Although the machinery of the “Hôtel de Monnaie,” which Boulton erected at Soho, was found sufficient for the execution of his contract with the East India Company, its action was “violent and noisy,” and did not work to his satisfaction. He accordingly, with his usual determination to reach the highest degree of mechanical perfection, proceeded to remodel the whole of his coining machinery, in the course of which he introduced many entirely new contrivances and adaptations. In this he was ably assisted by William Murdock, Peter Ewart, James Lawson, and John Southern; but he himself was throughout the leading spirit, and took the principal part of the work. He originated numerous essential improvements in the rolling, annealing, and cleaning of the metal,—in the forging, multiplying, and tempering of the dies,—and in the construction of the milling and cutting-out machines,—which were worked out in detail by his assistants, after various trials, examined and tested by himself; while the arrangement and methodising of the system of coining—in a word, the organisation of the mint—was entirely his own work. “To his indefatigable energy and perseverance,” wrote Murdock many years later, “in pursuit of this, the favourite and nearly the sole object of the last twenty years of the active part of Mr. Boulton’s life, is, in a great measure, to be attributed the perfection to which the art of coining has ultimately attained.”[319]
While thus labouring at the improvement of his presses, dies, and the application of the steam-engine to the process of coining, Boulton was actively engaged in stirring up public opinion on the subject of an improved copper coinage. Six presses were fitted and ready for work at Soho by the end of 1788;[320] but the only considerable orders which had as yet been executed were the copper coinage of the East India Company, another for the American Colonies, and a silver coinage for the Sierra Leone Company; so that the Soho mint, notwithstanding the capital, skill, and labour bestowed upon it, remained comparatively idle. Boulton continued to stir up the Government through his influential friends;[321] and he was at length called before the Privy Council and examined as to the best means of preventing the issue of counterfeit money. He stated his views to them at great length; and the members were so much impressed by his statements that they authorised him to prepare and submit to them a model penny, halfpenny, and farthing. This he at once proceeded to do, and forwarded them to the Privy Council, accompanied by an elaborate report, setting forth the superiority of the new coins over those then issued from the Mint; demonstrating that their adoption would effectually prevent counterfeiting of base copper money, and offering to guarantee the execution of a contract for a new coinage, at “not exceeding half the expense which the common copper coin hath always cost at his Majesty’s Mint.”[322]
Although the specimens submitted by Boulton to the Privy Council were approved and eventually adopted, the officials of the Mint were enabled, by mere passive resistance, to delay the adoption of the new copper coinage for more than ten years. With their lumbering machinery they could not execute one-third part of the copper coin required for the ordinary purposes of currency; but they could not brook the idea of inviting a private individual to do that which they were found unable to do with all the powers of the State at their back. Rather than thus publicly confess their incompetency, they were satisfied to execute only one-third of the copper coinage, leaving it to the forgers and private coiners to supply the rest.
Boulton began to fear that the coining presses which he had erected with so much labour, contrivance, and expenditure of money, in anticipation of the expected Government contract, would remain comparatively idle after all. But he did not readily give up the idea of executing the new coinage. “Of all the mechanical subjects I ever entered upon,” he wrote Mr. Garbett, “there is none in which I ever engaged with so much ardour as that of bringing to perfection the art of coining in the reign of George III., as well as of checking the injurious and fatal crime of counterfeiting.” It occurred to him that it might be possible to overcome the obstructiveness of officialism by means of public opinion; and he proceeded with his usual vigour to rouse the trading interests throughout the country on the subject. He had a statement printed and extensively circulated among the leading merchants and manufacturers, to whom he also sent specimens of his model penny and halfpenny, the superiority of which to the rubbishy government and counterfeit coin then in circulation, was made apparent at a glance. He also endeavoured to act upon the Ministry through the influence of the King, to whom he presented copies of his model gold, silver, and copper coins; but though his Majesty expressed himself highly pleased with them, the question of their adoption still remained as much in suspense as ever. The appeals to the public were followed by numerous petitions to Parliament and memorials to the Privy Council against counterfeit money, and in favour of the proposed Boulton coinage.[323]
In the mean time, to find employment for the coining presses he had set up, Boulton sought for orders from foreign and colonial governments. In 1790 and 1792 he executed a large quantity of beautiful copper coin[324] for the revolutionary government of France while we remained at peace with that country. The coin was afterwards suppressed when the government was overturned, to the great loss of the French contractors, who, nevertheless, honourably fulfilled their engagement with Mr. Boulton. In 1791 he executed for the colony of Bermuda a penny coinage; about the same time he turned out a large number of provincial halfpenny tokens;[325] and in 1794 he supplied the Madras Presidency with its four-faluce and two-faluce coinage. By way of exhibiting the artistic skill of Soho, and its ability to turn out first-class medal work, Boulton took advantage of the King’s recovery in 1789, to execute a very fine medal commemorative of the event. He sent the first specimen to his friend M. De Luc, the Queen’s Librarian at Windsor, for presentation to her Majesty, who expressed herself much pleased with the medal. In his letter to De Luc, Boulton stated that he had been the more desirous of turning out a creditable piece of workmanship, as the art of medalling was one of the most backward in England, and had made the least progress of any during the reign of his present Majesty. In preparing this medal, he had the co-operation of Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, who rendered him valuable assistance in supplying the best models and portraits of the King from which a satisfactory likeness could be made, and he also inspected and corrected the engraving of the dies.
The success of the medal commemorative of the King’s preservation was such as to induce Boulton to prosecute this department of business,—not that it was attended with profit, for some of his most costly medals were produced for presentation to individuals, and not for sale,—but that it increased the reputation of Soho, and reflected new credit upon the art manufacture of England.
In preparing the dies for his various coins and medals, we find Boulton seeking and obtaining the assistance of Nollekens, Flaxman, Bacon, and Wilton (sculptors); Mayer (King’s miniature painter); Gossett (modeller); but above all, he was mostly indebted for friendly help to Benjamin West, who cordially entered into his views of “establishing elegant records of the medallic arts in the reign of George III.” Boulton also executed a series of medals commemorative of the great events of the French Revolution, for which there must have been a considerable demand, as we find him sending at one time not less than twenty tons of historical medals to Messrs. Monneron his Paris agents. Amongst these, we may mention his medals of the following subjects:—The Emperor of Russia; Assassination of the King of Sweden; Restoration of the King of Naples; Final Interview of the King of France; Execution of the King of France; Execution of the Queen of France; Serment du Roi; Lafayette; J. J. Rousseau; and Respublica Gallica.[326]
The Boulton MS. contains a brief description, in Mr. Boulton’s handwriting, of the Soho Mint in 1792, from which we make the following extract:—
“This Mint consists of eight large coining-machines, which are sufficiently strong to coin the largest money in current use, or even medals; and each machine is capable of being adjusted in a few minutes, so as to strike any number of pieces of money from fifty to one hundred and twenty per minute, in proportion to their diameter and degree of relief; and each piece being struck in a steel collar, the whole number are perfectly round and of equal diameter. Each machine requires the attendance of one boy of only twelve years of age, and he has no labour to perform. He can stop his press one instant, and set it going again the next. The whole of the eight presses are capable of coining, at the same time, eight different sizes of money, such as English crowns, 6-livre pieces, 24-sous pieces, 12-sous, or the very smallest money that is used in France. The number of blows at each press is proportioned to the size of the pieces, say from fifty to one hundred and twenty blows per minute, and if greater speed is wanted, he has smaller machines that will strike 200 per minute.
“As the blows given by Mr. B.’s machinery are much more uniform than what are given by the strength of men’s arms when applied to the working of the common press, the dies are not so liable to break, nor the spirit of the engraving to be so soon injured; yet nevertheless, from the natural imperfections of steel, and other unavoidable causes, some time will be lost in changing the dies and other interruptions. However, it is decided by experience that Mr. Boulton’s new machinery works with less friction, less wear, less noise, is less liable to be out of order, and can strike very much more than any apparatus ever before invented; for it is capable of striking at the rate of 26,000 écus or English crowns, or 50,000 of half their diameter, in one hour, and of working night and day without fatigue to the boys, provided two sets of them work alternately for ten hours each.”