Matthew Boulton

English inventor and businessman

• Born: September 3, 1728
• Birthplace: Birmingham, Warwickshire (now in West Midlands), England
• Died: August 18, 1809
• Place of death: Birmingham, England

Boulton created one of the first factories in England, made varied housewares of high artistic quality available to the middle class, modernized the coining process, and helped James Watt manufacture and merchandise an improved steam engine.

Early Life

Matthew Boulton’s father was a successful maker of buckles and buttons. After studying at a private academy, in 1742, at age fourteen, Boulton was apprenticed to his father’s business. By age seventeen, Boulton had already invented the inlaid buckle, which significantly increased his father’s trade. At that time, European fashions were individualized by small details of ornament, such as buckles and buttons, and much of Birmingham’s economy depended on the buckle trade. The younger Boulton’s invention of inlaid buckles foreshadowed traits that would later be the key to his historical significance: He was inventive, and he was sensitive to public tastes in a way that would be commercially successful.

As a young man, Boulton was of above average height and had a receding forehead, gray eyes, and a prominent nose. He won others over as much by his sociability, intelligence, and kindness as by good looks. He was clearly regarded as an eligible young bachelor. In 1749, when he was twenty-one years old, he married Mary Robinson, a distant cousin from a wealthy family. When she and Boulton’s father died in the same year, Boulton inherited a business and stood to inherit a small fortune. Yet Boulton was never one to rest comfortably in financial security or to yield to a life of idleness he associated with the “gentlemen” of his time. Instead, he was planning methods to increase his business and provide the beautiful objects he produced to a much wider clientele.

Boulton sought a site near Birmingham suitable for a factory, to be called the Soho Manufactory. It would be an early product of, and contributor to, the Industrial Revolution. The factory brought together a group of skilled metalworkers, provided a unified power source in a nearby brook, coordinated its activities at a single location through a group of supervisorial personnel, and, eventually, through a later partnership, provided a means of merchandising its goods to the broadest possible national and international clientele.

Life’s Work

By 1762, Matthew Boulton had constructed the Soho Manufactory and found a partner in John Fothergill, whose skill in languages and experience in foreign travel would help him influence buyers of the fine metal items Boulton was already producing. Boulton was the energetic innovator of the two, continually proposing new schemes and underbidding his competition, but often undertaking projects that left the partnership in debt. He was the perennial optimist, writing letters of encouragement to the perennial pessimist Fothergill.

One way of alleviating the financial straits in which the partnership often found itself was marriage. In 1767, Boulton married Anne Robinson, his first wife Mary’s sister. When Mary and Anne’s brother, Luke, died, Boulton inherited œ16,000 and significant holdings in real estate. This second marriage also provided Boulton with his only children, Anne and Matthew.

Boulton’s first significant commercial expansion was the manufacture of Sheffield plate—a process by which silver is bonded to copper, giving the elegant appearance and durability of silver while costing far less. Boulton’s Soho plant now began turning out candlesticks, tureens, bread baskets, urns, communion cups—all silverplated items that could make daily life pleasant and impress others with the purchaser’s taste for beautiful things. Because these objects contained and advertised themselves in terms of precious metals, they had to be assayed. Dissatisfied with the inefficiency of long, slow travel to assay offices in London or Chester, in 1773, Boulton successfully pressured the House of Commons to create an assay office in Birmingham.ity.(

Received directly into first-class membership in the Academy of ArchitectsAcademy of Architects, France in 1709, Boffrand also rejoined the royal building service in that year. His primary contributions to the development of the rococo-style interiorRococo interiorsArt;rococo began with a French royal commission in 1710—the salon of the Petit Luxembourg Palace. At Luxembourg, he used a continuous band of molding, the impost, in a new way. The impost, set below the ceiling, curved up over the doors, windows, and mirrors, visually uniting the room and giving no indication of the corners where one wall joined another. With this innovation, Boffrand eliminated the box-shaped room. At Malgrange I, he continued this process of unification in the oval salon of 1711, linking the walls and the ceiling as well through the use of decorative floral-relief sculpture. Although the design elements were complex, Boffrand maintained unity through the use of symmetry and repetition. Boffrand’s masterpiece in rococo design was the salon of the princess of Soubise, where all the design elements work together, projecting a remarkable sense of light and harmony.ARCHIVEIn March, 1711, the marquis de Guiscard, charged with supplying British intelligence secrets to the French, attacked and seriously wounded Harley with a penknife. The attack may have been intended for Bolingbroke, but no proof of his culpability in the marquis’s treasonous behavior was established, and in fact Bolingbroke broke his sword in defending Harley. During Harley’s convalescence, Bolingbroke secured the queen’s permission for a military expedition against Quebec, commanded by Jack Hill, brother of the queen’s favorite, Lady Abigail Masham. The expedition failed miserably, though Bolingbroke may have profited personally. As the negotiations continued, Bolingbroke extracted commercial advantage for England from France in exchange for recognition of the claims of Philip Anjou (Philip V)7[p]> Boulton’s Soho plant now began turning out candlesticks, tureens, bread baskets, urns, communion cups—all silverplated items that could make daily life pleasant and impress others with the purchaser’s taste for beautiful things. Because these objects contained and advertised themselves in terms of precious metals, they had to be assayed. Dissatisfied with the inefficiency of long, slow travel to assay offices in London or Chester, in 1773, Boulton successfully pressured the House of Commons to create an assay office in Birmingham.

The promotion of Birmingham was one of Boulton’s chief desires and accomplishments, for he deplored the arrogance and dominance of London. Birmingham had acquired a reputation for cheap, shoddy trinkets; in fact, the city had given its name to the term “brummagem” (cheaply showy or spurious). Boulton was embarrassed by this association and strove to produce goods that were artistic and precision-made. After becoming the largest producer of silverplate in Birmingham, Boulton added a line of ormolu, a metal usually made of brass or bronze and simulating gold. Though gilded pieces were sold to King George III of England and Catherine the Great of Russia, this line produced a net loss. Boulton then experimented with other items to manufacture, such as clocks, copying devices, and lamps. Despite this variety, Boulton’s ventures failed to be consistently profitable until he became associated with James Watt and the steam engine. The steam engine solved a number of problems that the Industrial Revolution had created. New markets were forming among the middle class, vast numbers and varieties of goods were beginning to be produced, and the metals composing these goods required mines at greater depths. The improved steam engine provided an efficient source of power to mine the metals and manufacture the metal goods. Watt’s steam engine, by adding a condenser, made the engines pioneered by Thomas Newcomen and Thomas Savery much more efficient. Watt’s first partner, John Roebuck, however, did not propel the manufacture or merchandising of the engine sufficiently to produce profits or give Watt the time to perfect his prototype engines. Roebuck eventually went bankrupt, and Boulton purchased the patent and, along with Fothergill, became partners with Watt in 1774-1775.

Still, Boulton perceived that ownership of the patent for the steam engine and partnership with its inventor were useless financially without sufficient time to refine and market the product. Watt’s original patent was set to expire in eight years (of the original fourteen years); thus, Boulton and Watt successfully pressured the British government for a special bill to extend the patent twenty-five years, to 1800. Boulton also encouraged Watt to develop the rotative steam engine; this had much wider use than the original Watt engine, used primarily to pump water from mines. The rotative engine was first produced in 1783 and soon became widely employed in foundries and mills.

The steam engine represented the movement from “natural” power to mechanical power, a development aptly illustrated by the last significant chapter in Boulton’s life as an industrialist, the application of the steam engine to the problem of coinage. Previous to Boulton’s effort, coining was labor-intensive, using a fly press and two men to strike a single coin; coins varied in quantity and were easily counterfeited. Simultaneously, the growth of a laboring class created a need for numerous small coins to pay weekly salaries. Boulton discovered that Jean-Pierre Droz had improved the coining press and developed a “split collar” to hold and shape the coin uniformly; Boulton encouraged this Frenchman, took out a patent for the coining press (1790), added a steam engine for power, and redesigned the coining process so that Boulton’s Soho Foundry was virtually an assembly line and could mint twelve hundred tons of coins per year. Ultimately, in 1799, Boulton fitted the Royal Mint with his devices and even manufactured coins for foreign nations, such as Russia.

Boulton had come a long way from a small maker of buckles in Birmingham to an internationally known craftsman and manufacturer. He had known many of the great scientists and industrialists of his time and helped to found an intellectual discussion group in Birmingham called the Lunar Society. Its membership was graced at times by such notaries as Benjamin Franklin, Josiah Wedgwood, and Joseph Priestley. In his later years, Boulton withdrew more from daily oversight of his business, eventually developed kidney disease, and died on August 18, 1809, at the age of eighty-one, leaving most of his fortune and his share in the business to his son.

Significance

Matthew Boulton’s career began at a time when beautiful objects were made one at a time by highly skilled craftsmen for a few wealthy individuals, usually royalty. In response to this, Boulton both created and embodied virtually every significant change that led to modern industrial organization and the factory system. He is best known for his contribution to the development of the steam engine, but this accomplishment is merely one example of his particular genius, a genius for improvement, facilitation, and organization.

Boulton began as a silversmith and shopkeeper and ended as a lord of industry. He realized that through centralization of power, political pressure, and reduction of costs, one could make luxurious and graceful objects widely available. His manufacture of silverplate and ormolu made elegant candlesticks for not only King George III or Catherine the Great but also for the middle class.

Furthermore, Boulton was sensitive to the situation of workers in the changing social structure. He paid his employees liberally for the times, with department heads receiving œ9 a week, and he established, in 1792, one of the first insurance societies for workers. The favor was returned by his employees, many of whom stayed with him throughout their careers and working lives.

Boulton was a fond father to his children and a father figure to his employees, but he was not above exploiting his influence, wealth, and foresight. Thus, he was able to pressure the British government to extend Watt’s patent for twenty-five years, when the normal running time was fourteen years. He was willing to supply jobs to orphans and “plain country lads” but also expected twelve-year-old boys to work ten hours at night on his coining press.

The development of silverplate, the steam engine, and the coining press reflect Boulton’s skill as improver, manager, and industrialist. These inventions did not originate with Boulton, yet he was the key to their development. Thomas Boulsover had originated silverplate; Watt saw the advantage in efficiency that a condenser could add to the steam engine; Jean-Pierre Droz had invented a device to coin efficiently and uniformly. It was Boulton, however, who found the capital, obtained extended patents, and manufactured products in such numbers as to make profits and benefit a growing populace. The middle class wanted fine housewares to impress friends; other industrialists needed steam engines to unearth raw materials or refine them profitably; the entire economy needed a source of dependable coinage, which could not be counterfeited, to use as a medium for wages and purchases. Boulton foresaw and satisfied these needs.

Bibliography

Boulton, Matthew. The Engine Partnership, 1775-1825. Vol. 1 in The Selected Papers of Boulton and Watt. Edited by Jennifer Tann. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981. An edited collection of papers pertaining to the Boulton and Watt firm.

Delieb, Eric, and Michael Roberts. Matthew Boulton: Master Silversmith. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1971. This work includes some biographical detail, particularly of Boulton’s early years, but focuses on the work of Boulton’s firm in silver and other metals. Excellent descriptions and full-color plates of candlesticks, tureens, cups, and vases.

Dickinson, H. W. Matthew Boulton. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1937. Though dated, this book remains the best biography of Boulton. Explains in detail his projects in silverplate, the steam engine, and coinage. Makes good use of original documents but is often uncritically positive in its judgment of Boulton’s character.

Goodison, Nicholas. Ormolu: The Work of Matthew Boulton. London: Phaidon Press, 1974. Similar to Eric Delieb and Michael Roberts’s work in its emphasis on artistic production. Contains little biographical detail but many full-page color plates and a sophisticated description of individual works as well as of the state of the ormolu trade in the mid-eighteenth century.

Lord, John. Capital and Steam Power, 1750-1800. London: P. S. King and Son, 1923. Reprint. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1965. An intelligent, though dated, discussion of the social and economic milieu that fostered the Industrial Revolution and the invention of the steam engine. Credits the Boulton and Watt firm with the primary contribution to this development.

Marsden, Ben. Watt’s Perfect Engine: Steam and the Age of Invention. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Includes information about Boulton and Watt’s partnership, describing how the men held a twenty-five-year monopoly on steam power that stymied innovation and destroyed competition.

Schofield, Robert E. The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in Eighteenth Century England. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1963. Investigates the society of scientists and intellectuals Boulton helped to found. Though this text comments on Boulton’s role, primary emphasis is on other luminaries, such as Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley, and Erasmus Darwin.

Uglow, Jenny. The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002. Recounts how Boulton and his friends established the Lunar Society of Birmingham, where they and other scientists and inventors could share knowledge. Unlike Robert Schofield’s book, Uglow’s work emphasizes Boulton’s contribution to the group and provides a great deal of information about his life and inventions.