Before removing to Soho, Mr. Boulton took into partnership Mr. John Fothergill, with the object of more vigorously extending his business operations. Mr. Fothergill possessed a very limited capital, but he was a man of good character and active habits of business, with a considerable knowledge of foreign markets. On the occasion of his entering the concern, stock was taken of the warehouse on Snow Hill; and some idea of the extent of Boulton’s business at the time may be formed from the fact, that his manager, Mr. Zaccheus Walker, assisted by Farquharson, Nuttall, Frogatt, and half-a-dozen labourers, were occupied during eight days in weighing metals, counting goods, and preparing an inventory of the effects and stock in trade. The partnership commenced at midsummer, 1762, and shortly after the principal manufactory was removed to Soho.
Steps were immediately taken to open up new connexions and agencies at home and abroad; and a large business was shortly established with many of the principal towns and cities of Europe, in filagree and inlaid work, livery and other buttons, buckles, clasps, watch-chains, and various kinds of ornamental metal wares. The firm shortly added the manufacture of silver plate and plated goods to their other branches,[99] and turned out large quantities of candlesticks, urns, brackets, and various articles in ormolu. The books of the firm indicate the costly nature of their productions, 500 ounces of silver being given out at a time, besides considerable quantities of gold and platina for purposes of fabrication. Boulton himself attended to the organization and management of the works and to the extension of the trade at home, while Fothergill devoted himself to establishing and superintending the foreign agencies.
From the first, Boulton aimed at establishing a character for the excellence of his productions. They must not only be honest in workmanship, but tasteful in design. He determined, so far as in him lay, to get rid of the “Brummagem” reproach. Thus we find him writing to his partner from London:—“The prejudice that Birmingham hath so justly established against itself makes every fault conspicuous in all articles that have the least pretensions to taste. How can I expect the public to countenance rubbish from Soho, while they can procure sound and perfect work from any other quarter?”
He frequently went to town for the express purpose of reading and making drawings of rare works in metal in the British Museum, sending the results down to Soho. When rare objects of art were offered for sale, he endeavoured to secure them. “I bid five guineas,” he wrote his partner on one occasion, “for the Duke of Marlborough’s great blue vase, but it sold for ten.... I bought two bronzed figures, which are sent herewith.” He borrowed antique candlesticks, vases, and articles in metal from the Queen and from various members of the nobility. “I wish Mr. Eginton,” he wrote, “would take good casts from the Hercules and the Hydra, and then let it be well gilt and returned with the seven vases; for ’tis the Queen’s. I perceive we shall want many such figures, and therefore we should omit no opportunity of taking good casts.” The Duke of Northumberland lent Boulton many of his most highly-prized articles for imitation by his workmen. Among his other liberal helpers in the same way, we find the Duke of Richmond, Lord Shelburne, and the Earl of Dartmouth. The Duke gave him an introduction to Horace Walpole, for the purpose of enabling him to visit and examine the art treasures of Strawberry Hill. “The vases,” said he, in writing to Boulton, “are, in my opinion, better worth your seeing than anything in England, and I wish you would have exact drawings of them taken, as I may very possibly like to have them copied by you.” Lord Shelburne’s opinion of Boulton may be gathered from his letter to Mr. Adams, the architect, in which he said:—“Mr. Boulton is the most enterprising man in different ways in Birmingham, and is very desirous of cultivating Mr. Adams’s taste in his productions, and has bought his Dioclesian by Lord Shelburne’s advice.”
Boulton, however, did not confine himself to England; he searched the Continent over for the best specimens of handicraft as models for imitation; and when he found them he strove to equal, if not to excel them in style and quality. He sent his agent, Mr. Wendler, on a special mission of this sort, to Venice, Rome, and other Italian cities, to purchase for him the best specimens of metal-work, and obtain for him designs of various ornaments—vases, cameos, intaglios, and statuary. On one occasion we find Wendler sending him 456 prints, Boulton acknowledging that they will prove exceedingly useful for the purposes of his manufacture. At the same time, Fothergill was travelling through France and Germany with a like object, while he was also establishing new connexions with a view to extended trade.[100]
While Boulton was ambitious of reaching the highest excellence in his own line of business, he did not confine himself to that, but was feeling his way in various directions outside of it. Thus to his friend Wedgwood he wrote on one occasion, that he admired his vases so much that he “almost wished to be a potter.” At one time, indeed, he had serious thoughts of beginning the fictile manufacture; but he rested satisfied with mounting in metal the vases which Wedgwood made. “The mounting of vases,” he wrote, “is a large field for fancy, in which I shall indulge, as I perceive it possible to convert even a very ugly vessel into a beautiful vase.”[101]
Another branch of business that he sought to establish was the manufacture of clocks. It was one of his leading ideas, that articles in common use might be made much better and cheaper if manufactured on a large scale with the help of the best machinery; and he thought this might be successfully done in the making of clocks and timepieces. The necessary machinery was erected accordingly, and the new branch of business was started. Some of the timepieces were of an entirely novel arrangement. One of them, invented by Dr. Small, contained but a single wheel, and was considered a piece of very ingenious construction. Boulton also sought to rival the French makers of ornamental timepieces, by whom the English markets were then almost entirely supplied; and some of the articles of this sort turned out by him were of great beauty. One of his most ardent encouragers and admirers, the Hon. Mrs. Montagu, wrote to him,—“I take greater pleasure in our victories over the French in the contention of arts than of arms. The achievements of Soho, instead of making widows and orphans, make marriages and christenings. Your noble industry, while elevating the public taste, provides new occupations for the poor, and enables them to bring up their families in comfort. Go on, then, sir, to triumph over the French in taste, and to embellish your country with useful inventions and elegant productions.”
Boulton’s efforts to improve the industrial arts did not, however, always meet with such glowing eulogy as this. Two of his most highly finished astronomical clocks could not find purchasers at his London sale; on which he wrote to his wife at Soho, “I find philosophy at a very low ebb in London, and I have therefore brought back my two fine clocks, which I will send to a market where common sense is not out of fashion. If I had made the clocks play jigs upon bells, and a dancing bear keeping time, or if I had made a horse-race upon their faces, I believe they would have had better bidders. I shall therefore bring them back to Soho, and some time this summer will send them to the Empress of Russia, who, I believe, would be glad of them.”[102] During the same visit to London, he was more successful with the king and queen, who warmly patronised his productions. “The king,” he wrote to his wife, “hath bought a pair of cassolets, a Titus, a Venus clock, and some other things, and inquired this morning how yesterday’s sale went. I shall see him again, I believe. I was with them, the queen and all the children, between two and three hours. There were, likewise, many of the nobility present. Never was man so much complimented as I have been; but I find that compliments don’t make fat nor fill the pocket. The queen showed me her last child, which is a beauty, but none of ’em are equal to the General of Soho or the fair Maid of the Mill.[103] God bless them both, and kiss them for me.”
In another letter he described a subsequent visit to the palace. “I am to wait upon their majesties again so soon as our Tripod Tea-kitchen arrives, and again upon some other business. The queen, I think, is much improved in her person, and she now speaks English like an English lady. She draws very finely, is a great musician, and works with her needle better than Mrs. Betty. However, without joke, she is extremely sensible, very affable, and a great patroness of English manufactures. Of this she gave me a particular instance; for, after the king and she had talked to me for nearly three hours, they withdrew, and then the queen sent for me into her boudoir, showed me her chimneypiece, and asked me how many vases it would take to furnish it; ‘for,’ said she, ‘all that china shall be taken away.’ She also desired that I would fetch her the two finest steel chains I could make. All this she did of her own accord, without the presence of the king, which I could not help putting a kind construction upon.”[104]
Thus stimulated by royal and noble patronage, Boulton exerted himself to the utmost to produce articles of the highest excellence. Like his friend Wedgwood, he employed Flaxman and other London artists to design his choicer goods; but he had many foreign designers and skilled workmen, French and Italian, in his regular employment. He attracted these men by liberal wages, and kept them attached to him by kind and generous treatment. On one occasion we find the Duke of Richmond applying to him to recommend a first-class artist to execute some special work in metal for him. Boulton replies that he can strongly recommend one of his own men, an honest, steady workman, an excellent metal turner. “He hath made for me some exceeding good achromatic telescopes [another branch of Boulton’s business].... I give him two guineas a week and a house to live in. He is a Frenchman, and formerly worked with the famous M. Germain; he afterwards worked for the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and he hath worked upwards of two years for me.”[105]