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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
Series One: The Boulton & Watt Archive and the Matthew Boulton Papers from Birmingham Central Library

Part 15: Boulton & Watt Correspondence and Papers (MS 3147/3/485-560)

Part 15 of this microfilm project continues our coverage of the full run of correspondence and papers in the Boulton and Watt Archive. These materials have recently been re-catalogued by the Archives of Soho Project, a major initiative funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Birmingham City Council and the Birmingham Assay Office Charitable Trust, to achieve a proper arrangement and listing of all the letters and papers. This work was carried out by senior project archivists Adam C Green and Tim Proctor, and project archivist Fiona Tait. It has made these important documents much more accessible to researchers. All the relevant listings compiled by the Archives of Soho Project are included in this microfilm project.

Part 15 starts with a strong series of correspondence and papers devoted to Special Subjects and important correspondents, for instance:

• Aimé Argand (Swiss physicist and chemist, responsible for improvements to the oil lamp, leading to the creation of the first scientifically constructed oil burner, known as the Argand lamp. The letters discuss these crucial advances in lighting and other inventions such as the hydraulic ram).


• Richard Arkwright (Shrewd businessman and owner of numerous textile factories which became very profitable. He took out a patent for a new Carding Machine in 1775 and built factories in Lancashire, Staffordshire and Scotland, which used the Boulton and Watt steam engine).


• Birmingham Water Works (Letters cover 1829-1830).


• The Bombay Mint (Four firms were involved in the refurbishment and refitting of the Bombay Mint. Most of the responsibility for constructing machinery and selecting personnel rested on the shoulders of Matthew Robinson Boulton. Bombay was of secondary importance to Calcutta, but in recycling machinery shipped out from Soho, the East India Company hoped to save considerable money. James Watt Jr was also very involved in the resumption of negotiations about the Indian mints in the 1820s. The Bombay Mint was ready to commence coining by the autumn of 1829).


• The Calcutta Mint (The proposal sent by Boulton, Watt & Company to Joseph Thompson at East India House in London, at the end of January 1821, offered to construct steam engines with an aggregate power of 138 horses, 12 coining and 18 cutting out presses, 9 milling and 6 shaking machines, a die multiplying press and all the requisite drawings and spare parts for a modern mint. The new mint was finally completed by August 1830. Its activities and production expanded quickly in the 1830s. William Forbes worked under a Master of the Mint, Robert Saunders, who had been given that post in April 1826, long before there was any coinage to superintend. Forbes became the Master of the Mint in January 1836).


• The Carron Company (Founded in 1759, the company began producing iron in 1760. The papers concerning water reproduced here date from 1776. Under the leadership of Charles Gascoigne the firm became responsible for supplying guns and carronades to the Navy).


• Robert Fulton (American scientist and pioneer of steam navigation).


• J D H van Liender (Secretary of the Batavian Society of Rotterdam).


• Minera Mine (Accounts, letters and papers document the history of the firm’s relations with the mine from 1794 to 1813).


• The Royal Mint (Matthew Boulton and John Rennie submitted a scheme for a new Mint to the Board of Trade, which was agreed in July 1805. The new factory on Tower Hill was completed in 1811. The services of Soho were needed to make repairs after a fire caused severe damage on 31 October 1815. These letters cover discussions between Matthew Robinson Boulton, James Lawson, John and George Rennie. In April 1818, following the death of James Lawson, George Rennie was appointed to replace him as supervisor of the machinery at the Royal Mint. Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr gave the young engineer their whole-hearted support).


• St Katherine’s Dock (Letters and papers for 1826-1829. Drawings for two Boulton & Watt engines dating from 1827 can be found in Portfolio 661 - see Engineering Drawings in Part 11 of this microfilm project).


• Thomas Telford (Engineer responsible for the construction of roads, canals, bridges and harbours, in 1818 he became the first president of the Institute of Civil Engineers).


• Josiah Wedgwood (Famous potter, he opened his new pottery and model village at Etruria in 1769. He was Chairman of the Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain and a close friend of Matthew Boulton).


• John Wilkinson (Ironmaster at Bersham, Broseley and Bradley. After numerous experiments, he finally succeeded in substituting coal for coke, and decided to join forces with his father at his foundry at Bersham. There they made cannon in the traditional fashion. This involved casting a one-piece cannon with a hole up the middle. Since the hole was cast, it often introduced imperfections into the cannon, imperfections that could have catastrophic consequences for those using it. He took the factory over from his father in 1761-1762, and around the same time established an ironworks near Ironbridge, one of the first to have a Boulton & Watt steam engine.

His most important contribution was the invention of a cannon-boring machine in 1774-1775, which was far safer and more accurate than any other in use at that time. He immediately adapted the invention for use in making cylinders for Boulton & Watt's engines, and went into partnership with them. For some twenty years they enjoyed a near-monopoly, with Boulton & Watt insisting that customers bought parts from the Wilkinson foundry. However, this profitable relationship ended when Wilkinson's younger brother, William, returned from Europe in the late 1780s. The two men fell out and William supplied Boulton & Watt with the details of pirate engines built by his brother on the side. They sued, and established the Soho works in Stoke-on-Trent to gain some independent production. Details of this dispute are covered in the letters included here.

In 1779 Wilkinson reappeared as a major shareholder in the Ironbridge, encouraging the other shareholders to make the bridge entirely from iron. In 1787 he launched the first iron barge and two years later he patented a method to make spiral grooves in cannons that would project the ball further and straighter. His obsession with iron reached its peak in the late 1790s, when he kept iron coffins at his various residences and paid to have iron windows, a pulpit and other fittings installed into a Methodist chapel in Bradley).


• William Wilkinson (Iron master and close friend of Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt junior. Brother of John Wilkinson, the two men were in constant conflict. Despite this, the Wilkinson industrial empire was far reaching and encompassed iron, lead, copper and brass manufacturing, mining, ships, canals, road building, cannon production, banking and agriculture).

Further material covers:

• Letters from schemes concerning new inventions and improvements to the Steam Engine, 1801-1829


• The final chapters in the history of the firm of Boulton & Watt, 1865-1894


• Schemes, plans, calculations, descriptions of new machines, 1769-1790


• Details of experiments on the first engine at Soho, 1773-1774, and on the Forge Engine at Soho Manufactory in 1783


• Memoranda by William Murdoch on Lord Lowther’s Colleries at Whitehaven


• Steamboat Memoranda, including plans and sketches, newspaper articles and other papers, with special features on some of the more important vessels such as the Caledonia.

A paperback guide accompanies the microfilm project to provide full contents of reels information and detailed listings for Part 15.



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