| Description | Although several printed items have survived, they are mostly from the 19th century. No booklets of directions or price lists have survived from the 1780s or 1790s. Also no printed directions describing the large drawing office-type copying machine have survived. There are some items from the period when the copying machines were made by the Copying Department of Boulton Watt & Co.
Advertisement, 1780.
This is the earliest advertisement for the copying machine, and was issued not long after Watt patented the machine and went into partnership with Matthew Boulton and James Keir.
Directions for using the Patent Portable Copying Machines.
The portable copying machine was developed by James Watt Jr. and Matthew Robinson Boulton when they took over the copying machine business circa 1795. It was sold extensively abroad, and there are instruction booklets in French and German as well as English.
Leaflets describing ink, price lists etc.
The printed leaflets describing the 'Patent Copying Powder' date from the 1780s. There is also a small bundle of printed and heavily annotated price lists and manuscript copies of lists, dating from 1836 to 1851, and a manuscript description of the cost price of counting house machines in 1842. |
| Arrangement | The Printed Directions, Price Lists and Advertisements are arranged as follows:
Advertisement, 1780.
Directions for using the Patent Portable Copying Machines.
Leaflets describing ink, price lists etc.
More detailed information on each series is given in the Description field, while reference numbers and covering dates of the actual records, and a list of the old reference numbers will be found in the pdf of the full series list attached. Item level lists are available in the searchroom of Birmingham Archives and Heritage. |
| AdminHistory | The records listed here are various printed items produced by James Watt & Co., the copying machine manufacturing business based at Soho Manufactory. The firm produced its first advertisement in 1780, not long after James Watt had patented his machine and gone into partnership with Matthew Boulton and James Keir to sell it. Throught its life the firm produced instruction booklets describing how to use the copying machine, leaflets describing the copying ink and powder, and price lists. Such lists continued to be made when firm was absorbed into the steam engine business and became the Copying Department of Boulton Watt & Co. following Matthew Robinson Boulton’s withdrawal from his partnerships with James Watt Jr. in 1840. For more information on the people and businesses mentioned in this Introduction, see The Guide to Persons & Firms in the Archives Searchroom. |