| AdminHistory | This list describes the history of James Watt & Co., the firm that made James Watt’s patent copying machine, and the overall arrangement of its 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 and for more information on the people and businesses mentioned in this Introduction, see the Guide to Persons & Firms in the Archives Searchroom.
In the late 1770s, the increasingly tedious and time-consuming task of making copies of letters and drawings by hand inspired James Watt to devise a mechanical method of doing the work. After much experimentation he developed a system which would remain in use well into the 20th century. Watt invented an ink which remained moist for much longer than normal inks. When a sheet of paper bearing writing in this ink was squeezed in a press with a blank sheet of paper on top, some of the ink transferred to the blank sheet, thus creating a reverse copy. If unsized transparent paper was used, then the copy could be viewed through the sheet and thus seen the right way round. Watt was granted letters patent for his invention on 14 February 1780. His patent covered two types of press – a screw press and roller press – but it was the roller press that was manufactured and sold at Soho.
Watt, Matthew Boulton and the chemist James Keir went into partnership in March 1780 to manufacture and sell Watt’s presses, or ‘copying machines’ as they were usually referred to. This firm was called James Watt & Co., but it was also frequently referred to as ‘The Copying Company.’ Confusion almost immediately arose with the steam engine firm of Boulton & Watt, as Watt had to instruct one correspondent on 12 August 1780 to ‘address your letters and open your account in name of James Watt & Co. as a quite different business is carried on under the firm of Boulton & Watt.’ From the outset James Watt & Co. had a separate set of accounting books, but correspondence dealing with copying machines appears to have been kept with the engine business correspondence, at least in the 1780s. The firm also had a sales agent in London, James Woodmason, and the merchant Gilbert Hamilton, who married Ann Watt’s sister, acted as an agent in Glasgow.
The copying machines were made in a workshop at Matthew Boulton’s Soho Manufactory, by a small staff of carpenters, turners and fitters. The manufacture of the machines was at first under the direction of Watt’s assistant William Playfair. The rollers were made of iron or brass, and the presses mounted in wooden boxes with drawers for paper and ink powder. The firm also supplied ink, the recipe for which was frequently altered, paper (which it purchased from paper mills) and other accessories such as drying books. Different sizes of machine were offered, including a large model for copying drawings. All the offices of the various Soho firms were equipped with copying machines.
In 1794, James Keir retired from the James Watt & Co. partnership. Matthew Boulton and James Watt passed the business on to their sons, Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr., who retained the name James Watt & Co. One of their major innovations was the introduction of a portable copying machine.The firm also continued to employ agents, for example in 1808 Matthew Robinson Boulton was in discussion with the London houses of Black Parry & Co. and Sandell & Edwards about them selling copying machines.
In 1840 Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. dissolved their partnerships, including that of James Watt & Co. The copying machine business was absorbed into the steam engine business, and it became the Boulton Watt & Co. Copying Department. In 1848, with the death of James Watt Jr., the steam engine business was re-named James Watt & Co., and it continued to make copying machines at Soho Manufactory until 1851, when they vacated their premises there and concentracted their operations at Soho Manufactory. James Watt & Co. continued to make copying machines, but it was not a significant part of their business.
NB. Care should be taken not to confuse the two firms of James Watt & Co. The first James Watt & Co. was the copying machine partnership of James Watt, Matthew Boulton and James Keir, which existed from 1780 to 1794. The second James Watt & Co. was the steam engine business, the successor to Boulton & Watt and Boulton Watt & Co., and existed from 1848 to 1895.
Record Keepers.
Detailed information on James Watt & Co.’s record keeper in the first years of the firm is hard to identify, as none of the firm’s early records survive. The bookeeping may have been initially carried out by James Keir, but it was quickly overhauled by the cashier John Buchanan in 1781. On 8 July 1781 John Buchanan wrote the following about the state of the business’s books:
‘I have lately looked over JW&Co.’s Books, and find that if they are kept after this in the same manner they have been kept hitherto, it will be impossible at any time to balance them, & consequently to know whether the business goes on well or ill. I have therefore with Mr. Keir’s concurrence begun a book (in form of a Journal from the Day & Cash books) at the beginning of the business, and mean to write a new Ledger from it without any other regard to the old one, than comparing – there is room enough in the old ledger to do this. I do not by any means wish to throw any reflections, but give this as a reason for the present plan of proceedings, of which I shall be glad to have your approbation. Mr. Woodmason has never yet sent his account, and in none of his letters writes for machines being sent him.’
On 12 November 1781 Keir wrote to James Watt in Cornwall:
‘I have delayed writing to you some months past from the continual expectation of being able to give you the state of the copying business, but that expectation has been prevented by the difficulties that arose in settling accounts with Mr. Woodmason, and by Mr. Buchanan not having had leisure to compleat our accounts so as to enable him to form a state of the business, which however he has done & yesterday I received from him an abstract…’
Buchanan left Soho in 1785. Who was responsible for the books after that is not clear. The high level account books – the journals and ledgers – of Boulton & Watt were at this period kept by the Chief Cashier and Bookeeper, James Pearson, but it appears that Matthew Boulton’s cashier William D. Brown kept the books from his arrival in 1791 until his death in 1819, when they were passed to Pearson’s successor, William Burdon. In 1826 the keeping of the day book and the administration of the copying machine warehouse were taken from Burdon’s hands and added to the duties of the head clerk, at that time John Cowcher. This left Burdon with ‘charge of the Journal and Ledger, and the administration of the cash & bills so far as handed over to me.’
Other financial duties were handled by the head clerk in engine firm’s counting house, indeed part of his salary was paid by James Watt & Co. In 1800 this post was held by William Forman, who described part of his work as ‘keeping James Watt & Co.’s books.’ In 1811 the head clerk John Ferguson received a salary of £120 from Boulton Watt & Co. and £30 from James Watt & Co., and , as noted above, in 1826 the head clerk John Cowcher received care of the day book and the administration of the warehouse.There was also a clerk employed exclusively by James Watt & Co. for petty transactions. Little is known of the holders of this post except for one Robert Hodges, who had the job from at least 1796 until 1805, when he was accused of fraud and absconded. (See the Legal Records, MS 3147/2/66 for papers relating to Hodges’ case). |