Boulton and Watt

“ James P. Muirhead, The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt, London, 1854, vol. 1, pp. 56, 64. This work, in three volumes, contains letters, other documents, and plates of patent specification drawings.
The contributions of Boulton and Watt to practical mechanics "in great" cannot be overestimated. There were in the 18th century instrument makers and makers of timekeepers who had produced astonishingly accurate work, but such work comprised relatively small items, all being within the scope of a bench lathe, hand tools, and superb handwork. ”

“ As an inventor, he was second only to Watt, his introduction of gas lighting being almost equal to that of the steam engine. He lived to be 85, dying November 15, 1839, at his residence, Sycamore Hill, Handsworth. His remains lie near those of his loved employers, Boulton and Watt, in the parish church. ”

“ He went on, meanwhile, earning bread for his family by making and selling quadrants, making and mending fiddles, flutes, and musical instruments; measuring mason-work, surveying roads, superintending the construction of canals, or doing anything that turned up, and offered a prospect of honest gain. At length, Watt found a fit partner in another eminent leader of industry—Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham; a skilful, energetic, and far-seeing man, who vigorously undertook the enterprise of introducing the condensing-engine into general use as a working power ”

“ He needed the copartnership of a man like Boulton, whose mind should supplement the qualities which his own lacked; a man of clear, collected, working sense, who could not only grasp intellectually all the principles and philosophy of Watt's dynamics, but could render the inventor just the assistance he needed to utilize them and bring them into the great work which they are now performing for the world. ”

“ Finally Boulton was induced to engage in the manufacture of engines, giving Watt one-third of the profits, if any were made. One engine was constructed by Boulton's men, and it worked admirably. Soon orders came in for others, as the mines were in bad condition, and the water must be pumped out. Fortunes, like misfortunes, rarely come singly. Just at this time the Russian Government offered Watt five thousand dollars yearly if he [40] would go to that country. Such a sum was an astonishment. How he wished Margaret could have lived to see this proud day! ”

“ Smiles had access has enabled him to add so much that is new and valuable to the story of his hero's career, that hereafter this biography must take the first place as a record of the great inventor.
As a tribute to Boulton, so many years the friend, partner, and consoler of Watt, the book is deeply interesting. Fighting many a hard battle for his timid, shrinking associate, Boulton stands forth a noble representative of strength, courage, and perseverance. Never was partnership more admirably conducted; never was success more richly earned. ”

“ Smiles—his ‘Lives of the Engineers,’ his ‘Life of George Stephenson,’ and his admirable little book on ‘Self-Help’—a most valuable manual.”—The Right Hon. Sir Stafford Northcote at Exeter.
“Mr. Smiles has done wisely to link the names of Boulton and Watt together in the volume before us. The more we read of the correspondence between these two great men during the birth of the new motive power, the more we feel convinced that the world has to be thankful for their happy partnership. Boulton seemed by some happy chance to possess all the qualities of mind that were wanting in Watt. ”

“ Watt introduced the improvement of working steam expansively, and he calculated that engines which would previously do nineteen to twenty millions would thus perform twenty-six millions; but I do not find any record of this duty being performed in practice. In 1785 Boulton and Watt had engines in Cornwall working expansively, as at Wheal Gons and Wheal Chance in Camborne; but in these the steam was not raised higher than before, and the piston made a considerable part of the stroke therefore before the steam-valve was closed. ”

“ The drawings were made, but the machine was never finished. "Invention," said Watt, "goes on very slowly with me now." Four years later, he was still at work; but death put a stop to his "diminishing-machine." It is a remarkable testimony to the skill and perseverance of a man who had already accomplished so much, that it is almost his only unfinished work. Watt died in 1819, in the eighty-third year of his age, to the great grief of Murdock, his oldest and most attached friend and correspondent.
Meanwhile, the firm of Boulton and Watt continued. ”

“ He honourably distinguished himself by his readiness in adopting new inventions in his factories. Boulton and Watt were among his friends, and the steam engines which his firm introduced into their works were said to be the finest specimens extant of perfect mechanism. ”

“ Curiously enough, however, the influence of Watt led to experiments in high-pressure steam through an indirect channel. The contemporary inventor, Trevithick, in connection with his partner, Bull, had made direct-acting pumping engines with an inverted cylinder, fixed in line with the pump rod, and actually dispensing with the beam. But as these engines used a jet of cold water in the exhaust pipe to condense the steam, Boulton and Watt brought suit successfully for infringement of their patent, and thus prevented Trevithick from experimenting further in that direction. ”

“ Now that the trade had been thrown open by the expiry of Boulton and Watt's patent, competition had sprung up, and many new makers and inventors of engines were ready to supply the demand.
Among the most prominent of these were Trevithick and Woolf. Trevithick was the most original and speculative, Woolf the most plodding and practical, and the most successful. Trevithick's ingenuity exhibited itself in his schemes for working Boulton and Watt's pumping-engine by high-pressure steam, by means of his cylindrical wrought-iron boiler. ”

“ Keir had become intimate with Matthew Boulton [q. v.] , and in the autumn of 1768 first met James Watt at Boulton's house. Watt wrote of him as ‘a mighty chemist and a very agreeable man’ (Muirhead, Life of Watt, p. 173) . In 1778 Keir gave up his glass business to undertake, in the absence of Boulton and Watt, the sole charge of their engineering works at Soho, Birmingham. ”

“ Such was the beginning of William Murdock's connection with the firm of Boulton and Watt. When he called again he was put upon a trial job, and then, as he was found satisfactory, he was engaged for two years at 15s. a week when at home, 17s. when in the country, and 18s. when in London. Boulton's engagement of Murdock was amply justified by the result. Beginning as an ordinary mechanic, he applied himself diligently and conscientiously to his work, and gradually became trusted. ”

“ Small wonder that the Soho works became the model for all others. The last words in Boulton's letter, "and are attached to us," tell the story. No danger of strikes, of lockouts, or quarrels of any kind in such establishments as that of Boulton and Watt, who proved that they in turn were attached to their men. Mutual attachment between employers and employed is the panacea for all troubles—yes, better than a panacea, the preventer of troubles. ”

“ This skilful, energetic, and farseeing man, who, by his extended views and liberal spirit of enterprise, contributed so greatly towards the successful introduction of Watt's condensing steam-engine, commenced life at Birmingham as a maker of buttons and shoe-buckles. Matthew Boulton received an ordinary education at a school at Deritend. ”

“ After the demonstration by Boulton and Watt that large mechanisms could be wrought with sufficient precision to be useful, the English tool builders Maudslay, Roberts, Clement, Nasmyth, and Whitworth developed machine tools of increasing size and truth. The design of other machinery kept pace with—sometimes just behind, sometimes just ahead of—the capacity and capability of machine tools. In general, there was an increasing sophistication of mechanisms that could only be accounted for by an increase of information with which the individual designer could start. ”

“ Lean commenced such monthly reports, showing that the duty of twelve pumping engines at the end of that year averaged seventeen millions, exactly the duty done by the [Pg 166] Boulton and Watt engines thirteen years before, as reported by Davies Gilbert and Captain Jenkin in 1798, proving the small inherent vitality of the Watt engine. ”

“ Shortly after this, Professor Robison visited Soho, which was a magnet that attracted the scientists in those days. Boulton told him that he had stopped work upon his proposed pumping engine. "I would necessarily avail myself of what I learned from Mr. Watt's conversation, and this would not be right without his consent."
It is such a delicate sense of honor as is here displayed that marks the man, and finally makes his influence over others commanding in business. It is not sharp practice and smart bargaining that tell. ”

“ He was not an originator, but a plodding worker, with a rich man’s laboratory, in some of the many paths that had been struck out by others.
At the central table opposite to Dalton sits James Watt, worthily representing Chemistry and Mechanism. Midway is Matthew Boulton, a veritable gentleman of the old English stamp, a man of clear perception, without whom Watt would perchance have been doomed to blossom unseen. It is no light thing to conceive a mechanical idea, and to bring that idea forth and cultivate it, and to cause it to grow up into healthy existence. ”

“ At least I shall prevent a mischief that would have been the consequence of his journey to London.' On the 8th of the same month Boulton again writes to Watt : ' Murdock seems in good spirits and good humour, and has neither thought upon nor done anything about the wheel carriage since his return, because he hath so much to do about the mines.' On the 17th he writes : ' Send all the engines as soon as possible, and he will be better employed than about wheel carriages. He hath made a very pretty working model, which keeps him in good humour, and that is a matter of great consequence to us. ”

“ In 1814 the Dolcoath pumping engines, with Trevithick's cylindrical boiler and high steam expansion, are thus reported:—"The Boulton and Watt, Dolcoath great double engine, 63-inch cylinder, did a duty of 211⁄2 millions; the Shammal 45-inch cylinder, single engine, did 263⁄4 millions; and the 63-inch single, Stray Park engine, 32 millions." Shammal engine, nearly 100 years old, beat the Watt engine of more than half a century later; and so did Stray Park 63-inch, which Watt had laughed at when he first tried his hand as an engineer in Cornwall in 1777. ”

“ Mr. Murdock's son, while living at Handsworth, informed the present writer that this model was invented and constructed in 1781; but, after perusing the correspondence of Boulton and Watt, we infer that it was not ready for trial until 1784. The first experiment was made in Murdock's own house at Redruth, when the little engine successfully hauled a model waggon round the room, — the single wheel, placed in front of the engine and working in a swivel frame, enabling it to run round in a circle. ”

“ Colonel Harris and George Ingram studied the workings of the English "Saturday half-holiday," which employees earn by working an extra half-hour on the five previous days. A visit was made to the Tangye Bros. Engine Works at Soho, near Birmingham, which absorbed the engine works of Boulton and Watt. It was Boulton who said to Lord Palmerston visiting Soho, "Sir, we have here for sale what subjects of his Majesty most seek, viz., Power."
The Tangyes employ thousands of men, manufacturing engines and other products. ”

“ Pg. 98The universal genius who can manage all himself has yet to appear. Only one with the genius to recognise others of different genius and harness them to his own car can approach the "universal." It is a case of different but coöperating abilities, each part of the complicated machine fitting into its right place, and there performing its duty without jarring.
Never were two men more "supplementary" to each other than Boulton and Watt, and hence their success. One possessed in perfection the qualities the other lacked. ”

“ There was a period of great depression in Britain when Boulton and Watt were thus in deep water, and at such times credit is sensitive in the extreme. A small balance on the right side performs wonders. This recalls to the writer how, once in the history of his own firm, credit was kept high during a panic by using the identical sum Boulton raised, $70,000, from a reserve fund that had been laid away and came in very opportunely at the critical time. Every single dollar weighs a hundredfold when credit trembles in the balance. ”

“ In Watt's life, we meet drunkenness often as a curse of the time. We have the satisfaction of knowing that our day is much freer from it. We have certainly advanced in the cure of this evil, for our working-men may now be regarded as on the whole a steady sober class, especially in America, where intemperance has not to be reckoned with.
We see the difference between the reconstructed Kinneil engine where Boulton's "mathematical instrument maker's" standard of workmanship was possible "because his few trained men capable of such work were employed." ”