Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton financed and manufactured James Watt's steam engine and built one of the first modern factories. Born in Birmingham in 1728, the son of a maker of buckles and buttons, he took over the family business at thirty-one and expanded it into the Soho Manufactory, opened in 1766 — a purpose-built works employing around six hundred people producing metal goods under one roof, with processes divided and standardised. He was a founder of the Lunar Society, which met at full moon so members could ride home by its light. Its members included Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood and William Small, and it connected scientific enquiry directly to manufacture. He met James Watt through Small and understood immediately what the separate condenser meant. Watt had a working principle, no capital and an expiring patent. Boulton bought out Watt's previous backer, secured a twenty-five-year extension of the patent by act of parliament in 1775, and formed Boulton and Watt. He supplied the money, the marketing and above all the manufacturing precision — John Wilkinson's cannon-boring machinery was what finally produced cylinders true enough to work. The firm sold engines on a royalty based on the coal they saved, which is how it made money. He pressed Watt to develop rotary motion for mills and factories, against Watt's reluctance, which is what took the engine beyond pumping water out of mines. He built the Soho Mint from 1788 with steam-powered presses, produced coinage of a quality that ended widespread counterfeiting, and struck currency for several countries. He died in 1809.
- Lived: 1728 CE – 1809 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: industrialist, entrepreneur
