| AdminHistory | This list describes the outline history of Boulton & Watt, steam engine manufacturers and engineers, Soho Manufactory and Soho Foundry, and their subsidiary and successor firms Boulton Watt & Sons, Boulton & Watt Jrs., Boulton Watt & Co. and James Watt & Co., and the overall arrangement of their surviving records in the Boulton & Watt collection. Detailed information about the different types of records will be found in the separate lists of each section .
James Watt and Matthew Boulton, 1768-1774.
James Watt, canal surveyor, scientific instrument maker and scientific experimenter, then living in Scotland, patented his separate condensing steam engine in 1769, and erected a trial engine at Kinneil under the patronage of Dr. John Roebuck. (For more information on the people and businesses mentioned in this Introduction, see The Guide to Persons & Firms). In July 1768 Watt had visited Birmingham, where he was in contact with several scientists and experimenters, and he met Matthew Boulton, manufacturer of silverware, buttons, steel buckles, watch chains, sword hilts and other ‘toys’ (small ornamental items), which were made at his works, Soho Manufactory. Their mutual friend Dr.William Small was instrumental in the two men meeting.
Boulton and Watt got on well, and Boulton was drawn to Watt’s idea for improving the steam engine. However it was to be over five years before they went into business together, for various reasons including Boulton’s desire to, as he wrote to Watt on 7 February 1769, ‘…not… to make [engines] for three counties, but… to make for all the world.’ Watt was too bound up with John Roebuck and the engine was at too experimental a stage for this to happen. In 1774 however Roebuck went bankrupt, and Boulton bought his share of the partnership and the Kinneil engine. Watt moved to Birmingham later that year.
Boulton & Watt, 1775-1800.
Boulton and Watt went into partnership in 1775. One of their first actions was to have Watt’s patent of 1769 extended by Act of Parliament in May 1775 for a further 25 years, and this was the term of years that they agreed their partnership would run. Matthew Boulton held two thirds of the concern, and James Watt one third. From reciprocating pumping engines, Boulton & Watt turned to rotative engines in the mid-1780s. The basis of these was the subsequent patents relating to steam engines (Watt also patented his copying machine in 1780, but this was manufactured by a different partnership, James Watt & Co.) that Watt took out during his partnership with Boulton. The first, of 25 October 1781, was the patent for various methods of rotative motion that Watt designed to avoid infringing existing patents for the crank. This patent includes the sun and planet gear. The second, of 12 March 1782, covered expansive working, the double-acting engine and a type of beamless rotative engine. The third, of 28 April 1784, included the parallel motion, balanced pitwork and the steam carriage. Profits on rotative engines were split half and half between Boulton and Watt, as opposed to the two thirds/one third split for reciprocating engines. Watt took out a fourth patent relating to steam engines during his partnership with Boulton, that of the smoke consuming furnace in 1785.
At first, Boulton & Watt had no manufacturing facilities. A few workshops at Soho Foundry made specialist parts such as nozzles, but heavy castings such as cylinders and condensers were sub-contracted out to iron founders around the country, either those with a reputation for good workmanship or conveniently local to the customer. By far and away the most important iron founder that Boulton & Watt used was the Shropshire iron master John Wilkinson, whose boring mill at Bersham was the only one that was truly capable of producing cylinders to the degree of accuracy that the Watt engine required. Wilkinson undertook almost all of Boulton & Watt’s cylinder work until the early 1790s. Boulton & Watt supplied their clients with drawings, technical expertise, and, increasingly from the late 1770s, an engineer or ‘engine erector’ to assemble the engine.
The partnership of Boulton & Watt lasted until 1800, when Watt’s extended patent for the separate condenser expired. Watt subsequently retired from an active role in the Soho businesses, although he did continue to give occasional advice and work on projects such as steam heating. The partnership of Boulton & Watt appears in the accounting records after 1800, as old accounts were settled and closed. However the style of ‘Boulton & Watt’ had passed into common currency, and continued to be used by customers, suppliers and so on to address the firm long after the original partnership had ceased.
Boulton Watt & Sons, 1794-1799.
The next steam engine business partnership to be formed was that of Boulton Watt & Sons. This concern brought Boulton and Watt’s sons into the business. According to a memorandum of James Watt Jr.’s
‘This firm commenced 1 October 1794, consisting of Matthew Boulton, James Watt, M[atthew] Robinson Boulton, James Watt Jr. and Gregory Watt. The old firm of Boulton & Watt gave up to them the future manufacturing and profits of steam engines made by them. The share of each family remained the same as in the old concern; but Mr. Boulton gave his son [blank gap] part of his share; and Mr. Watt retained 1/10 of his share and gave his sons James and Gregory the remaining 9/10ths in equal portions. Mr. Gregory Watt was then at the College of Glasgow, which he did not leave until [blank]. The firm of Boulton Watt & Sons ceased on the 30 September 1799.’( Papers of James Watt & Family, MS 3219/6/135).
The exact nature of the partnership of Boulton Watt & Sons requires further research, but it appears to have existed mainly for the distribution of the profits of the business. This would seem to be confirmed by a letter Watt Jr. wrote to Matthew Robinson Boulton on 5 Dec. 1798 during the Maberley case:
‘B[oulton] W[att] & S[ons] are quite safe [from an adverse decision, i.e. Watt’s patent being found invalid] under the form of agreements used for the last 3 years, and will certainly recover all that is owing to them, whether the patent stands or falls.’(Correspondence and Papers, MS 3147/3/47/45.)
The partnership of Boulton & Watt continued to exist alongside it, and the style of ‘Boulton Watt & Sons’ was not used for correspondence. Moreover Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. were actively involved in the partnership of Boulton & Watt Jrs., which operated Soho Foundry. In the Soho Foundry Day Book covering 1 July 1800 to 28 August 1804, (Accounting Records, MS 3147/1/45) the last Boulton Watt & Sons entry comes on 9 August 1800.
The partnership of Boulton Watt & Sons, which formally ended on 30 September 1799, was replaced by a new firm, Boulton Watt & Co. However James Watt did not enter into this new partnership.
Boulton & Watt Jrs., Soho Foundry, 1795-circa 1841.
In the mid-1790s Boulton & Watt realised that they had to have their own engine manufacturing facilities. When James Watt’s patent expired in 1800, the iron founders whom Boulton & Watt could monopolise would be free to either deal with customers directly or indeed make and sell engines themselves. Moreover Boulton & Watt were engaged in legal actions against engineers in Cornwall and the North West whom they accused of infringing Watt’s separate condenser patent, and the outcome of these cases depended on a legal decision about the validity of the original 1769 patent. To further exacerbate the situation, a bitter dispute between the iron founder John Wilkinson and his brother William, resulting in the closure of Bersham, forcing Boulton & Watt to use other, less accurate foundries, and the revelation that John Wilkinson had made several pirate engines during the years he had been making cylinders for Boulton & Watt.
Soho Foundry, the world’s first dedicated steam engine works, was built on land in Smethwick, about a mile away from Soho Manufactory. The land was purchased by James Watt, but he took no active part in the new partnership that ran the Foundry. James Watt Jr.’s memorandum described the Foundry partnership, Boulton & Watt Juniors, thus:
‘A plot of land at Smethwick, by the side of the Birmingham Canal, consisting of 18 acres, 0 rods, 30 perches, was purchased from Mr. George Kennedy, as appears by deed of 27 August 1795, for £1318, being £73 per acre. It was paid for by Mr. Watt and conveyed to him. The buildings upon it were commenced 5 August 1795.
The concern consisted of Mr. Boulton, Mr. Robinson Boulton, Mr. James Watt [Jr.] and Mr. Gregory Watt, each holding ¼ share. The land was reconveyed to them, by Mr. Watt, by deed of 4 July 1806, in equal portions, for the same sum of £1318. The Land Tax which he had purchased, amounted to £22.14 and the interest to £382.4.8, making together £1722.18.8 which was paid by draft of Boulton Watt & Co. 13 July at 2 months.
The Funds for erecting the buildings and machinery were advanced by Boulton & Watt and on 21 Oct. 1797 amounted to £21,624.16.6½. No further advance was subsequently made by them but the debt with the interest of 5 per cent amounted on 30 September 1804 to £27,431.9.4, from which time, it was gradually repaid from the profits of the concern, and the whole of principal and interest was paid off on 25 August 1812, say in 17 years from the purchase of the land. The total interest paid Boulton & Watt, amounted to £15,366.16.6½, Principal 21,624.16. 6½ = £36,091.3.-¼.
The share of Mr. Gregory Watt merged in Mr. James Watt [Jr.] upon his death 16 October 1804; and that of Mr. Boulton upon his son, on a similar event, 17 August 1809. Mr. [William] Murdock had a salary of £1000 per annum from this concern when Mr. [John] Southern was taken into partnership in the Soho concern 1 October 1810.’ (Papers of James Watt & Family, MS 3219/6/135).
The exact nature of the partnership of Boulton & Watt Jrs. requires further research. The style ‘Boulton Watt & Co. Soho Foundry’ appears to have been used as an alternative name when the older partnerships of Boulton & Watt and Boulton Watt & Sons became Boulton Watt & Co. in 1800 and 1799 respectively.
Gregory Watt certainly took an active part in the engine business when he returned from Glasgow circa 1796 – he wrote letters, settled accounts, and attended to business with various mines during a trip to Cornwall in 1798. Although his health was failing due to tuberculosis, he continued to do occasional pieces of engine business almost until his death in October 1804. As Watt Jr.’s memorandum noted, his share passed to Watt Jr. Matthew Boulton’s share in Boulton & Watt Jrs. passed to his son Matthew Robinson Boulton when he died in August 1809. In 1810 James Watt Jr. and Matthew Robinson Boulton decided to reward some of their senior employees. William Murdock was offered a partnership in Boulton & Watt Jrs., but he declined, and was given instead an increased salary of £1000 per annum.
The Foundry did not deal directly with customers, but sold its engines to the firm of Boulton Watt & Co., from whom the customers purchased them. Therefore Boulton & Watt Jrs.’ accounts were with Boulton Watt & Co., suppliers of raw materials, tradesmen and so on, but not with customers. Trade directories for the time list Boulton & Watt Jrs. of Soho Foundry as a separate concern to Boulton Watt & Co. of Soho Manufactory. The partnership of Boulton & Watt Jrs. appears to have continued to operate Soho Foundry until Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. dissolved their partnerships in 1840, but the Foundry letter books include references to goods bought of Boulton & Watt Jrs. until April 1841.
Boulton Watt & Co., 1799-1848.
1799-1809.
In September 1799, the partnership of Boulton Watt & Sons came to an end, and the following year the expiration of Watt’s extended patent brought the original partnership of Boulton & Watt to an end, as had been agreed in 1775. These two partnerships were replaced by a new one, Boulton Watt & Co., which James Watt Jr.’s memorandum describes thus:
‘The firm commenced 1 October 1799. The shares continuing the same as regarded each family; but Mr. Watt had retired on the 30 September, giving up his 1/10 share to his two sons, who henceforward had equal parts.
In December 1800, upon the expiration of Mr. Watt’s Act of Parliament, the concern of Boulton & Watt came to a close and Mr. Watt retired altogether from business.
The concern of Boulton Watt & Co. then, as respected both reciprocating and rotative engines was equally divided between the Boultons & the Watts: Mr. Boulton, Mr. Robinson Boulton, Mr. James Watt [Jr.] and Mr. Gregory Watt each holding ¼ part. Partnership articles were entered into between them 4 July 1801.
Mr. Gregory Watt died 16 October 1804, and Mr. James Watt [Jr.] succeeded to his share. Mr. Boulton died 17 August 1809, and Mr. Robinson Boulton succeeded to his share. New partnership articles were entered into between Mr. Robinson Boulton and Mr. James Watt [Jr.], 4 July 1810, for 31 years, each holding a moiety of the concern.
Mr. John Southern was admitted a partner with 1/6 share of the profits 1 October 1810, and new partnership articles were entered into with him. He died 28 July 1815.’(Papers of James Watt and Family, MS 3219/6/135).
The new partnership agreement signed by Matthew Boulton, Matthew Robinson Boulton, James Watt Jr. and Gregory Watt on 4 July 1801 was for a term of 31 years. The agreement covered ‘trades and businesses… carried on at the Soho Works in the parish of Handsworth and at the Soho Foundry in the hamlet of Smethwick…’ All four partners put in £15,000, books of account were to be kept, memoranda of bills and promisory notes were to be kept ‘in the book or books to be kept for that purpose’ and annual accounts to be delivered to each partner. (Papers of James Watt & Family, MS 3219/6/172).
1809-1840.
As Watt Jr.’s memorandum pointed out, the deaths of Gregory Watt and Matthew Boulton necessitated the drawing up of new partnership articles between himself and Matthew Robinson Boulton, which were signed on 4 July 1810, but were considered as operative from 30 September 1809 for 31 years. This agreement specified 30 September as the day for drawing up the annual accounts, specified the machinery in the workshops as part of the co-partnership’s personal estate rather than part of the freehold, and contained the following clause about models and drawings:
‘…it is hereby expressly agreed that none of the models or drawings relating to the engine business made by or under the directions of James Watt Esquire the father of James Watt party hereto while he carried on the engine business or of the models and drawings of the Mint or other parts of the works or establishment now belonging to the said Matthew Robinson Boulton at Soho or elsewhere shall be sold in case the said business shall be discontinued and sold, but in such case the first mentioned models and drawings shall belong to and be delivered to the said James Watt party hereto or his representatives, and the said last mentioned models and drawings shall belong to and be delivered to the said Matthew Robinson Boulton or his representatives but copies of the first mentioned drawings shall be made at the expence [sic] of the party taking the same away before the originals are removed from the Works.’ (Papers of James Watt & Family, MS 3219/6/174.)
This clause was acted upon when Watt Jr. and Matthew Robinson Boulton dissovled their partnerships in 1840. The 1810 partnership saw the opening of new sets of accounting records.
John Southern, who was taken into partnership later in 1810, was one of the firm’s longest serving employees, and was currently head of the Drawing Office. The partnership agreement with him was signed on 1 May 1811, but was considered as operative from 1 October 1810. The division between Manufactory and Foundry was described thus:
‘…the same [ie the co-partnership] has for some time past been divided into two branches, one carried on at Soho and the other at Soho Foundry according to a plan or course of management which has been for several years acted upon for the purpose of preserving and keeping distinct the transactions and profits and losses of the said branches at the Soho Works and Soho Foundry respectively.’ (Legal Records, MS 3147/2/9).
Southern received a sixth of the profits from engines made at Soho Manufactory only, and held no interest in the buildings or land, nor did his executors or heirs benefit. At the same time William Murdock was offered a partnership in the Foundry concern, Boulton & Watts Jrs., but declined, and received an increase in salary instead.
The death of John Southern in 1815 left Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. as the sole remaining partners in Boulton Watt & Co. The terms of the partnership reverted to those set out in the agreement of 4 July 1810.
On 1 May 1817 Watt Jr. and M. R. Boulton bought the steam boat Caledonia for £950 from the Caledonia Steam Boat Co. of Glasgow. The boat was held jointly by the two men, and not considered as an asset of Boulton Watt & Co. She was used for experimenting with the new style of ‘side lever’ boat engines that the firm was producing, and she made a pioneering journey across the English Channel and down the River Rhine, with James Watt Jr. and the future London agent James Brown aboard. She was sold in May 1819.
During this period Boulton Watt & Co. considered opening new premises in Manchester and London - ‘I have a letter from W. & R. Whitworth offering their foundry… which I shall, if possible, take a look at,’ Watt Jr. wrote to to William Creighton on 8 December 1816. (Correspondence & Papers, MS 3147/3/61/49). Peter Ewart and a Mr. Kennedy looked at these premises for the firm and found the asking price or rent very high.( Correspondence & Papers, MS 3147/3/249). In London the premises of a Mr. Pitcher was considered, but never acquired.
The partnership of Boulton Watt & Co. lasted until 1840. Matthew Robinson Boulton began to consider withdrawing from his partnerships with James Watt Jr. in 1839, and on 21 October 1840 the two men signed a deed of dissolution, which was considered as being operative from 30 September. (Papers of James Watt & Family, MS 3219/6/175). Watt Jr. bought out Matthew Robinson Boulton for £61, 500, making him the sole owner of Soho Foundry and the Pallas hulk lying at Blackwall. (See MS 3147/12-16, Records of the Boulton Watt & Co. London Office). The deed also gave him the right to carry on using the style ‘Boulton Watt & Co.’ provided that he signed an indemnity saying that Matthew Robinson Boulton was no longer involved in the firm. This deed also dissolved the partnerships of James Watt & Co., the copying press business, and M. R. Boulton & James Watt, the London cash agency. It also contained a clause saying that the models and drawings outlined in the 1810 partnership had been delivered to the partners and were ‘now in their respective custody.’
1840-1848.
Matthew Robinson Boulton’s withdrawal prompted something of a financial crisis. Watt Jr. sent circulars to previous customers asking for business, and looked for new partners. He took into partnership the firm’s London agent James Brown, the head of the Drawing Office Gilbert Hamilton, who had joined the firm in 1821, and Henry Wollaston Blake, a London-based engineer and businessman who had connections with the Bank of England. The Articles of Co-partnership were signed on 14 March 1841. (Papers of James Watt & Family, MS 3219/6/176). Blake, of ‘Portland Place, Middlesex’, was to receive 3/12 profit, while Brown and Hamilton got 2/12 each. Watt Jr. got the remaining 5/12. The partnership was to be for 21 years. Matthew Robinson Boulton demised the engine workshops at Soho Manufactory to James Watt Jr., and the firm was to carry on as Boulton Watt & Co. until Watt Jr. either died or withdrew. The style of the firm was then to be decided by the other partners. 30 September was again specified as the day for the accounts to be drawn up. Watt Jr. was now taking a far more passive role – he was not to ‘…be otherwise under any obligation to attend to or act in the management or conduct of the said partnership,’ beyond giving advice as he saw fit. Accounts were to be kept as per the original partnership, with separate books for the ‘several establishments,’ and old records were to remain in the respective counting houses. Matthew Robinson Boulton died on 18 May 1842.
James Watt & Co., 1848-circa 1906.
(Care should be taken not to confuse this James Watt & Co. with the completely separate partnership of James Watt & Co. which manufactured Watt’s patent copying machines at Soho Manufactory from 1780 to 1840 – see MS 3147/17-20.)
1848-1895.
The firm of Boulton Watt & Co. was brought to an end by the death of James Watt Jr. on 2 June 1848. Under the Articles of Co-partnership of 1841, the remaining partners had to decide on a new name. Some debate about the firm’s name took place, with the partners and senior employees favouring the retention of ‘Boulton Watt & Co.’ However this required the permission of Matthew Robinson Boulton’s son Matthew Piers Watt Boulton, which was not forthcoming, as William Langdon of the London office noted somewhat bitterly to the Chief Cashier Charles James Chubb on 21 July 1848: ‘Mr. B[oulto]n has refused to allow the name to remain in the Firm. Mr. Blake has acted very well and candidly, so much so I regret that M. P. W. B. has refused. I confess I am annoyed, and wish the Firm had been as heretofore, not that it is of any great importance.’ (Letter in Matthew Boulton Papers, MS 3782/11).
The late 1840s and early 1850s were a time of financial hardship for James Watt & Co. In November 1851 various employees including pattern makers, smiths, strikers, boiler makers, carpenters, labourers, screwers, painters, bricklayers and ‘such fitters as are not engaged on pressing orders’ were put onto ¾ time, and various others were laid off. The firm also vacated their premises at Soho Manufactory during the first months of 1851, concentrating their operations at Soho Foundry. The engine shops at the Manufactory were demolished once they had been vacated. A note placed in the Birmingham and Midland Counties Herald on 1 April 1851 noted ‘Messrs. James Watt & Co. beg to inform their friends and the public that their Business will in future be conducted at their Principal Establishment at Soho Foundry, Smethwick. Their offices at Soho, Handsworth, are now closed in consequence of this new arrangement.’ (Business Letter Book, 9 Oct. 1850—20 Nov. 1852, MS 3147/3/135). However, James Watt & Co. did exhibit in the Great Exhibition of 1851 – a 700 horse power marine engine which was intended for the Navy steam ship Vulcan.
Henry Wollaston Blake, James Brown and Gilbert Hamilton remained in partnership throughout the 1850s, but, with the closure of the premises at Soho Manufactory and with two of the partners based in the capital, the administration of the firm came to centre on the London office, with some resulting tension between Gilbert Hamilton and Henry Wollaston Blake. James Brown retired in 1861, and his share in the firm devolved onto his son, James Jr. James Brown Jr. was a senior engineer at Soho Foundry, but spent more time in the London office after becoming a partner. Around the same time a London-based engineer called Charles Barclay was taken into the partnership. Barclay and the London office draughtsman Joshua Rooke patented a coin-sorting machine in 1866.
Barclay and Brown Jr. left the partnership around the mid-1870s, possibly as part of a re-organisation by Henry Wollaston Blake. Gilbert Hamilton also took less of an active role, and the day-to-day management of Soho Foundry was undertaken by a newly appointed manager, R. D. Sanders. Sanders and Blake clashed over the firm’s system of costing and charging, which Sanders thought was overly complicated and misleading, and over aspects of design. For example on 29 January 1879 Sanders wrote the following to Blake about work for the Indian Grand Peninsula Railway Co. (London Letter Book, 15 Jan. 1879—19 Jan. 1880, MS 3147/3/152):
‘I do not see anything in your arguments to induce me to change my opinion viz. that the design is more complicated and costly than it need be, and I regret that this is another instance in which my efforts to put the designs into proper practical form, and save money, have failed to meet with due appreciation which otherwise would have made the work which has passed through my hands much more profitable.’
Sanders left the firm at the end of January 1879, and was replaced by W. Henry Darlington. Gilbert Hamilton died the same year, leaving Henry Wollaston Blake as sole partner. Blake enjoyed more cordial relations with Darlington than he had done with R. D. Sanders, but tensions and disagreements between the London office and Soho Foundry continued.
James Watt & Co. faced financial crisis in late 1894. Payments to creditors were suspended in November. However, instead of entering receivership or being declared bankrupt, the firm was placed in the charge of a ‘Committee of Inspection’ headed by a ‘Trustee’, Flaxman Haydon, of 16 Unwin Court, Old Broad Street, London. The committee included some of the firm’s principal creditors, and legal affairs were supervised by Haydon’s solicitors, Francis & Johnson, of 26 Austin Friars, London E.C. A ‘Deed of Arrangement’ between the firm and the trustee was signed on 14 December 1894. (W. Henry Darlington to W. H. Bailey & Co., 17 July 1895, in Bottom Office Sundry Letter Book, 12 Aug. 1893—26 Sep. 1895, MS 3147/3/180). Erecting and fitting work on exisiting contracts carried on, and the firm continued to order small parts from other companies to complete existing jobs. A few small pieces of new work were undertaken – boring and suchlike, as the foundry, smithy and other departments were closed. Darlington passed enquiries and demands for payment on to Flaxman Haydon, who also decided what work should be done. In June 1895 the Foundry fully re-opened for a short time for finishing off contracts, mainly work for the Newark and Warsaw Water Works.
1895-1906.
Auctions of the stock, tools and plant, and of Soho Foundry itself, were planned for March and May 1895, with a final sale of tools and machinery being held in May the following year. However the Foundry itself was withdrawn from auction and purchased by the weighing machine manufacturers, W. & T. Avery Ltd., who were looking to move out of their cramped premises in the centre of Birmingham. Avery’s also bought the goodwill of James Watt & Co., and took possession in November 1895. Avery’s purchase of the goodwill was mainly for the repair of existing engines and the fulfilling of current contracts. The Birmingham Mail of 1 November said that Avery’s had bought the ‘machine-repairing branch which might with enterprise be turned into a profitable concern,’ in which Avery’s hoped to employ a thousand workers if it did prove successful. It was intended that this branch would repair machinery of every description. It was centred around the large James Watt & Co. fitting and erecting shops and was placed under the charge of J. H. Mackenzie, while the rest of Soho Foundry was re-fitted for weighing machine making. Avery’s continued to use the James Watt & Co. name until around 1906. A few new engines were produced, possibly the last supplied under the James Watt & Co. name being an engine for the Brayton Pumping Station at Selby in Yorkshire in 1906.
Premises.
Some confusion has occurred in the past about the premises occupied by Boulton & Watt and their successor firms, and particularly in the distinction between Soho Manufactory and Soho Foundry. Care should be taken to distinguish the two.
Premises at Soho Manufactory, 1775-1851.
Soho Manufactory, which was located in the parish of Handsworth (formerly in Staffordshire, now part of Birmingham), was built by Matthew Boulton in the 1760s. It housed all his concerns, such as his toy-making, plated ware, buckle, ormolu and latchet production, and a later building on the site housed the Soho Mint. Soho Manufactory was also the site of the workshops of James Watt & Co., where James Watt’s patent copying machines were made. Steam engine manufacture never occupied the whole of Soho Manufactory, nor was it ever owned by the steam engine firm. However the scale of operations at Soho Manufactory was much more extensive than has sometimes been suggested, and by the early 1800s the engine firm’s shops on the site were turning out virtually complete engines.
In the first years of Boulton & Watt’s partnership, the engine firm only occupied a few workshops in the existing Manufactory buildings, and a new forging shop was built. These made specialist parts such as nozzles and valves. Between 1781 and 1789 further shops were built to form the first ‘Engine Yard,’ and some further expansion took place place between 1790 and 1792. In the early 1800s a new engine yard was constructed, marking the largest single period of expansion of the engine firm’s premises at Soho Manufactory. This was mainly carried out by Matthew Robinson Boulton, and came soon after the firm had been re-named Boulton Watt & Co. The work began in 1801 and was completed in 1804. The machinery was powered by small beamless engines designed by William Murdock. Once complete, the new shops enabled the Manufactory to produce virtually complete engines, and the Engine Order Books (Engine Order Books, MS 3147/4/87-99) of the period indicate whether an engine was made at Soho Manufactory or Soho Foundry by giving it a code of ‘S’ or ‘F’.
Soho Manufactory was also the site of the firm’s business offices. The Drawing Office was established around 1790. Prior to this drawings had been made by Watt and his assistants at his private home at Harper’s Hill, but in 1789 Watt purchased Heathfield, and his move there necessitated the relocation of the Drawing Office. Siting it at Soho Manufactory meant that the firm was better able to cope with the increased volume of work and the need for storing drawings. There was also office space for the partners to use. The firm’s clerks and the Chief Cashier and Bookkeeper also had offices at Soho Manufactory.
There was further expansion of the engine firm’s premises at the Manufactory in the 1810s and 1820s, including stocks for testing 14 horse power independent engines, and various facilities for producing the smaller powers of boat engine. What expansion took place after this is not well-documented in the archives, but it appears that little further major work took place. The premises at Soho Manufactory were vacated and demolished in 1851 to 1852, when the firm had become James Watt & Co. Much of the machinery was transferred to Soho Foundry.
Soho Foundry, 1795-1895.
(For a detailed history of Soho Foundry, see ‘The Soho Foundry, Smethwick, West Midlands – A Documentary and Archaeological Study,’ prepared by George Demidowicz for Sandwell Borough Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund, 2002.)
Soho Foundry was the world’s first dedicated steam engine manufactory. It is situated in Smethwick (now in the Borough of Sandwell), about a mile west of the site of Soho Manufactory. The two sites were completely separate and distinct. Soho Foundry was built in response to the various commercial and manufacturing pressures that the steam engine firm was facing in the 1790s. The land was bought by James Watt in July 1795. However, as described earlier, construction and operation of the Foundry was undertaken not by the original steam engine partnership of Boulton & Watt, but by a new partnership, Boulton & Watt Jrs. (later Boulton Watt & Co., Soho Foundry) consisting of Matthew Boulton, Matthew Robinson Boulton, James Watt Jr. and Gregory Watt. The money for the buildings and machinery was advanced by the original partnership of Boulton & Watt, and the final repayment was made in August 1812.
Construction of the Foundry began on 3 August 1795, with the boundary wall being the first part of the works to go up. A rearing feast, with an address given by Matthew Boulton, was held on 30 January 1796, but boring of cylinders did not begin until December that year, and it was not until the following year that virtually complete engines began to be made.
Two rows of houses were also built at Soho Foundry, one in 1796 and one in 1801 to 1802, with end houses being added to this second row in 1808 to 1809. These were rented out to employees, the most famous tenant being William Murdock. One of the cottages was also used by James Watt Jr. during the early years of the Foundry’s operations. The Foundry also included a counting house for the clerks, and, following the vacating of the premises at Soho Foundry, the firm’s offices such as the Drawing Office were located at the Foundry.
The Foundry went through several complex phases of development, which are beyond the scope of this necessarily brief history. However one development that deserves mention is the establishment of a mint at the Foundry in 1860. Matthew Boulton’s son Matthew Piers Watt Boulton sold off his father’s mint at Soho Manufactory in 1850, and the buildings were demolished. Most of the machinery and plant was purchased by Ralph Heaton & Son of Bath Street, Birmingham, who later moved to the premises in Icknield Street now known as the Birmingham Mint. (The new buildings in Icknield Street were completed in 1862, by which time the firm was known as Ralph Heaton & Sons. ‘The Birmingham Mint has remained to this day on the same site (though now covering a much larger area).’ (James O. Sweeny, A Numismatic History of the Birmingham Mint). One of the presses was however acquired by James Watt & Co. and moved to Soho Foundry, but they appear to have done little with it. In 1860 James Watt & Co. decided to establish a mint at Soho Foundry, and erected a new building for it against the canal boundary. This also became known as Soho Mint. The Birmingham Mint and the Mint at the Foundry must therefore be carefully distinguished from the original Soho Mint at Soho Manufactory.
Soho Foundry was purchased by W. & T. Avery Ltd. in May 1895, following James Watt & Co.’s financial collapse. During their ownership, the works were considerably altered, but some of the Boulton & Watt and James Watt & Co. buildings survive to this day.
Birmingham Office.
By 1839 Boulton Watt & Co. were maintaining an office at 111 New Street, in the centre of Birmingham. This office was presumably for liaison with local sub-contractors, carrying companies, and the like. No records have been identified as originating from this office.
London Office.
In 1818 Boulton Watt & Co. instituted a formal engine agency in London, at 13 London Street, where it shared premises with the agents the London banking house M. R. Boulton J. Watt & Co. The London office later moved to 18 London Street, and then to 90 Leadenhall Street, and, with the London-based partners taking on a lead role in Boulton Watt & Co. and then James Watt & Co. from 1841 onwards, the London office became the firm’s administrative centre. Its history is more fully discussed in the list MS 3147/12—16, Records of the Boulton Watt & Co. London Office.
Products.
(Further details of the types of engines and other products can be found in the introductions to the lists of drawings, which are arranged by type of engine – see MS 3147/5, Drawings – Main Series).
Boulton & Watt and its successors are synonymous with the production of steam engines. However, the firm produced a wider range of engines than is often appreciated, and they also made various other engineering products and machinery during their lifetime. It should be noted that they did not make James Watt’s patent copying machines until 1840 – between Watt’s patent in 1780 and 1840 these were made by a separate concern, James Watt & Co. (see the list MS 3147/17—20, Records of James Watt & Co.). Nor did the engine business ever make railway locomotives, despite being encouraged to do so by none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel.( Brunel to Boulton Watt & Co., 6 Aug. 1836, MS 3147/3/442/128).
Steam Engines for Land, 1775-circa 1845.
Boulton & Watt initially supplied single-acting beam engines for pumping water out of mines. The first of their engines to start work outside Soho Manufactory was at Bloomfield Colliery, near Tipton. The starting of the engine was reported in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette for 11 March 1776. The other earliest application of the Watt engine was to blowing air for furnaces, and a Watt blowing engine was set to work at John Wilkinson’s Broseley works at around the same time as the Bloomfield engine.
The Cornish copper industry provided Boulton & Watt with their largest early market for pumping engines. However the steam engine firm continued to supply pumping engines all the way through its existence – canals, docks, harbours and municipal water works were all significant customers, indeed some of the last engines that James Watt & Co. made in the 1890s were for water works.
In the 1780s the firm began to make rotative engines. The features of these engines were quickly standardised, in that they were double-acting, they used Watt’s parallel motion to keep the piston rod vertical, and they used his ‘sun and planet’ gear to turn the up and down motion of the beam into rotary motion in a shaft. These engines have subsequently been called ‘sun and planet engines,’ but this term was not used by Boulton & Watt themselves. In the late 1790s they began to use cranks to generate rotary motion, and in the 1800s cranks replaced sun and planet wheels altogether. Rotative beam engines were employed by dozens of different industries, including metal working, colliery winding, and most extensively the textile industry.
The first engines that the firm made that did not employ a beam were small ‘bell crank’ engines. James Watt Jr., William Murdock and John Rennie were all keen to produce smaller powers of engines to meet growing demand in the late 1790s, and the bell crank engine was designed mainly by Murdock in response to this. Bell crank engines were made from 1799 to 1814, and they were employed in a wide variety of uses. Several were exported to the West Indies for sugar grinding, and some were also used to power boats. Between 1806 and 1810 the firm also experimented with an arrangement they called ‘wiggle waggle,’ but which is more commonly known as the ‘grasshopper’ arrangement. Only a few of these engines were made.
The next development was the independent beam engine. Independent engines came with their own metal framing, and thus stood free of the engine house walls (technically bell crank and wiggle waggle engines were also independent engines). They could be made in any size and power, and applied to any machinery. They were usually of smaller powers, from 6 to 20 horses, but independent engines were made as large as 80 horse power. The first independent beam engines were made in 1808, and they gradually superseded the bell crank engine in orders for engines of lower powers.
When the firm developed side lever engines for boats, they also sold several to land-based concerns, as they could be fitted into smaller spaces than standard beam engines of comparable power.
Boat Engines, 1803-circa 1850.
In the late 1810s Boulton Watt & Co. entered the boat engine market with a range of ‘side lever’ engines, so called because the beam (or lever) was down by the side of the engine rather than above it as in standard beam engines. Boulton Watt & Co. used several different types of engines to power boats before they settled on the ‘side lever’ design in 1816. The first boat engine they supplied was a bell crank engine, built in 1803—1804 for the American Robert Fulton, and they made a few other bell crank engines for boats until 1816.
In 1813-1814 the firm supplied two sets of unusual 4 horse power boat engines to the Clyde Steam Boat Co., for the boats Prince of Orange and Princess Charlotte. The cylinders of these engines were placed inside the boilers, and the beams pivoted at their far ends. Between 1813 and 1816 the firm also built three ‘vertical’ engines, in which the piston drove two cranks and fly wheels by means of a cross-bar and long side rods. These were all supplied for Canadian boats. In 1815 three independent beam engines were supplied for boats – the Navy’s Congo, the Tyne packet Eagle, and the Cove of Cork ordered by Philip Purcell & Co. Beam engines were not successful as boat engines as they proved too heavy – Congo’s engine was removed and used as a land pumping engine at Chatham Dockyard.
The first side lever engines were supplied in 1816, for three German boats. In 1817 James Watt Jr. placed a pair of the firm’s engines in the steamer Caldeonia, which he and Matthew Robinson Boulton had bought, and carried out extensive trials. This marked the proper entry of Boulton Watt & Co. into the boat engine market, and side lever engines were made for boats into the 1840s. Major customers included the Post Office, the Navy, the Imperial & Royal Danube Steam Navigation Co., and various British and European private steam boat companies.
In 1840 the firm began to build ‘oscillating’ engines. William Murdock had designed a type of oscillating engine as early as 1785, but the idea had not been developed. Other engine makers such as Maudslay Sons & Field developed successfully developed oscillating engines. The advantages of oscillating engines were that they were very compact, enabling large cylinders to be fitted into a limited height. The first oscillating engines built by Boulton Watt & Co. were for the Imperial & Royal Danube Steam Navigation Co. Oscillating engines were frequently used to power ships with screw propellors. Boulton Watt & Co. also experimented with the ‘Gorgon’-type engine, so-called because it was first used in a naval vessel called Gorgon. The firm made two sets of ‘Gorgon’-type engines in the 1840s, for the Navy steamer Virago and the frigate Centaur.
Boat-Mounted Engines.
In the 1790s Boulton & Watt supplied several pumping engines to canal companies for mounting on barges for pumping out silt and mud from canal beds. These engines were standard beam engines, but of a more squat and compact construction than usual. They were somewhat confusingly referred to as ‘boat engines.’
The firm later applied various types of rotative engines to work pumping and dredging machinery; sun and planet, bell crank, independent beam and side lever engines were all used for this purpose at some point. Sometimes the engine was also used to power the boat as well as the pumping or dredging machinery. Some of these engines were referred to as ‘mud engines.’
Later Engines, circa 1845-1906.
The engines made in the latter half of the 19th century are less well-documented. While standard beam engines were still produced, they also supplied vertical and horizontal engines. The first examples of these were made in the 1840s, for the abortive the South Devon and London Croydon & Epsom atmospheric railways. Horizontal engines gradually replaced side lever engines where a compact design was required. The firm also began to occasionally employ high pressure in the 1840s. High pressure or ‘strong’ steam had always been resisted by James Watt as too dangerous, and his son James Watt Jr. was generally of the same mind, but in the 1840s, before Watt Jr. died, two high pressure independent beam engines were made for Jamaican sugar plantations.
The firm also continued to make boat engines, although many of its earlier customers had gone. A few engines with ‘trunk’ cylinders were made, before the firm concentrated on horizontal engines to power screw propellors. They also continued to make oscillating engines for paddle steamers.
In its later decades James Watt & Co. specialised in large engines for municipal water works, such as the Crossness Water Works, which they supplied with four engines in the 1860s. The firm also supplied examples of compound and triple-expansion engines.
Mint Machinery.
As well as supplying steam engines for powering coining mints, Boulton & Watt and then Boulton Watt & Co. made the mint machinery. The steam engine firm made the mint machinery for Matthew Boulton’s Soho Mint in the late 1780s, indeed Boulton was given invaluable assistance in developing his coining presses by the Boulton & Watt engineer John Southern. Boulton then sold various steam-powered mints, including mints for Russia, Denmark and the new British Mint, later the Royal Mint at Tower Hill. These were powered by Boulton Watt & Co. engines, and Boulton Watt & Co. made the majority of the mint machinery, but they acted as sub-contractors, and the selling was done through the agency of Soho Mint firm.
Matthew Robinson Boulton continued to sell mints in the same way, for example to Brazil in 1811, and to the East India Co. for Calcutta and Bombay in the 1820s. Again the engines were made by Boulton Watt & Co., and they were also sub-contracted to for the mint machinery. They also made the mint machinery for M. R. Boulton’s ‘Soho New Mint.’ However the mint machinery business tailed off in the late 1820s.
In 1850 M. R. Boulton’s son Matthew Piers Watt Boulton sold off the Soho Mint. James Watt & Co. bought one of the presses, and in the 1860s James Watt & Co. re-entered the mint machinery business. They established their own Soho Mint, and made mint machinery for, among others, new mints at Calcutta and Bombay in the 1850s, Madras and Hong Kong in the 1860s, Japan and Siam in the 1870s, and Zacatecas in Mexico and a further mint for Bombay in the 1880s.
Fire Extinguishing Apparatus.
Throughout the 1790s and early 1800s Boulton & Watt sold several sets of fire extinguishing apparatus for use in textile mills. The apparatus was designed to be worked by a steam engine, and consisted of a pump and pipes which were run through the various floors of the factory. Because the apparatus was designed to be worked by steam engines, it was usually included in the engine drawings.
Gas Lighting.
William Murdock had experimented with gas lighting in Cornwall in the 1790s, but had not developed his ideas. However he resumed his experiments when he moved permanently to Soho, and he was given a laboratory at Soho Foundry. Gas lighting was used to illuminate Soho Manufactory for the Peace of Amiens in 1802, and in 1805 a gas lighting plant was erected in the Salford factory of Philips & Lee. George Lee took a great interest in gas lighting, and allowed Boulton Watt & Co. to carry out various experiments with his apparatus. The firm sold several more gas plants or ‘gas apparatus’ as they referred to them, mainly to textile firms in the North West and Yorkshire. Gas apparatus was made at Soho Foundry. Boulton Watt & Co. withdrew from the gas market around 1814, as their policy of making apparatus for individual premises was being overtaken by the idea of municipal supply.
Pneumatic Apparatus.
James Watt developed his pneumatic apparatus to treat tuberculosis sufferers following the death of his daughter Jessy in 1794. The apparatus was intended to be sold to doctors and medical institutions, and it was manufactured at Soho Foundry. Sales and accounts were recorded by the clerks in a Pneumatic Day Book and a Pneumatic Ledger, separate to the rest of the Foundry books. Neither of these volumes have survived.
Boilers, Heating Apparatus and Warm Air Stoves.
The steam generated by engine boilers could be put to a variety of uses, for example heating vats in dyehouses or drying stoves in pottery manufactories. Boulton Watt & Co. sold several stand-alone boilers for purposes such as this.
They also developed ‘steam heating apparatus’. This usually consisted of a boiler and a system of pipes, and was used for heating factories and other buildings. Boulton Watt & Co. sold several sets of heating apparatus and single boilers in the 1800s and 1810s, but they all but abandoned manufacturing heating apparatus in the 1820s when their former employees George and John Haden set up their own engineering business specialising in steam heating in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
The firm also made occasional ‘warm air stoves’ for heating buildings. These consisted of stoves with fires, and flues and chimneys for warm air. Soho House was fitted with a warm air heating system such as this, and the firm installed similar stoves in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow in 1808, and in Handsworth Church in 1819 to 1820.
Water Rams.
In the 1790s Boulton & Watt manufactured a few hydraulic rams invented by the Swiss physician and inventor Aimé Argand and one of the Montgolfier brothers in 1797. The ‘belier hydraulique’ was a hydraulic ram for raising water from the sea or rivers. Argand offered the invention to Boulton & Watt, and they took out a patent for it. A few rams were manufactured at Soho, most notably for the town of Falmouth on Jamaica, while Matthew Boulton installed one in the grounds of Soho House in 1798.
Other Products.
The steam engine business made other products. They would frequently supply the pump work as well as steam engines for pumping. They would also design winding planes and spirals for colliery winding engines. A one-off item that they made was a set of furnaces for Lord Penrhyn’s salt pans in Ayrshire in 1799. Around 1816 the firm made sugar refining or ‘exhausting’ apparatus developed by a Mr. Howard.
The firm also made pumps, cane trash carriers and elevators and other items for sugar plantations in the West Indies. Sugar mills were usually made by the Rennies, but Boulton Watt & Co. would frequently supply replacement parts or connecting machinery. The firm also supplied a few water wheels to West Indies plantations.
In 1843 Boulton Watt & Co. made floor joists and girders for Lt. Francis Higginson R. N., to demonstrate his patented design. Also in the 1840s the firm made occasional pieces of agricultural machinery, such as bone dust and seed drills.
The steam engine firm was also used to supply cast iron items for both Matthew Boulton and James Watt’s homes, and workmen from the firm were frequently employed at Soho House and Heathfield.
Later Products of James Watt & Co.
James Watt & Co. branched further into general engineering in the latter half of the 19th century. They continued to supply one-off boilers for heating and drying, and pumps and pump work. They also made saw mills, turntables and iron bridges, including one for the Gloucester & Forest of Dean Railway. They manufactured a rock pulveriser patented by a London engineer, R. E. Shill, in the 1880s, and a range of hydraulic machinery including draw benches, a cane press, a bolt-making machine, a hoop mill, and hydraulic mining machinery for John Darlington. They also made Gilbert Hamilton’s patent water pocket boilers, and Shephard’s Improved Patent Boiler, sold and installed Giffard’s Patent Self-Acting Water Injector, made by Sharp Stewart & Co. of Manchester, and marketed Mayhew’s Patent Automatic Boiler Feeder. |