| Description | These agreements are between Boulton & Watt and the shareholders or "adventurers" in Cornish copper mines, for engines for pumping water out of the mines. All the engines worked pumps directly, that is to say the pumps were connected directly to the engine beam, with the exception of the Cardrew Downs Mine engine (No. 19), which was a sun & planet engine. Some of these agreements were for second hand engines.
The agreements are on parchment and are signed, sealed and witnessed by both parties unless otherwise noted.
From evidence in the List of Contents of the Watt Room (MS 3147/10/14), it is clear that in the 1890s Henry Hazleton arranged the parchment agreements to mirror the arrangement of the drawings in the "Catalogue of Old Engines". He divided the agreements by type of engine corresponding to the sections in the "Catalogue" – sun & planet, crank etc. Cornish engines are listed in Section M of the "Catalogue". Hazleton referred to the agreements in the Catalogue, calling them "parchments" and transcribing details of the partners, payment etc. for each engine.
Hazleton’s arrangement of the agreements was lost after the collection left Soho Foundry, and the agreements for the various different types of engine got mixed together. All the Cornish engine agreements have been re-united and are now listed chronologically, in order to reflect the arrangement of the portfolios of drawings as closely as possible. Cross-references to the portfolios of drawings have been made where the engine can be positively identified.
For other agreements for Cornish mine engines, see MS 3147/2/16, Draft and Copy Agreements, and MS 3147/2/17, Memoranda and Agreements for Second Hand Cornish Engines. |