| Description | This file contains letters and papers relating to John Scale (1736/7-1793) and his sons George (b. 1774) and John (b. 1776). John Scale the elder was a senior manager of Soho Manufactory from about 1770, and from 1777 to 1782 was a partner with Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill in the manufacture of buttons, steel chains, and sword hilts. After Fothergill’s death in 1782 the two living partners continued these trades under the new partnership of Boulton & Scale, and when Scale died in 1793 his two sons took his part in the firm. The firm of Boulton & Scale terminated in 1799, when the Scales moved to Aberdare in South Wales, where they established a blast furnace. Thereafter the button trade at Soho was continued by the firm of M. Boulton & Button Company. John Scale the elder also acted as Matthew Boulton’s "house and land agent" from 1768 to 1787.
The contents of this file were formerly in a portfolio labelled—
J. Scale & G. & J. Scale 1765 to 1802
This is the title recorded in the Inventory made by the Assay Office in 1921, but unfortunately the portfolio was subsequently discarded. Under Matthew Robinson Boulton’s scheme of arrangement the file was placed in Box K. II ("Special Correspondents—Partners & Agents"), though by 1921 it had been moved (inadvertently, no doubt) to Box K. I. The file was examined by William D. Brown (or perhaps, indeed, assembled by him) in 1791 and he made new dockets for all the letters from 1772-1776 (2-14), and also those of 7 September 1784 and 26 August 1785 (61).
It is evident that the letters and papers now in this file (particularly the latter) include many that were transferred from elsewhere by the Assay Master, but it appears impossible to identify these with certainty, or determine their origins. The following systematic arrangement has therefore been adopted:
Letters, 1765-1802. (1-116)
Papers respecting the firm of Boulton & Fothergill,
and their partnership with John Scale, 1772-1780. (117-124)
Papers respecting the firm of Boulton & Scale, 1782-1790. (125-133)
Papers respecting the settlement with the executors
of John Scale, 1795. (134-143)
Papers respecting the firm of Boulton & Scale, 1796-1802. (144-149)
The order of the various memoranda in the fourth category (134-143) is necessarily somewhat arbitrary.
In the following List, the summaries printed in italics within square brackets are taken from the Assay Office Catalogue. These must be used with caution. They are not to be relied on as word-for-word transcripts, and do not always give an adequate idea of the full contents of the letters. Summaries in quotation-marks are taken from the contemporary dockets. Unless otherwise stated, the copies are press-copies and each document is a single piece. |