though, swept through with a new broom, quickly ending public tours of the Soho Manufactory that the elder Boulton had taken pride in throughout his time in Soho.[82]

Even in retirement, Boulton remained active, to the distress of Watt, who had entirely retired from Soho, and who wrote him in 1804, "[Y]our friends fear much that your necessary attention to the operation of the coinage may injure your health".[83] When a new Royal Mint was built on Tower Hill, despite his increasing age and infirmity, in 1805, Boulton was contracted to equip it with modern machinery.[84] In addition to restriking the Spanish dollars for the Bank of England, he oversaw the final issue of his coppers for Britain in 1806, as well as a major issue of coppers to circulate only in Ireland.[68] Even as his health failed, he would have his servants carry him from Soho House to the Soho Mint, and he would sit and watch the machinery,[85] which were kept exceptionally busy in 1808 by the striking of almost 90,000,000 pieces for the East India Company.[86] He wrote, "Of all the mechanical subjects I ever entered upon, there is none in which I ever engaged with so much ardour as that of bringing to perfection the art of coining."[85]

By early 1809, he was seriously ill.[82] Boulton had long suffered from kidney stones, which also lodged in the bladder, causing him great pain.[87] He died in Birmingham on 17 August 1809.[82] He was buried in the graveyard of St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, in Birmingham, which was later extended over the site of his grave. Inside the church, on the north wall of the sanctuary, is a large marble monument to him, commissioned by his son, sculpted by the sculptor John Flaxman.[88] It includes a marble bust of Boulton, set in a circular opening above two putti, one holding an engraving of the Soho Manufactory.[88]

Boulton is recognized by several memorials and other commemorations in and around Birmingham. Soho House, his home from 1766 until his death, is now a museum,[89] as his his first workshop, Sarehole Mill.[90] The Soho archives are located at the Birmingham City Archives.[39] He is recognized by three blue plaques, at Steelhouse Lane, Soho House and Sarehole Mill.[91] A gilded bronze statue of Boulton, Watt and Murdoch (1956) by William Bloye stands outside the old Register Office on Broad Street in central Birmingham.[92] Matthew Boulton College was named in his honour in 1957.[93]

The two-hundredth anniversary of Boulton's death, in 2009, is resulting in a number of tributes. Birmingham City Council is promoting "a year long festival celebrating the life, work and legacy of Matthew Boulton".[94] On 29 May 2009, the Bank of England announced that Boulton and Watt would appear on a new £50 note.[95] In March 2009, he was also honoured with the issuance of a British postage stamp.[96]

Notes

Boulton, Watt and Murdoch statue in Central Birmingham
  1. ^ Tann, Jennifer (May 2007). "Boulton, Matthew (1728–1809)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ a b c d e Uglow 1992, pp. 18–19.
  3. ^ a b Mason 2009, p. 2.
  4. ^ Mason 2009, p. unnumbered, two pages before page 1.
  5. ^ Mason 2009, p. 1. Uglow gives the wedding date as 1724
  6. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 21.
  7. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 16.
  8. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 23.
  9. ^ a b Uglow 2002, p. 25.
  10. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 57.
  11. ^ a b Uglow 2002, p. 60.
  12. ^ Uglow 2002, pp. 61–63.
  13. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 63.
  14. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 174.
  15. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 67.
  16. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 61.
  17. ^ a b Mason 2009, p. 15.
  18. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 368.
  19. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 66.
  20. ^ Mason 2009, p. 23.
  21. ^ a b c d Uglow 2002, pp. 68–69.
  22. ^ Purchasing Power of British Pounds 1264-2008, Measuringworth, retrieved 2009-06-22 (RPI equivalents)
  23. ^ Smiles 1865, p. 169.
  24. ^ a b Mason 2009, p. 41.
  25. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 202.
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  53. ^ Spelled "Murdock" in Mason, but more commonly spelled Murdoch.
  54. ^ Mason 2009, p. 69.
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  57. ^ a b c d Lobel 1999, p. 575.
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  59. ^ Mayhew, Nicholas (1999), Sterling: The Rise and Fall of a Currency, The Penguin Group, p. 104–05, ISBN 0713992581
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  80. ^ Uglow 2002, pp. 291–92.
  81. ^ Uglow 2002, pp. 500–01.
  82. ^ a b c d Uglow 2002, p. 495.
  83. ^ Smiles 1865, p. 474.
  84. ^ Uglow 2002, p. 475.
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References

  • Lobel, Richard (1999), Coincraft's 2000 Standard Catalogue of English and UK Coins, 1066 to Date, Standard Catalogue Publishers Ltd., ISBN 0952622882
  • Mason, Shena (2009), Matthew Boulton: Selling What All the World Desires, Yale University Press, ISBN 0300143583
  • Smiles, Samuel (1865), Lives of Boulton and Watt, John Murray
  • Uglow, Jenny (2002), The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World, Faber & Faber, ISBN 0374194408

Further reading

  • Goodison, Nicholas (1999), Matthew Boulton: Ormolu, London: Christie's Books, ISBN 9780903432702
  • Roll, Erich and Smith, J. G. An Early Experiment in Industrial Organization: Being a History of the Firm of Boulton & Watt, 1775–1805 (Longmans and Green, 1930).
  • Schofield, Robert E. (1963), The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in Eighteenth-Century England, Oxford: Clarendon Press

External links


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