| Description | Francis Eginton was a painter on glass, from Birmingham. He was employed by Boulton & Fothergill as a decorator of japanned ware in 1764, and he was a partner with them in the ormolu business between 1776 and 1778. From around 1778 to June 1780 Eginton was engaged in the production of "mechanical paintings. He left employment at Soho in 1781 to become an independent painter. He designed and produced stained glass in workshops in the garden of his house, Prospect Hill, situated on the north side of Soho Hill, Handsworth.
When he died in 1805, he owed several thousand pounds to Boulton and others including the architect Samuel Wyatt, Boulton and Watt’s partner in the Albion Mill. Eginton’s insolvency appears to have come as a surprise to John Woodward, the London agent of the banking agency M. R. Boulton J. Watt & Co., with whom Eginton had an account. Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr., as the principal partners in the banking agency, handled the case of Eginton’s debt, and they pursued various ways of recovering the money. Eginton’s widow Maria was allowed to carry on trading in the hope that she would be able to pay off some of the debt. His son William Raphael Eginton also agreed to take on some of the debt, and property that had belonged to Eginton was sold. Although some money was repaid, the debt was eventually written off around 1816.
Although the steam engine business was not involved with Eginton’s debts, this bundle of papers was kept with Boulton & Watt’s legal material. |