| Description | The verdict in favour of Boulton & Watt in the action against Hornblower and Maberly in the Court of King’s Bench in 1799, which effectively validated James Watt’s patent, gave Boulton & Watt much greater power to pursue legal actions against those Cornish mines who were withholding premium payments. The mines included several who were using Jonathan Hornblower’s engines. They were liable for premium payments as they were effectively using Watt’s invention which Hornblower had pirated. Some material had been gathered together earlier in the 1790s (MS 3147/2/51), but by 1799 some of Hornblower’s engines had moved from their original locations, others had stopped working and new ones had been put up.
Boulton & Watt and their Cornish agent Thomas Wilson made a concerted effort to calculate and call in the premiums owed on Jonathan Hornblower’s engines. They considered pursuing a legal action against Hornblower to prove his infringement, the point of the case being to force the mines which had erected Hornblower engines to pay their premiums. Nominal sums only were to be demanded from Hornblower himself. However Matthew Robinson Boulton made visits to Cornwall in 1799 and 1800 during which he successfully settled with many of the mines, and the case was dropped.
This bundle contains correspondence, memoranda, calculations, accounts and receipts concerning the premiums owed by various mines with Hornblower engines. Some of the documents were sent by Thomas Wilson. There is also some material gathered for the proposed case against Hornblower in 1800.
For papers relating to Boulton & Watt’s opposition to Hornblower’s bill of 1792, see MS 3147/2/33—MS 3147/2/37. For drawings of Jonathan Hornblower’s engines see "Drawings of Engine Designs by James Watt, Bull and Hornblower’s Engines, Dutch Windmill etc.", Portfolio MS 3147/5/1339b. |