Matthew Boulton
1728 -
1809
Timeline 1728 Timeline 1809
Matthew Boulton was born in
Birmingham, the son of a button and buckle maker. Birmingham was the
city of a thousand trades and small decorative metal items, known
as "Birmingham toys", were among the most
lucrative of exports from the area. Matthew joined his father's
business after leaving school and learned the toy trade. In 1761 he
acquired land at Handsworth on the outskirts of Birmingham and began
construction of the pioneering Soho Manufactory. The factory
featured all the most modern manufacturing equipment and operated the
most up to date production methods, becoming one of the most prolific
manufacturing sites in England.
The Manufactory was world-renowned and engineers and industrialists
flocked to see it. Boulton was admired among his contemporaries and
numbered many of the era's most influential scientists and thinkers
among his friends. He was one of the founders of the Lunar
Society, a group of like-minded men who met each month to share their
ideas and knowledge. Their meetings often included experiments such as
that illustrated in Joseph Wright of Derby's 1768 work, Experiment on a
Bird in an Air Pump. (see left)
The group took its name from the full moon, which they chose as the
date of their meetings so that they could find their way home more
easily by its light.
Boulton recognised talent in the young scientists and engineers of
the day and in 1775 he offered James Watt a partnership at Soho where
he could develop his ideas about the steam engine. Boulton and Watt
engines were highly successful and drove much of the machinery of the
Industrial Revolution.
His other successes included
setting up the Soho mint, where he produced medals and foreign coins
and was eventually awarded the contract to produce British copper
coins. He also campaigned for Birmingham to have its own assay
office so that the craftsmen of the nearby jewellery quarter need not
ship their wares to London for hallmarking. Boulton's home at Soho
House is now a museum dedicated to his life and works.