“Life,” said he, “in this world is a state of trial, and as long as God gives us strength we are not to shun even painful employments which are duties. But in the decline of life, when the strength fails, we ought to drop all thought of objects to which we are no longer equal, in order to preserve the serenity and liberty of mind with which we are to consider our exit from this world to a better. May God prolong your life without pain for the good you do constantly, is the sincere wish of your very affectionate friends (father and daughter),
“De Luc.”[406]
Boulton’s life was, indeed, drawing to a close. He had for many years been suffering from an agonising and incurable disease—stone in the kidneys and bladder—and waited for death as for a friend. The strong man was laid low; and the night had at length come when he could work no more. The last letter which he wrote was to his daughter, in March, 1809; but the characters are so flickering and indistinct as to be scarcely legible. “If you wish to see me living,” he wrote, “pray come soon, for I am very ill.” Nevertheless, he suffered on for several months longer. At last he was released from his pain, and peacefully expired on the 17th of August, 1809, at the age of eighty-one. Though he fell like a shock of corn in full season, his death was lamented by a wide circle of relatives and friends. A man of strong affections, with an almost insatiable appetite for love and sympathy, he inspired others with like feelings towards himself; and when he died, they felt as if a brother had gone. He was alike admired and beloved by his workmen; and when he was carried to his last resting-place in Handsworth Church, six hundred of them followed the hearse, and there was scarcely a dry eye among them.[407]
Matthew Boulton was, indeed, a man of truly noble nature. Watt, than whom none knew him better, was accustomed to speak of him as “the princely Boulton.” He was generous and high-souled, a lover of truth, honour, and uprightness. His graces were embodied in a manly and noble person. We are informed through Dr. Guest that on one occasion, when Mr. Boulton’s name was mentioned in his father’s presence, he observed, “the ablest man I ever knew.” On the remark being repeated to Dr. Edward Johnson, a courtly man, he said,—“As to his ability, other persons can better judge. But I can say that he was the best mannered man I ever knew.” The appreciation of both was alike just and characteristic, and has since been confirmed by Mrs. Schimmelpenninck. She describes with admiration his genial manner, his fine radiant countenance, and his superb munificence: “He was in person tall, and of a noble appearance; his temperament was sanguine, with that slight mixture of the phlegmatic which gives calmness and dignity; his manners were eminently open and cordial; he took the lead in conversation; and, with a social heart, had a grandiose manner, like that arising from position, wealth, and habitual command. He went about among his people like a monarch bestowing largesse.”
BOULTON’S MONUMENT IN HANDSWORTH CHURCH.[408]
Boswell was equally struck by Boulton’s personal qualities when he visited Soho in 1776, shortly after the manufacture of steam-engines had been begun there. “I shall never forget,” he says, “Mr. Boulton’s expression to me when surveying the works. ‘I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have, Power.’ He had,” continues Boswell, “about seven hundred people at work. I contemplated him as an iron chieftain, and he seemed to be a father of his tribe. One of the men came to him complaining grievously of his landlord for having distrained his goods. “Your landlord is in the right, Smith,” said Boulton; “but I’ll tell you what—find a friend who will lay down one half of your rent, and I’ll lay down the other, and you shall have your goods again.””
It would be a mistake to suppose that there was any affectation in Boulton’s manner, or that his dignified bearing in society was anything but natural to him. He was frank, cheerful, and affectionate, as his letters to his wife, his children, and his friends, amply demonstrate. None knew better than he how to win hearts, whether of workmen, mining adventurers, or philosophers. “I have thought it but respectful,” he wrote Watt from Cornwall, “to give our folks a dinner at a public-house near Wheal Virgin to-day. There were present William Murdock, Lawson, Pearson, Perkins, Malcolm, Robert Muir, all Scotchmen, and John Bull, with self and Wilson,—for the engines are all now finished, and the men have behaved well, and are attached to us.” At Soho he gave an entertainment on a much larger scale upon his son coming of age in 1791, when seven hundred persons sat down to dinner. Boswell’s description of him as the father of his tribe is peculiarly appropriate. No well-behaved workman was ever turned adrift. On the contrary, fathers introduced their sons into the factory, and brought them up under their own eye, watching over their conduct and their mechanical training. Thus generation after generation of workmen followed in each other’s footsteps at Soho.
There was, no doubt, good business policy in this; for Boulton knew that by attaching the workmen to him, and inspiring them with pride in the concern, he was maintaining that prestige which, before the days of machine tools, would not have been possible without the aid of a staff of carefully-trained and highly-skilled mechanics. Yet he had many scapegraces amongst them—hard drinkers, pugilists,[409] cock-fighters, and scamps. Watt often got wholly out of patience with them, and urged their dismissal, whatever might be the consequence. But though none knew so well as Watt how to manage machines, none knew so ill how to manage men. Boulton’s practical wisdom usually came to the rescue. He would tolerate any moral shortcoming save treachery and dishonesty. But he knew that most of the men had been brought up in a bad school, often in no school at all. “Have pity on them, bear with them, give them another trial,” he would say; “our works must not be brought to a standstill because perfect men are not yet to be had.” “True wisdom,” he observed on another occasion, “directs us, when we can, to turn even evils into good. We must take men as we find them, and try to make the best of them.”
Still further to increase the attachment of the workmen to Soho, and keep together his school of skilled industry, as he called it, Boulton instituted a Mutual Assurance Society in connexion with the works; the first of the kind, so far as we are aware, established by any large manufacturer for the benefit of his workmen. Every person employed in the manufactory, in whatsoever condition, was required to be a member. Boys receiving 2s. 6d. a week paid a halfpenny weekly to the box; those receiving 5s. paid a penny a week, and so on, up to men receiving 20s. a week, who contributed 4d.; payments being made to them out of the fund during sickness and disablement, in proportion to their contributions during health. The effects of the Society were most salutary; it cultivated habits of providence and thoughtfulness amongst the men; bound them together by ties of common interest; and it was only in the cases of irreclaimable drunkards that any members of the Soho Friendly Society ever came upon the parish.