Sacred to the Memory of
Matthew Boulton, F.R.S.
By the skilful exertion of a mind turned to Philosophy and Mechanics,
The application of a taste correct and refined,
And an ardent spirit of enterprize, he improved, embellished, and extended
The Arts and Manufactures of his country,
Leaving his Establishment of Soho a noble monument of his
Genius, industry, and success.
The character his talents had raised, his virtues adorned and exalted.
Active to discern merit, and prompt to relieve distress,
His encouragement was liberal, his benevolence unwearied.
Honoured and admired at home and abroad,
He closed a life eminently useful, the 17th of August, 1809, Aged 81,
Esteemed, loved, and lamented.
[ [408] The monument to Boulton is on the left hand of the altar in the above illustration; that of Murdock is opposite to it, on the right.
[ [409] Isaac Perrins was one of the most noted among the fighters of Soho. Mr. Scale, a partner in the hardware business, wrote to Mr. Boulton, then at Cosgarne (15th October, 1782),—“Perrins has had a battle with the famous Jemmy Sargent for a hundred guineas, in which Perrins came off conqueror without a fall or hurt: in 13 rounds he knocked down his antagonist 13 times. They had it out at Colemore on our Wake Monday. The Sohoites all returned with blue cockades.” Mrs. Watt, in a gossipy letter to Mr. Boulton of the same date, says “1500l. was betted against Perrins at Birmingham, and lost.” Perrins’s success led him to turn “professional bruiser” for a time, and he left his place in the smith’s shop. But either not succeeding in his new business, or finding the work harder than that of the smithy, he came back to Soho, and, being a good workman, he was taken on again and remained in Boulton’s employment till the close of his life, leaving sons to succeed him in the same department.
[ [410] Boulton to De Luc, 20th October, 1787.
[ [411] The MS. memoir is dated Glasgow the 17th September, 1809, at which period Watt was in his 73rd year. It had evidently been written at the request of M. Robinson Boulton, Esq., shortly after his father’s death. We find various testimony to the same effect as the above in the Soho papers. Thus Mr. Peter Ewart, C.E., speaks of Mr. Boulton’s remarkable quickness in selecting objects to which machinery might be applied with advantage, and of his great promptitude and determination in carrying his plans into effect. He also describes the contagiousness of his example, which strengthened the weak and inspired the timid. “He possessed,” says Mr. Ewart, “above all other men I have ever known, the faculty of inspiring others with a portion of that ardent zeal with which he himself pursued every important object he had in view; and it was impossible to be near him without becoming warmly interested in the success of his enterprises. The urbanity of his manners, and his great kindness to young people in particular, never failed to leave the most agreeable impression on the minds of all around him; and most truly may it be said that he reigned in the hearts of those that were in his employment.”—Boulton MSS.
[ [412] Boulton to M. Vanlinder, Rotterdam, 24th April, 1788.
[ [413] “Though I was in some measure prepared,” he wrote, “yet I had hoped that he might have recovered from this fit, as he has done from other severe ones. Such wishes, however, were selfish; for in respect to himself, none of his friends could rationally have desired the prolongation of a life which has long been passed in torture, without hope of relief. May he therefore rest in peace; and when our end approaches, may we have as little to reproach us and as much to console us as he had.”—Mr. Watt to his son, 22nd August, 1809. Boulton MSS.
[ [414] Watt to M. Robinson Boulton, 23rd August, 1809.
[ [415] Lord Brougham’s ‘Lives of Philosophers of the Time of George III.’ The Friday Club of Edinburgh was so called because of the evening of the week on which it met and supped. It numbered amongst its members Professor Playfair, Walter Scott, Henry Brougham, Francis Jeffrey, Leonard Horner, Lord Corehouse, Sir W. Drummond, and others known to fame. Watt was a regular attender of the Club during his Edinburgh visits.
[ [416] In March, 1811, he wrote Dr. P. Wilson as follows:—“For want of other news I must now say a little upon my late invention, with which Dr. Herschel seemed much pleased. It continues to succeed, and I have realised some more of my ideas on the subject. I have executed several small busts in alabaster, not being strong enough to work in marble. I had a difficulty in getting the several segments which form the surface of the bust to meet, but have now accomplished it. It requires a very accurate construction of the machine, and a very accurate adjustment of the tools, so that their axes may be always equally distant from each other, as the axes of the pattern and that of the stone to be cut are. I have also made some improvements in the tools for cutting marble and other hard stones. The things you saw were done by the tool and the guide-point, moving in parallel lines, straight or circular, and very near one another; (an illustration of Euclid’s position, that the motion of a point generates a line, and the motion of a line generates a surface). I have now contrived, though not executed, that the two points, the guide and the cutting point, may move in any line, whether straight or crooked, square or diagonal, so that an inscription might be cut in stone from a drawing on paper.”—Cited in Muirhead’s ‘Mechanical Inventions of James Watt,’ ii. 329–30.