When Hutton entered Birmingham in 1740, he was struck by the activity of the place and the vivacity of the inhabitants, which expressed itself in their looks as he passed them in the streets. “I had,” he says, “been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know and to prosecute his own affairs.” The Birmingham men were indeed as alert as they looked—steady workers and clever mechanics—men who struck hard on the anvil. The artisans of the place had the advantage of a long training in mechanical skill. It had been bred in their bone, and descended to them from their fathers as an inheritance.[95] In no town in England were there then to be found so many mechanics capable of executing entirely new work; nor, indeed, has the ability yet departed from them, the Birmingham artisans maintaining their individual superiority in intelligent execution of skilled work to the present day. We are informed that inventors of new machines, foreign as well as English, are still in the practice of resorting to them for the purpose of getting their inventions embodied in the best forms, with greater chances of success than in any other town in England.
About the middle of last century the two Boultons, father and son, were recognised as among the most enterprising and prosperous of Birmingham manufacturers. The father of the elder Matthew Boulton was John Boulton of Northamptonshire, in which county Boultons or Boltons have been settled for a long period, and where there are records of many clergymen of the name. About the end of the seventeenth century, this John Boulton settled at Lichfield, where he married Elizabeth, heir of Matthew Dyott of Stitchbrooke, by whom he obtained considerable property. His means must, however, have become reduced; in consequence of which his son Matthew was sent to Birmingham to enter upon a career of business, and make his own way in the world. He became established in the place as a silver stamper and piecer, to which he added other branches of manufacture, which his son Matthew afterwards largely extended.
Matthew Boulton the younger was born at Birmingham on the 3rd September, 1728. Little is known of his early life, beyond that he was a bright, clever boy, and a general favourite with his companions. He received his principal education at a private academy at Deritend, kept by the Rev. Mr. Ansted, under whom he acquired the rudiments of a good ordinary English education. Though he left school early for the purpose of following his father’s business, he nevertheless continued the work of self-instruction, and afterwards acquired considerable knowledge of Latin and French, as well as of drawing and mathematics. But his chief pleasure was in pursuing the study of chemistry and mechanics, in which, as we shall shortly find, he became thoroughly accomplished. Long after he joined his father in business, he delighted to revert to his classical favourites. From an entry in his private memorandum-book of expenses at the age of about thirty, though then very economical in other respects, we find him expending considerable sums in experiments on electricity, and on one occasion laying out a guinea on a copy of Virgil, from which it appears that trade had not spoilt his taste for either science or letters.
Young Boulton appears to have engaged in business with much spirit. By the time he was seventeen he had introduced several important improvements in the manufacture of buttons, watch-chains, and other trinkets; and he had invented the inlaid steel buckles which shortly after became the fashion. These buckles were exported in large quantities to France, from whence they were brought back to England and sold as the most recent productions of French ingenuity. The elder Boulton, having every confidence in his son’s discretion and judgment, adopted him as a partner so soon as he came of age, and from that time forward he took almost the entire management of the concern. Although in his letters he signed “for father and self,” he always spoke in the first person of matters connected with the business. Thus, in 1757, we find him writing to Timothy Holles, London, as to the prices of “coat-link and vest buttons,” intimating that to lower them would be to beat down price and quality until it became no business at all; “yet,” said he, “as I have put myself to greater expense than anybody else in erecting the best conveniences and the completest tools for the purpose, I am not willing that any interlopers should run away with it.” We find him at the same time carrying on a correspondence with Benjamin Huntsman, of Sheffield, the celebrated inventor of cast-steel.[96] On the 19th January, 1757, he sends Huntsman “a parcel of goods of the newest patterns,” and at the same time orders a quantity of Huntsman’s steel. “When thou hast some of a proper size and quality for me, and an opportunity of sending it, thou may’st, but I should be glad to have it a little tougher than the last.” He concludes—“I hope thy Philosophic Spirit still laboureth within thee, and may it soon bring forth Fruit useful to mankind, but more particularly to thyself, is the sincere wish of Thy Obliged Friend.” With a view to economy, Boulton in course of time erected a steel-house of his own for the purpose of making steel; and he frequently used it to convert the cuttings and scraps of the small iron wares which he manufactured, into ordinary steel, afterwards melting and converting it into cast-steel in the usual way.
From the earliest glimpses we can get of Boulton as a man of business, it would appear to have been his aim to be at the top of whatsoever branch of manufacture he undertook. He endeavoured to produce the best possible articles in regard of design, material, and workmanship. Taste was then at a low ebb, and “Brummagem” had become a byword for everything that was gaudy, vulgar, and meretricious. Boulton endeavoured to get rid of this reproach, and aimed at raising the standard of taste in manufacture to the highest point. With this object, he employed the best artists to design his articles, and the cleverest artisans to manufacture them. Apart from the question of elevating the popular taste, there can be no doubt that this was good policy on his part, for it served to direct public attention to the superior and honest quality of the articles produced by his firm, and eventually brought him a large accession of business.
In 1759, Boulton’s father died, bequeathing to him the considerable property which he had accumulated by his business. The year following, when thirty-two years of age, Matthew married Anne, the daughter of Luke Robinson, Esq., of Lichfield. The lady was a distant relation of his own; the Dyotts of Stitchbrooke, whose heir his grandfather had married, being nearly related to the Babingtons of Curborough, from whom Miss Robinson was lineally descended—Luke Robinson having married the daughter and co-heir of John Babington of Curborough and Patkington. Considerable opposition was offered to the marriage by the lady’s friends, on account of Matthew Boulton’s occupation; but he pressed his suit, and with good looks and a handsome presence to back him, he eventually succeeded in winning the heart and hand of Anne Robinson. He was now, indeed, in a position to have retired from business altogether. But a life of inactivity had no charms for him. He liked to mix with men in the affairs of active life, and to take his full share in the world’s business. Indeed, he hated ease and idleness, and found his greatest pleasure in constant occupation.
Instead, therefore, of retiring from trade, he determined to engage in it more extensively. He entertained the ambition of founding a manufactory that should be the first of its kind, and serve as a model for the manufacturers of his neighbourhood. His premises on Snow-hill,[97] Birmingham, having become too small for his purpose, he looked about him for a suitable spot on which to erect more commodious workshops; and he was shortly attracted by the facilities presented by the property afterwards so extensively known as the famous Soho.
Soho is about two miles north of Birmingham, on the Wolverhampton road. It is not in the parish of Birmingham, nor in the county of Warwick, but just over the border, in the county of Stafford. Down to the middle of last century the ground on which it stands was a barren heath, used only as a rabbit-warren. The sole dwelling on it was the warrener’s hut, which stood near the summit of the hill, on the spot afterwards occupied by Soho House; and the warrener’s well is still to be found in one of the cellars of the mansion. In 1756, Mr. Edward Ruston took a lease of the ground for ninety-nine years from Mr. Wyerley, the lord of the manor, with liberty to make a cut about half a mile in length for the purpose of turning the waters of Hockley Brook into a pool under the brow of the hill. The head of water thus formed was used to drive a feeble mill below, which Mr. Ruston had established for laminating metals. He also built a small dwelling-house about 150 yards from the mill, and expended upon the place a sum of about 1000l. in all. When Mr. Boulton was satisfied that the place would suit his purpose, he entered into arrangements with Mr. Ruston for the purchase of his lease,[98] on the completion of which he proceeded to rebuild the mill on a large scale, and in course of time removed thither the whole of his tools, machinery, and workmen. The new manufactory, when finished, consisted of a series of roomy workshops conveniently connected with each other, and capable of accommodating upwards of a thousand workmen. The building and stocking of the premises cost upwards of 20,000l.
SOHO MANUFACTORY.