by Ben Russell
86 A. E. Musson and E. Robinson, ‘The Origins of Engineering in Lancashire’, in The Industrial Revolutions: The Metal Fabrication and Engineering Industries, ed. R. A. Church and E. A. Wrigley (Oxford, 1994), vol. IX, pp. 233–65: p. 262.
87 A. Rees, entry on ‘Manufacture of Cotton’, Cyclopaedia of the Useful Arts, vol. XXII.
88 R. S. Fitton, The Arkwrights: Spinners of Fortune (Manchester, 1989), p. 15.
89 Rees, ‘Manufacture of Cotton’.
90 J. Andrew, J. Stein, J. Tann and C. MacLeod, ‘The Transition from Timber to Cast Iron Working Beams for Steam Engines: A Technological Innovation’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, LXX (1998–9), pp. 197–220: p. 212.
91 C. Hibbert, ed., An American in Regency England: The Journal of a Tour of 1810–11 (London, 1968), pp. 132–3.
92 Hibbert, ed., An American in Regency England, pp. 118–19.
93 R. L. Hills, James Watt, vol. III: Triumph Through Adversity, 1785–1819 (Ashbourne, 2006), p. 96.
94 Buchanan, Practical Essays on Millwork, vol. I, p. xx. This didn’t stop it being destroyed in a fire in 1791, caused by a fire started by a ‘large corn machine . . . wanting grease’. See Dickinson and Jenkins, James Watt and the Steam Engine, p. 167.
95 Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, p. 331.
96 Hills, James Watt, vol. III: Triumph Through Adversity, pp. 191–224.
97 J. Tann, ‘Mr Hornblower and His Crew: Watt Engine Pirates at the End of the 18th Century’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, LI (1979–80), pp. 95–109: p. 99.
98 Hills, James Watt, vol. III: Triumph Through Adversity, p. 216.
99 Kanefsky and Robey, ‘Steam Engines in 18th Century Britain’, p. 174.
100 Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, p. 677.
101 T. S. Ashton, An Economic History of England: The 18th Century (London, 1964), p. 107.
102 Musson, ‘Industrial Motive Power in the United Kingdom’, p. 424.
103 Pole, The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, p. 112.
104 G. Head, A Home Tour Through the Manufacturing Districts of England, in the Summer of 1835 (New York, 1836), p. 120.
Chapter Six: Inventive, Creative Genius, 1795–1819
1 G. Yates, An Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Birmingham; With Some Account of Its Environs, and Forty-Four View of the Principal Public Buildings (Birmingham, 1830), pp. 225, 242.
2 Ibid., pp. 225–6.
3 W. O. Henderson, J. C. Fischer and his Diary of Industrial England, 1814–51 (London, 1966), p. 131.
4 Ibid., p. 132.
5 Ibid., pp. 133–4.
6 D.S.L. Cardwell, Steam Power in the Eighteenth Century; A Case Study in the Application of Science (London, 1963), p. 75.
7 Roll, An Early Experiment in Industrial Organisation, pp. 312, 270.
8 Ibid., pp. xv, 291–304.
9 L. Ince, ‘The Soho Engine Works, 1796–1895’, Stationary Power: The Journal of the International Stationary Steam Engine Society, XVI (2000), pp. 1–132: p. 58.
10 E. C. Smith, A Short History of Naval and Marine Engineering (Cambridge, 1937), pp. 52, 105–10.
11 Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History; Series One; The Boulton and Watt Archive Part 11 (Marlborough, 2003), p. 7.
12 J. Tann, ‘Marketing Methods in the International Steam Engine Market: The Case of Boulton and Watt’, Journal of Economic History, XXXVIII/2 (1978), pp. 363–91: pp. 363–4, 387.
13 Ince, ‘The Soho Engine Works’, p. 28. The original engine yard at the Soho Manufactory only finally closed down, with its work transferred to the Soho Foundry, in 1850.
14 Ibid., p. 19.
15 H. W. Dickinson, James Watt: Craftsman and Engineer (Cambridge, 1935), p. 168.
16 E. Robinson, ‘Training Captains of Industry: The Education of Matthew Robinson Boulton and the Younger James Watt’, Annals of Science, X (1954), pp. 301–13: p. 303.
17 J. Griffiths, The Third Man: The Life and Times of William Murdoch, 1754–1839 (London, 1992), p. 284.
18 Robinson, ‘Training Captains of Industry’, p. 312.
19 P. Jones, ‘Living the Enlightenment and the French Revolution: James Watt, Matthew Boultonm and Their Sons’, Historical Journal, XLII/1 (1999), pp. 157–82: p. 178.
20 L. Hunt and M. Jacob, ‘The Affective Revolution in 1790s Britain’, Eighteenth-century Studies, XXXIV (2001), pp. 491–521: p. 496.
21 Ibid., p. 495.
22 Ibid., p. 506.
23 J. Hall, ‘Joshua Field’s Diary of a Tour in 1821 Through the Midlands’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, VI (1925–6), pp. 1–42: p. 20.
24 V. Coltman, Fabricating the Antique: Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago, IL, 2006), p. 12.
25 This fascination with the antique is often referred to as Neoclassicism – but that word was actually a pejorative coined by the Victorians.
26 I. Ware, A Complete Body of Architecture (London, 1756), p. 4.
27 N. Goodison, ‘The Context of Neo-Classicism’, in Matthew Boulton: Selling What All the World Desires, ed. S. Mason (Birmingham, 2009), pp. 31–40: p. 33.
28 R. Reilly, Josiah Wedgwood (London, 1992), p. 80.
29 J. Tann, The Development of the Factory (London, 1970), p. 153.
30 A. W. Skempton, ‘Samuel Wyatt and the Albion Mill’, Architectural History, XIV (1971), pp. 53–73.
31 K. Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770 (Manchester, 1903), p. 250.
32 R. L. Hills, James Watt, vol. I: His Time in Scotland, 1736–1774 (Ashbourne, 2002), p. 91. Author’s italics.
33 Archives of Soho, Birmingham Central Library, MS 3029/2, ‘Notes and drawings by William Creighton of Soho’.
34 As well as this amazing work, some items show Creighton’s wicked sense of humour. The very last is is titled ‘A Rat in a Trap’, and shows a rat with a male head (presumably one of his colleagues), declaring: ‘Oh I’m caught, my genius has deserted me I suffer and cannot save my bacon ah!’
35 G. Battista Piranesi, Diverse maniere (Rome, 1769), p. 33.
36 N. Goodison, ‘The Context of Neo-Classicism’, in Matthew Boulton: Selling What All the World Desires, ed. S. Mason, exh. cat., Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery (New Haven, CT, and London, 2009), pp. 31–40: p. 32.
37 Mason, ed., Matthew Boulton, cat. nos 140–142.
38 Ibid., cat. nos 149–51.
39 Presumably he means ‘taken from James Stuart’s Antiquities of Athens’.
40 K. Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770 (Manchester, 1903), pp. 387–8.
41 Sotheby’s, The James Watt Sale: Art and Science (London, 2003), lot nos 21–7.
42 V. Coltman, Fabricating the Antique: Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago, IL, 2006), p. 77.
43 Francis Chantrey’s bust of Watt of 1816, and his one of John Rennie of 1818, copies of both of which are in Watt’s workshop, comprise fine examples of this trend.
44 See the portrait medallion by Peter Rouw of Matthew Robinson in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv. A.51–1970, for example.
45 W. Chambers, A Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture (London, 1825), pp. 4–5.
46 J. Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine: Historical, Practical and Descriptive (London, 1828), vol. I, p. 574.
47 Ibid., pp. vii, 596, 468.
48 T. Tredgold, The Steam Engine (London, 1827), p. vi.
49 A. P. Woolrich, ‘John Farey and His Treatise on the Steam Engine of 1827’, History of Technology, XXII (2000), pp. 62–106: p. 71.
50 Ibid., p. 70.
51 Tredgold, The Steam Engine, p. 211.
52 A. Gray, The Experienced Millwright (Edinburgh, 1806), p. 20. O. Gregory, entry for ‘Architecture’, Pantologia (London, 1813), vol. I.
53 Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History; Series One; The Boulton and Watt Archive, Part 11: Engineering Drawings (Marlborough, 2003), Reel 175, portfolio 387.
54 Industrial Revolution: A Doc
umentary History; Series One; Part 11: Engineering Drawings (Marlborough, 2003), Reel 175, portfolio 377.
55 J. Bourne, Treatise on the Steam Engine (London, 1868), p. 163.
56 Tann, The Development of the Factory, p. 161.
57 R. Buchanan, Practical Essays on Millwork and Other Machinery, 3rd edn (London, 1841), vol. I, p. 394.
58 H. Schaefer, Nineteenth Century Modern: The Functional Tradition in Victorian Design (New York, 1970), p. 28. For more on this theme, see A. P. McMahon, ‘Would Plato Find Artistic Beauty in Machines?’, Parnassus, VII (1935), pp. 6–8: p. 8.
59 Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, vol. I, pp. 473, 575.
60 Tredgold, The Steam Engine, p. 44.
61 Bourne, Treatise on the Steam Engine, pp. 176–7.
62 Tredgold, The Steam Engine, p. 170.
63 Archives of Soho, Birmingham Central Library, MS 3147/3/248/70, W. Creighton, 29 April 1803.
64 Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, vol. I, p. 575.
65 Ibid., p. 473.
66 Ibid.; Schaefer, Nineteenth Century Modern, p. 25.
67 Tredgold, The Steam Engine, p. 212.
68 L. Mumford, Technics and Civilization (Chicago, IL, 2010), p. 209.
69 J. Tann, ‘Marketing Methods in the International Steam Engine Market: The Case of Boulton and Watt’, Journal of Economic History, XXXVIII/2 (1978), pp. 363–91: p. 382.
70 E. Vale, The Harveys of Hayle, Engine Builders, Shipwrights and Merchants of Cornwall (Truro, 1966), pp. 106–7.
71 G. Bathe, An Engineer’s Miscellany (Philadelphia, PA, 1938), p. 27.
72 Bourne, Treatise on the Steam Engine, p. 166.
73 Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, vol. I, p. 612; Bourne, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, p. 165.
74 C. Holtzapffel, Turning and Mechanical Manipulation (London, 1846), vol. I, p. 328.
75 T. Tredgold, Practical Essay on the Strength of Cast Iron (London, 1824), pp. 10–11.
76 S. Clegg Junior, Architecture of Machinery: An Essay on Propriety of Form and Proportion (London, 1842), pp. 2–3.
77 Bathe, An Engineer’s Miscellany, p. 25.
78 J. Wosk, Breaking Frame: Technology and the Visual Arts in the Nineteenth Century (New Brunswick, NJ, 1992), p. 179.
79 See Science Museum inv. 1915–128, for example, a six-column engine by an unknown maker, c. 1840.
80 Thomas Tredgold, The Principles, Practice and Explanation of the Machinery Used in Steam Navigation (London, 1851), vol. II, Part 2, plates for the engines of the Wilberforce and Ruby steam vessels.
81 Bonhams, The Jonathan Minns Collection of Industrial Archaeological Artefacts (London, 2006), lot no. 9, for a fine example of the type. This design also found favour with the ‘compound’ engines having more than one steam cylinder, built by Thomas Horn of Westminster, of which several examples survive.
82 Farey, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, vol. I, plate XVIII; Bonhams, The Jonathan Minns Collection, lot nos 4–6.
83 Henderson, J. C. Fischer and his Diary of Industrial England, p. 131.
84 L. Ince, ‘Maudslay, Sons & Field, 1831–1904’, in Henry Maudslay and the Pioneers of the Machine Age, ed. G. Cookson and J. Cantrell (Stroud, 2002), pp. 166–84, p. 166. For an example of Maudslay’s Gothic engines from 1832, see Tredgold, The Principles, Practice and Explanation of the Machinery Used in Steam Navigation, Plate 6.
85 Science Museum inv. 1933–30.
86 Science Museum inv. 1966–230. See also the Illustrated London News, 6 September 1851, p. 298; N. Pevsner, High Victorian Design: A Study of the Exhibits of 1851 (London, 1951), p. 23.
87 The Henry Ford, inv. 30.489.1. See also Bathe, An Engineer’s Miscellany, p. 32.
88 J. S. Fletcher, The Story of the English Town: Leeds (London, 1919), pp. 78, 80.
89 The mill survives on Marshall Street in Leeds today and is listed as Grade 1 by English Heritage.
90 The builder’s model of this engine, displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and weighing an impressive 276 kg, remains in the Science Museum, inv. 1935–513/1.
91 See Cantrell and Cookson, eds, Henry Maudslay and The Pioneers of the Machine Age for a detailed survey.
92 S. Smiles, ed., James Nasmyth, Engineer: An Autobiography (London, 1885), p. 127; J. Hamilton, London Lights: The Minds that Moved the City that Shook the World (London, 2007), p. 141.
93 A. Rees, entry on ‘Machinery’, The Cyclopedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Science, and Literature (London, 1819), vol. XXII.
94 A series of articles describing them in Engineering of 18 January and 1 February 1901 includes excellent photography.
95 S. Clegg, Architecture of Machinery: An Essay on Form and Proportion (London, 1842), pp. 3–4.
96 One of the finest examples was the side-lever engine built by Maudslay for the Paddle Ship Dee in 1832, with gothic framing. See Science Museum inv. 1900–41.
97 Schaefer, Nineteenth Century Modern, p. 25.
98 D. Scott, The Engineer and Machinist’s Assistant (Edinburgh, 1847): description of the Plates, 42.
99 M. Wright, ‘Henry Maudslay’s Contribution to Machine Design’, Henry Maudslay seminar, Kew Bridge Steam Museum, 2001.
100 Tredgold, The Steam Engine, p. 354. The ‘table’ engine was so called because it did away with the rocking beam, and sat the piston on a table of cast iron, from which it turned the crank and flywheel beneath.
101 A. Turner, Early Scientific Instruments: Europe, 1400–1800 (London, 1987), p. 201.
102 A. McConnell, Instrument Makers to the World: A History of Cooke, Troughton and Sims (York, 1992), pp. 21–2.
103 Bonhams, The Jonathan Minns Collection of Industrial Archaeological Artefacts (London, 2006), lot no. 3.
104 Christie’s, Exceptional Scientific and Engineering Works of Art, Instruments and Models (London, 9 April 1997), lot no. 16.
105 Christie’s, Exceptional Scientific and Engineering Works of Art (London, 15 April 1999), lot no. 80; Christie’s, Exceptional Scientific and Engineering Works of Art (London, 8 April 1998), lot nos 12–13.
106 Christie’s, Exceptional Scientific and Engineering Works of Art (15 April 1999), lot no. 81; Christie’s, Exceptional Scientific and Engineering Works of Art (8 April 1998), lot nos 14–15.
107 Clegg, Architecture of Machinery, p. 1.
108 G. C. Boase and T. I. Williams, ‘Clegg, Samuel (1781–1861)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, www.oxforddnb.com, accessed 8 June 2012.
109 H. Louw, Greeks, Romans and Goths in an Age of Iron (1999), www.arct.cam.ac.uk, accessed 8 June 2012.
110 Tredgold, The Steam Engine, vol. I, p. 344.
111 Ibid., p. 207.
112 H. C. Escher, ‘Escher’s Letters from England in 1814’, in Industrial Britain under the Regency, 1814–18, ed. W. O. Henderson (New York, 1968), pp. 34–5.
113 G. Head, A Home Tour Throught the Manufacturing Districts of England, in the Summer of 1835 (New York, 1836), p. 119.
114 Ibid., p. 154.
115 M. Berg, ‘From Imitation to Invention: Creating Commodities in Eighteenth-century Britain’, Economic History Review, LV/1 (2002), pp. 1–30: p. 3.
116 E. H. Robinson, ‘Watt, James (1736–1819)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online, www.oxforddnb.com, accessed 17 August 2012; Jones, ‘Living the Enlightenment and the French Revolution’, p. 182.
Chapter Seven: Life after Death, 1800–1924
1 This account is based on the surviving structural elements and contents of the workshop, Science Museum inv. 1924–792, and the plan of Heathfield held by Handsworth Historical Society, ref. 7/3397.
2 W. O. Henderson, J. C. Fischer and his Diary of Industrial England, 1814–51 (London, 1966), p. 131.
3 C. Hankin, ed., Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpennick, 3rd edn (London, 1859), pp. 285–6. Science Museum ‘Z’ Archive, Z24/D, letter 980, B. Woodcroft to Sir J. Romilly, 10 May 1864.
4 M. Arago, Life of James Watt (Edinburgh, 1839), p. 85.
6 The workshop is part of a tradition of men’s hiding places away from their wives. Josiah Wedgwood wrote of a friend getting married, whose ‘Study is hoisted up into the Garret, & the Parlour newly cleared of its learned lumber is fitted up in the most modern & Elegant fashion’: Letters of Josiah Wedgwood to 1770, ed. K. Farrer (Manchester, 1903), p. 170.
7 H. W. Dickinson research file ‘James Watt’, Science Museum, transcript of Watt’s will, provided by E. C. Smith to H. W. Dickinson, 22 January 1920.
8 T. E. Pemberton, James Watt of Soho and Heathfield: Annals of Industry and Genius (Birmingham, 1905), p. 52.
9 J. P. Muirhead, The Life of James Watt, with Selections from his Correspondence (London, 1858), pp. 468–9.
10 The first definite mention of this machine in Watt’s correspondence dates from March 1811. H. W. Dickinson, The Garret Workshop of James Watt (London, 1970), p. 14.
11 Ibid., p. 16.
12 J. P. Muirhead, The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt (London, 1854), vol. II, pp. cccxlvi–cccxlvii.
13 John Limbird, ed., Arcana of Science and Art (London, 1831), p. 94.
14 Muirhead, The Origin and Progress of the Mechanical Inventions of James Watt, vol. I, p. ccxlviii.
15 Register of Aliens, 1803–1825, Edinburgh City Archives (Ref: SL115/2/2), , accessed 18 July 2012.
16 London’s National Portrait Gallery has been compiling details of some of those who worked in Britain, ‘British Bronze Founders and Plaster Figure Makers, 1800–1980’, www.npg.org.uk, accessed 19 July 2012. Pierotti is not among those listed.
17 Science Museum inv. 1924–792/2164.
18 Science Museum inv. 1924–792/2163.
19 Science Museum inv. 1926–1075/301.
20 Science Museum invs 1926–1075/326, 1924–792/1753.
21 Science Museum inv. 1924–792/2162. Jane Insley made the connection between the numbers and those on the jars in the course of exhibition research, for which many thanks.
22 G. Stuart, ed., Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman, 1634 (London, 1906), pp. 107–8.