More about Matthew Boulton
 
 
'Birmingham is my native town.         I am interested in its manufactures both as merchant and manufacturer.         Few men have endeavoured more than I to improve those arts upon which it         depends.'
It was a proud boast, but no         idle one. Not content with building what was in its time the most famous manufacturing businesses         in the world (surely quite enough for one lifetime!) Matthew         Boulton then went on to make a practical reality of James Watt's         condensing steam engine and then, still not content, single-handedly set         about solving a crisis in the nation's coinage which had defeated the         government for thirty years, and in the process invented the modern,         high quality, fraud resistant coinage we still have today.
Intensely ambitious, restless,         far sighted, ingenious, shrewd and intelligent,  unlike his long-term business         partner James Watt he was not an inventor. But he was a man of many         parts, an entrepreneur, an innovator, a problem solver, a perfectionist.         He also seems to have been a nice man - trustworthy, fair minded,         kindly, sociable, affectionate and loyal. James Watt described him as an         'amiable and friendly character', paid tribute to 'his sanguine         disposition' and wrote, 'I can with great sincerity say that he was a         most affectionate & steady friend & patron with whom during a         close connection of 35 years I have never had any serious difference.'
Matthew Boulton was born in         Birmingham in 1728.  His father was a toymaker  in Snow Hill, specialising         in buckles and buttons. In 1749 the father took the young Matthew into         partnership in his already flourishing business, and put him in charge         of its management. He decided that, rather than following the         traditional Brummie practice of specialising in one branch of the         business and leaving things like co-ordination and marketing to the         factors, he wanted to build up a business big enough to encompass the         whole manufacturing process and to do its own marketing.
The Snow Hill premises being         too small to accommodate such a lofty ambition, in 1755 the Boultons         acquired Sarehole Mill in Hall Green, where they rolled sheet metal for         six years. (By a remarkable coincidence, the young J R R Tolkein was         later to grow up near this old water mill which, with its semi-rural         environs, provided the inspiration for his Middle Earth. The mill is now         open to the public.)
The Soho Manufactory
Upon the death of his father in         1759 Matthew Boulton took over the business and, for reasons unknown,         two years later abandoned Sarehole Mill in favour of another water mill         at a place called Soho by the Hockley Brook, and very close to the         Jewellery Quarter. About this time he entered into partnership with John         Fothergill, who had wide experience of European markets, which were very         important to Birmingham's trade.  To accommodate his ambitious         plans he had to rebuild the mill entirely, transforming         it into the Soho Manufactory, which in its day was the largest and most famous factory         in the world. Finished in 1765, it became Birmingham's foremost tourist         attraction, and knowing the importance of good connections, the shrewd         Boulton was more than happy to entertain influential visitors there and         at his home Soho House, which was just a few hundred yards         away.  
The three-storey premises of         the Soho Manufactory housed not only workshops, but also showrooms,         design  offices, stores, and accommodation for the workers. At its         height there were a thousand people employed there. But although on a         big scale, it was not one of William Blake's 'dark, satanic mills'.         Rather it was a collection of workshops such as were to be found all         over the town, but brought together under a single ownership and a         single roof. The workers employed here were the same skilled craftsmen         as worked in the town's other workshops, and were well paid. Boulton's secret was to equip         his workers with all manner of labour-saving devices, thus enabling them         to be more productive. Such devices were made affordable by the use of         clever designs with interchangeable components, enabling many products         to be assembled from a relatively small number of components, each of         which was efficiently manufactured in quantity. And instead of putting         work out in the traditional way to to toymakers around the town, he         brought all the functions of a modern         business, including design and marketing, under his control.
He resolved at the outset to         build his reputation on jewellery, silverware and plated goods of the         highest quality. To this end he recruited the best designers and         craftsmen he could find, and he always insisted that everything produced         at Soho, however cheaply it might sell, should be of the best possible         quality that could be achieved for the price. The many superb examples         of his work in the Birmingham City Museum testify to his success in         achieving these goals.  The same integrity was applied to his         relationships with his workers. He refused to employ young children;         sometime in the 1770s he introduced a very early social insurance scheme, funded by         workers' contributions of 1/60th of their wages, and which paid benefits         of up to 80% of wages to staff who were sick or injured;         and he always ensured that the works were clean, well lit and well         ventilated. 
One of the earliest         manufactures was jewellery made of highly burnished steel, which was         popular in the eighteenth century and earlier. Much of the steel         jewellery made by Boulton & Fothergill was very beautiful and         exhibited superb craftsmanship. He was also the first person outside         Sheffield to take up the manufacture of Sheffield plate, effecting         product improvements in the process. He went into the manufacture of         ormolu and experimented with the mass production of clocks, including         one designed by William Small which, according to James Keir, contained         only one wheel. In all this he seems to have been chiefly motivated         by a desire to produce objects of beauty, rather than to get rich (or as         James Watt put it, 'the love of fame has been to him a greater stimulus         than the love of gain'); for         many years he sold mechanically-copied pictures produced by a process         invented by Francis         Eginton. Despite being carried         on at a significant financial loss, this business only ceased when John         Fothergill insisted that enough was enough. 
Boulton & Watt
As is recounted elsewhere , having failed over six years to get his condensing steam         engine to work and with his patent running out, James Watt arrived in         Birmingham in 1774 to enter into what was to be the most important         partnership of the Industrial Revolution, with Matthew Boulton. They         complemented one another perfectly, the ingenious and         inventive Scotsman, and the ambitious, indomitable Brummie who, with the         skilled and talented team of craftsmen he had gathered around him, never         let a practical difficulty defeat him.
The first problem was         to get the patent extended, which was done by means of a private Act of         Parliament. In this, the advice of Matthew Boulton, who knew a thing or         two about parliamentary lobbying, was all important. Despite some         powerful opposition, the Act was secured, extending the patent to the         end of the century. Meanwhile the skill and determination of Boulton and         his team had achieved wonders with the engine itself. After six years of         fruitless endeavour in Scotland, it took them less than two years to         solve the problems of the machine's design and get the first two made,         installed and running. In this way, Matthew Boulton made James Watt, who         would never have achieved celebrity had his engine never worked.
Initially the firm of         Boulton & Watt did not actually make steam engines themselves. The         manufacture of the parts was subcontracted, and the machine was then         assembled and installed in-situ by the firm. The reason for this was         lack of capital. In part this was due to the difficulty of raising large         sums in those days before stock markets and banking systems were well developed and         when limited liability had yet to be introduced, but these difficulties were         compounded by the fact that most of the early engines were sold to         Cornish mines which, being financed under the so-called cost         book system , were unable to raise capital to buy engines outright.         This forced Boulton & Watt both to take shares in the mines and to sell         engines to them on the 'never never' (see below). (In the end, the Cornish mines         defaulted on perhaps as much as half of the money they owed to the         firm.) A further problem was Matthew Boulton's cavalier  attitude to         profit.  As James Keir wrote when Boulton was trying to persuade him         to join him at Soho, 'The manufacture has been carried on for many years         past with great loss ... The buildings, stock of tools &c are much         too great for the business done.' 
By virtue of their         patent, Boulton & Watt had a monopoly in the manufacture of Watt         engines until the end of the century and it is estimated that during         that period they sold around 450 engines. The way they charged for them is interesting. James Watt had generously estimated that a horse could         achieve a sustained work rate of 550 foot-pounds per second, which amounts         to saying that a horse could move a weight of 75lbs (34kg) at 5mph,         steadily throughout the working day. He called this work         rate 'one horsepower'. If a Boulton & Watt engine were capable of         producing, say, 20 horsepower, they charged the purchaser one-third of         the estimated annual saving from using the machine (as opposed to using a team         of twenty horses) each year for twenty-five years. This one-third         share of the saving was generally reckoned at ï¿½5 per horsepower per         annum, and comparing this income with the cost of new engines we can see         that Boulton & Watt had to wait a long time for their money. For         example, the cash price of a 4hp engine was ï¿½327. At ï¿½20 per annum, it         would have taken over 16 years to recoup this money. On a 50hp engine         they did better; the cash price in this case was ï¿½1727, which would be         recouped in around seven years.
Some of the most important         developments that James Watt made in steam engine design were urged upon         him by the astute Matthew Boulton, who could always spot a good commercial         opportunity, and who had a keen appreciation of the practicalities. He         was convinced that there would be a huge demand from industry for a         steam engine that could produce a constant rotary motion, and suggested         that the Lancashire cotton mills would provide a ready market. James Watt was         unimpressed, retorting that Lancashire had so much water power that         there would be no demand for steam. But Matthew Boulton persisted and as usually         happened, he got his way. In 1781 the necessary patents were obtained         and the rotary steam engine proved every bit as successful as he had         predicted. Another development that Boulton urged on Watt was the need         for an automatic governor to control the speed of an engine, which James         Watt designed in 1788. 
Little by little,         Matthew Boulton scraped together the capital needed to enable the firm to build         its own engines. It was essential that they did so if they were to         maintain the business, because once the patent expired their         subcontractors would be at liberty to make and sell engines on their own         account. Worse, despite rising turnover the business remained in         financial difficulties and it became increasingly urgent, both to         collect the money they were owed and to get control of costs, and in         part that meant eliminating expensive subcontractors. In 1781 he erected a two-storey engine shop on his Soho site to         make some of the smaller components. In 1794 the sons were formally         admitted to the business, which became Boulton, Watt & Sons. This         was to prove important, for whilst  the sons were not  particularly inventive or         entrepreneurial, they did run the business efficiently,         keeping detailed records of the costs and resources used in every         operation, in what appears to have been an early form of work study,         well ahead of its time. Then, in 1796, a purpose built         steam engine factory was opened by the Birmingham Canal about a mile         away from the manufactory. Christened the Soho Foundry, by the turn of         the century the new plant had turned out around 50 steam engines. By         contrast with the earlier struggles, this         business, which was carried on into the mid nineteenth century by the         sons James Watt junior and Matthew         Robinson Boulton, who had equal shares, was extremely profitable. 
The birth of modern         coinage
In the eighteenth century the British         coinage was a shambles. The Royal Mint had been using antiquated methods         of coin production, with poor quality control, so that even coins of the         same denomination did not necessarily look identical, and were often         variable in size. This left the field wide open to crooks known as         shavers and forgers, who were often the same people. Shavers would steal         metal from coins by shaving the edge, thus reducing the diameter. This         practice was carried on with virtual impunity because the Royal Mintï¿½s         poor control of coin size meant that shaving was difficult to         detect. The shavings were then used by the forgers to make new coins and         again, the Royal Mintï¿½s crude technology was very easy to copy. It         was estimated in 1786 that as many as two thirds of the coins then in         circulation were counterfeit.
Apart from arresting the occasional forger         (see right-hand panel),         the only thing the government in London did about this appalling state         of affairs was to close the Royal Mint, in around 1760. This merely made         matters worse, by leading to an acute shortage of coinage. In order to         keep the wheels of business turning, all manner of people, some of them         none too savoury, minted their own tokens which were, in effect, private         currencies. Even if you werenï¿½t swindled, tokens were inconvenient         because they could only be used for a limited purpose.
Meanwhile, in Birmingham, the amazing         Matthew Boulton, having already built up the world's most famous         manufacturing business and midwifed James Watt's steam engine, embarked         at the age of 59 on his third great enterprise. He decided that he, a private citizen, would sort out the         mess the government had failed so lamentably to address, and in doing so Matthew Boulton invented coinage as we know it today.         Oh, and by the way - an insignificant footnote to an extraordinary career -         in doing this he also invented the in-line manufacturing process, the         ubiquitous production line of modern industry. 
He knew exactly what he had to do, seeing         clearly that to         beat the shavers and forgers, he had to dramatically improve the design         and manufacture of coinage. Every coin had to be perfect, so that an         imperfection immediately signified a forgery, and that meant that every coin of a particular denomination had to have exactly the         same appearance, size and weight.
In typical Boulton fashion he recruited the         finest engravers from France, Germany, wherever they were to be found,         and brought them to Brum to work for him. He improved the manufacturing         process to give first-rate quality control, building a battery of eight         coin presses at the Soho Mint, which he set up in part of the         manufactory. Crucially for coin quality, these presses had the power of a Boulton & Watt steam         engine to drive them. The plant he installed was very ingenious.         Although all eight presses were driven by the same engine and of them         could be stopped and started independently of         the others, and set up 'in a few minutes' so as to strike         anything from 50 to 120 pieces per minute (again, independently of the speeds         of the other presses),  depending on the diameter and         the degree of relief. Blanks were fed to the machines and finished coins         removed automatically, so although each machine was tended by a boy (of         twelve or above), he had very little to do.
His first coins, for Sumatra, which had been made in 1787 on old         hand-operated coin presses he had got from a customer, were probably         not much better than the Royal Mintï¿½s erstwhile output. But by 1791 he         had solved the problem of achieving consistent size and weight. By 1794         he had introduced reeded and lettered edges, only recently copied by the         Royal Mint with its ï¿½1 and ï¿½2 coins. Such edges made shaving instantly         detectable and thus brought a halt to the practice by preventing shaved         coins from being returned into circulation. Another innovation in the         same year was to inset the lettering around the edge of a coin into a         raised border, which made the forgerï¿½s life somewhat more difficult by         improving the wearing properties of coins, since the raised border took         the bulk of the wear. He also conceived of the idea of a gauge for         detecting whether the coin was made of the right metal. This gauge was         made to the precise diameter and thickness of the coin, which was first         passed through it and then weighed. If a coin which contained, say, too         little gold, passed through the gauge its weight would be short;, whilst         if its         weight were correct it would be too big to pass through the gauge. By 1799 he had         devised a method of producing coins with diagonal reeding on the edge,         which is extremely difficult to counterfeit. Two centuries later, the         Royal Mint has yet to catch up. He also introduced the practice, still         followed with regard to the British coinage, of making the weight of         copper coins proportional to their value, 2d pieces weighing 2ozs, 1d         pieces 1oz, and so on. This enables the value of a bagful of change to         be determined simply by weighing it. The standards Boulton set for coin         size and weight remained in force until decimalisation over 170 years         later. 
For a time Boultonï¿½s output consisted         entirely of tokens and overseas coinage, as the British government         continued to refuse to mint new coins. But in 1797 they finally relented         and Matthew Boulton was commissioned to produce 45 million new penny and         twopenny pieces. These large and beautiful coins, known as George III         ï¿½cartwheelï¿½ pennies on account of the characteristic Boulton raised         border, were the first coins to bear the kingï¿½s head for almost 40         years.  Orders for the more widely used  halfpence and         farthings followed in 1799. This coinage is universally recognised as the first modern         coinage. It represented a step change from what had gone before and in         the two centuries that have since passed, nobody has been able to         improve on the coins that Matthew Boulton minted at Soho.
In 1798 Boulton was asked to re-equip the         Royal Mint in London, but bureaucratic delays meant that work was         unfinished by the time of Boultonï¿½s death in 1809. Meanwhile the Soho         Mint continued to produce all the nationï¿½s coinage. In about 1800 he         was commissioned by Catherine the Great, who had herself visited Soho in         1776, to supply coinmaking machinery         for the new Russian Mint in St Petersburg which, as we have         seen , was         designed by the Birmingham architect William Hollins. Here Matthew         Boulton made another startling innovation, which was to have enormous         implications - he invented the in-line manufacturing process. A strip of         metal went into the line at one end and coins emerged at the other.         Though the idea of making things on a production line is now         commonplace, this was a revolution in its day.
There is much more about the history of         coinmaking in Birmingham here .         For more about the now-defunct Birmingham Mint and the scandalous         circumstances that led to its closure, see The         Walk, 13 . 
Despite having received no more formal         education than a few years at a private school in Deritend provided, in         1785 Matthew Boulton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Post mortem
By the mid 1790s Matthew Boulton was in poor         health, having developed the kidney stone which was to dog, and often         incapacitate, him for the rest of his days. Despite this he continued         working whenever he could until his death in 1809 at the age of 80, following which the Boulton & Watt companies went into a long and         slow decline. The running of the companies was taken over by the two         sons, Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt junior, who seemingly         lacked both the inventiveness of James Watt senior and the business         acumen of Matthew Boulton. They failed to capitalise on William         Murdock's invention of gas lighting, although they did establish a world         lead in marine steam engines. The manufactory was closed after the death         of James Watt junior in 1848 and knocked down a few years later,         although Boulton's adjacent         residence, Soho House, survives and is now open to the public. The steam         engine business continued until 1896, by which time the         vertical-cylindered, low pressure bean engines James Watt had brought to         a degree of perfection had been superseded by more compact high-pressure         horizontal-cylindered machines. Whilst it is greatly         altered, the Soho Foundry still exists as the premises of the         scale-makers W & T Avery, who bought up the firm of James Watt & Co. 
Matthew Boulton's estate was valued         at ï¿½150,000, a very large sum in those days and equivalent to many         millions in today's money. He is buried, along         with James Watt and William Murdock, at St Mary's, Handsworth,         Birmingham.