Lives of Boulton and Watt. Principally from the Original Soho Mss. / Comprising also a history of the invention and introduction of the steam engine

by Samuel Smiles

But this was only a small item in the constitution of the Soho manufactory. Before its establishment, comparatively little attention had been given to the organisation of labour on a large scale. Workshops were so small that everything went on immediately under the master’s eye, and workmen got accustomed to ply at their work diligently, being well watched. But when manufacturing was carried on upon so large a scale as at Soho, and separate processes were conducted in different rooms and workshops, it was impossible that the master’s eye should be over all his workers, or over even any considerable portion of them at the same time. It was therefore necessary to introduce a new system. Hence the practice of inspection by deputy, and the appointment of skilled and trustworthy foremen for the purpose of enforcing strict discipline in the various shops, and at the same time economising labour and ensuring excellence of workmanship. In carrying out this arrangement, Boulton proved remarkably successful: and Soho came to be regarded as a model establishment. Men came from all parts to see and admire its organisation; and when Wedgwood proceeded to erect his great pottery works at Etruria, he paid many preliminary visits to Soho for the purpose of ascertaining how the difficulties occasioned by the irregular habits of the workpeople had been so successfully overcome by his friend, and applying the results of his experience in the organisation of his own manufactory.

Though Boulton could not keep his eye directly on the proceedings in the shops, he was quick to discern when anything was going wrong. While sitting in the midst of his factory, surrounded by the clang of hammers and the noise of engines, he could usually detect when any stoppage occurred, or when the machinery was going too fast or too slow, and issue his orders accordingly. The sound of the tools going, and the hammers clanging, which to strangers was merely an intolerable noise, was an intelligible music in his ears; and, like the leader of an orchestra, who casts his eye at once in the direction of the player of a wrong note, so Boulton was at once conscious of the slightest dissonance in the performances of his manufactory, and took the necessary steps immediately to correct it.

From what we have already said, it will be sufficiently clear that Boulton was a first-rate man of business. He had a hearty enthusiasm for his calling, and took a just pride in it. In conducting it, he was guided by fine tact, great knowledge of character, and sound practical wisdom. When fully satisfied as to the course he should pursue, he acted with remarkable vigour and promptitude, bending his whole mind to the enterprise which he had taken in hand. It was natural that he should admire in others the qualities he himself desired to possess. “I can’t say,” he wrote to Watt, “but that I admire John Wilkinson for his decisive, clear, and distinct character, which is, I think, a first-rate one of its kind.” Like Wilkinson, Boulton was also distinguished for his indomitable pluck; and in no respect was this more strikingly displayed than in his prosecution of the steam-engine enterprise.

Playfair has truly said, that had Watt searched all Europe over, he could not have found another person so fitted to bring his invention before the public in a manner worthy of its merits and importance. Yet Boulton was by no means eager to engage in the scheme. Watt could with difficulty persuade him to take it up; and it was only in exchange for a bad debt that he at length became a partner in it. But when once fairly committed, he threw himself into the enterprise with an extraordinary degree of vigour. He clearly recognised in the steam-engine a power destined to revolutionise the industrial operations of the world. To M. Argand, the famous French lamp inventor, he described it as “the most certain, the most regular, the most durable, and the most effective machine in Nature, so far as her powers have yet been revealed to mortal knowledge;” and he declared to him that, finding he could be of more use to manufactures and to mankind in general by employing all his powers in the capacity of an engineer, than in fabricating any kind of clincaillerie whatsoever, he would thenceforward devote himself wholly to his new enterprise.

But it was no easy work he had undertaken. He had to struggle against prejudices, opposition, detraction, and difficulties of all kinds. Not the least difficulty he had to strive against was the timidity and faint-heartedness of his partner. For years Watt was on the brink of despair. He kept imploring Boulton to relieve him from his troubles; he wished to die and be at rest; he “cursed his inventions;” indeed he was the most miserable of men. But Boulton never lost heart. He was hopeful, courageous, and strong—Watt’s very backbone. He felt convinced that the invention must eventually succeed, and he never for a moment lost faith in it. He braved and risked everything to “carry the thing through.” He mortgaged his lands to the last farthing; borrowed from his personal friends; raised money by annuities; obtained advances from bankers; and had invested upwards of 40,000l. in the enterprise before it began to pay.

During this terrible struggle he was more than once on the brink of insolvency, but continued as before to cheer and encourage his fainting partner. “Keep your mind and your heart pleasant if possible,” he wrote to Watt, “for the way to go through life sweetly is not to regard rubs.” To those about Watt he wrote, “Do not disturb Mr. Watt, but keep him as free from anxiety as you can.” He himself took the main share of the burden,—pushing the engine amongst the Cornish miners, bringing it under the notice of London brewers and water companies, and finding money to meet the heavy liabilities of the firm.

So much honest endeavour could not fail. And at last the tide seemed to turn. The engine became recognised as a grand working power, and there was almost a run upon Soho for engines. Then pirates sprang up in all directions, and started new schemes with the object of evading Watt’s patent. And now a new battle had to be fought against “the illiberal, sordid, unjust, ungenerous, and inventionless misers, who prey upon the vitals of the ingenious, and make haste to seize upon what their laborious and often costly application has produced.”[410] At length this struggle, too, was conclusively settled in Boulton and Watt’s favour, and they were left at last to enjoy the fruits of their labour in peace.

Watt never could have fought such a series of battles alone. He would have been a thousand times crushed; and, but for Boulton’s unswerving courage and resolute determination, he could neither have brought his engine into general use, nor derived any adequate reward for his great invention. Though his specification lodged in the Patent Office might clearly establish his extraordinary mechanical genius, it is most probable that he himself would have broken his heart over his scheme, and added only another to the long list of great martyr inventors.

None was more ready to acknowledge the immense services of Boulton in introducing the steam-engine to general use as a working power, than Watt himself. In the MS. memoir of his lately deceased friend deposited among the Soho papers, dated Glasgow, 17th September, 1809, Watt says,—“Through the whole of this business Mr. Boulton’s active and sanguine disposition served to counterbalance the despondency and diffidence which were natural to me; and every assistance which Soho or Birmingham could afford was procured. Mr. Boulton’s amiable and friendly character, together with his fame as an engineer and active manufacturer, procured us many and very active friends in both Houses of Parliament.... Suffice it to say, that to his generous patronage, the active part he took in the management of the business, his judicious advice, and his assistance in contriving and arranging many of the applications of the steam-engine to various machines, the public are indebted for great part of the benefits they now derive from that machine. Without him, or some similar partner (could such a one have been found), the invention could never have been carried by me to the length that it has been.

“Mr. Boulton was not only an ingenious mechanic, well skilled in all the arts of the Birmingham manufacturers, but he possessed in a high degree the faculty of rendering any new invention of his own or of others useful to the public, by organising and arranging the processes by which it could be carried on, as well as of promoting the sale by his own exertions and those of his numerous friends and correspondents. His conception of the nature of any invention was quick, and he was not less quick in perceiving the uses to which it might be applied, and the profits which might accrue from it. When he took any scheme in hand, he was rapid in executing it, and on those occasions spared neither trouble nor expense. He was a liberal encourager of merit in others, and to him the country is indebted for various improvements which have been brought forward under his auspices....