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II. Matthew Boulton and the Art of Parliamentary Lobbying

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2010

Eric Robinson
Eric Robinson
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

The granting of an extension to James Watt's patent for an improved steamengine (or fire-engine as it was then called) might be considered the most important single event in the Industrial Revolution. Its implications have been fully debated. Some have argued that without it Watt's steam engine might never have been perfected and that consequently the steam revolution might have been delayed; others have said that it proved a block to progress, and in particular hindered the work of Trevithick and others who appreciated the importance of high-pressure steam. Whichever view one takes of it, it is a crucial event in the history of steam power, and therefore it is important to understand fully the circumstances in which it came about, so that we can assess the motives of those who promoted the measure and those who opposed it. And when we consider that the opposition to it was led by Edmund Burke himself, an added interest is given to the matter, for we may expect to learn something of Burke's attitudes to monopolies and patents. Lastly, the material on which this paper is based has a further interest. It gives a detailed account of a parliamentary lobby in the later eighteenth century, giving the names of those who were approached, and allowing us to see the methods which were pursued by an eminent manufacturer, Matthew Boulton, and his partner, James Watt, in getting such a measure through Parliament. As is so often the case during the early years of the Industrial Revolution what appears at first sight to be a local affair proves to be a matter of national, even international importance, in its repercussions. The history of Birmingham becomes the history of the world.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 1964 , pp. 209 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

1 The actual technical arguments put forward in support of the bill I intend to make the subject of another paper. I am very grateful to Mr John Brooke, of the Institute of Historical Research, and Dr Western of the University of Manchester, for reading the present paper and saving me from my worst errors.

2 Bargar, D.,‘Matthew Boulton and the Birmingham Petition of 1775’, William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, XIII, 1 01 1956Google Scholar.

3 Smiles, Samuel, Boulton and Watt (1878), p. 157Google Scholar.

4 Lord, J., Capital and Steam Power (1923), p. 102Google Scholar, citing McCormick, Charles, Memoirs of Edmund Burke (1797)Google Scholar, as his authority.

5 Dickinson, H. W., Matthew Boulton (Cambridge, 1936), p. 85Google Scholar.

6 , Bargar, op. cit. p. 35Google Scholar.

7 Edmund Burke MS. 5923. Notes by Edmund Burke for a speech in Parliament on Cookworthy's patent defending it from the charge of monopoly.

8 Remarks upon Mr. Champion's Reply to Mr. Wedgwood's Memorial, in Behalf of himself and the Potters in Staffordshire (1775).

9 Wedgwood, J., A Memorial relative to a Petition from Mr. Champion for the Extension of a Patent, quoted by Owen, H., Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol (1873), p. 121Google Scholar.

10 Parliamentary History, xvm, 182.

11 Dartmouth MSS., no. 1120.

12 , Bargar, op. cit. p. 29Google Scholar.

13 James Watt (London) to Matthew Boulton (Birmingham), 13 January 1775, Assay Office Library, Birmingham (hereafter contracted to J.W., M.B., and A.O.L.B. respectively).

14 J. W. (London) to M.B. (Birmingham), 31 January 1775, A.O.L.B. In the final event, the saving was only £10, since the actual cost was £119. 8s. 4d. See account from Nathaniel Barwell (Abingdon St., London, 9 May 1775, Doldowlod). The latter document is one of the collection in the possession of Major David Gibson Watt, M.C., M.P., to whose unfailing kindness in my researches I am greatly in debt. The collection is hereafter referred to as Dol.

15 By Dr R. A. Pelham at Attingham Park in April 1962, in an address to students of the Birmingham School of Architecture.

16 See also the extension of Dundondd's Coal Tar Patent in 1781: A. and Clow, N., ‘Lord Dundonald’, Economic History Review, XII (1942), 1 and 2Google Scholar.

17 MS. in possession of the Society of Merchant Venturers, Bristol. This newly discovered Burke letter will be printed in full in the tenth volume of The Correspondence of Edmund Burke. I am most grateful to Dr John A. Woods, of the University of Leeds, for this reference.

18 Blakey, J., A short historical account of…the art of making…steam engines (London, 1793). P. 9Google Scholar.

19 Farey, J., A Treatise on the Steam Engine (1827), p. 121Google Scholar.

20 Gutteridge, G. (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, vol. III (1961), p. 240Google Scholar. One of the letters referred to is presumably that quoted above.

21 Smiles, S., Boulton and Watt (1878), p. 156Google Scholar.

22 Dickinson, H. W. and Jenkins, Rhys, James Watt and the Steam Engine (Oxford, 1927), pp. 301–302Google Scholar, for a full account.

23 Dol. This document gives a full account of the negotiations with Gainsborough in 1775-76. Gainsborough's engine was found by the Solicitor-General to be an infringement of Watt's patent.

24 J. Roebuck (Bath) to Mr James Watt or Mr Bolton (Birmingham), 4 March 1775, Dol.

25 E. Darwin (Lichfield) to J. W. (London), 29 March 1775, A.O.L.B.

26 See Appendix for a full description of the M.P.s applied to.

27 J. W. (London) to M. B. (Birmingham), 31 January 1775, A.O.L.B.

28 See Wettwood, A.,'The Assay Office at Birmingham. Part I. To Foundation’, Pamphlet, Birmingham, 1936Google Scholar.

29 A.O.L.B. Boulton was in fact wrong in thinking that his aims could be secured by Crown charter and not by an Act of Parliament.

30 Boulton's italics. A.O.L.B.

31 M. B. (Birmingham) to the Duke of Richmond, 4 December 1772, A.O.L.B.

32 At A.O.L.B.

33 Boulton and Fothergill (Soho near Birmingham) to G. Dixon (Sheffield), 24 December 1772, Boulton and Fothergill Letter Copying Book, 1772-74, A.O.L.B.

34 G. Dixon (Sheffield) to Boulton and Fothergill (Soho), 18 January 1773, A.O.L.B.

35 Lord Dartmouth to M. B., 5 January 1773, A.O.L.B.

36 Mr Secretary Robinson to M. B., 1 February 1773, A.O.L.B.

37 Draft in Boulton's hand [?] 2 February 1773, A.O.L.B.

38 S. Garbett (Birmingham) to M. B. (London), 8 May 1773, A.O.L.B.

39 An interesting remark in view of Boulton's reference in his list of supporters to ‘& all the Minority Lords’. See Appendix, p. 229.

40 M. B. (London) to John Fothergill (Birmingham), 11 May 1773, A.O.L.B.

41 W. Small (Birmingham) to M. B. (London), 28 January 1773, A.O.L.B.

42 See Map in Sanford, J. L., The Great Governing Families of England, 2 vols, in one (Edinburgh and London, 1865)Google Scholar.

43 See Canal Box, A.O.L.B.

44 Samuel Garbett to William Burke, 4 May 1766. P.R.O.: S.P. 37, vol. v, no. 31a.

45 My italics.

46 Norris, J. M., ‘Samuel Garbett and the Early Development of Industrial Lobbying in Great Britain’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, X, 3Google Scholar.

47 Dol.

48 Ibid.

49 M. B. (Birmingham) to J. W. (London), 24 February 1775, Dol.

50 Lord Cochrane (Edinburgh) to J. W. (London), 13 March 1775, Dol.

51 Sir John Dalrymple to Andrew Stuart, 12 December 1782, quoted by A. and Clow, N., ‘Lord Dundonald’ in Economic History Review, XII (1942), 1 and 2Google Scholar.

52 Dr Joseph Black (Edinburgh) to J. W. (at Mr Thomas Wilson's, Chacewater, Cornwall), 19 November 1779, Dol.: ‘I have been informed since that he [the Duke of Buccleuch] supported your cause in the affair of the Patent…’.

53 J. W. (London) to J. W., senior (Greenock), 8 May 1775, Dol.

54 Robinson, E., ‘Eighteenth-Century Commerce and Fashion: Matthew Boulton's Marketing Techniques’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XVI (08 1963), i, 39–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 The basis of this list, besides the two letters mentioned under ‘Key’ above, is two documents at Doldowlod, dated 1775. One is headed ‘Matthew Boulton. List of Friends on the Engine bill’, and begins ‘I can apply in person to ye following or more’. It then proceeds to list 77 different persons ‘& all the Minority Lords’. It mentions the Duke of Gordon (amongst the 77) as being open to application both from Watt and Boulton, and the Duke of Newcastle (also amongst the 77) as being a friend to John Whitehurst. The second document, dated 1775, also at Doldowlod, lists names under Roebuck, Boulton, John Hunter, Sir John Dalrymple, and Watt. John Hunter's name probably enters into the list because he was a friend of William Small, Boulton's physician. I have been greatly helped in my final check by SirNamier, Lewis and Brooke, John, The House of Commons, 1754-1790 (1964)Google Scholar.

56 These are Boulton's own words. It was presumably for Boulton a short way of referring to all the Lords not individually named upon whom he could call for support. This phrase would lend further support, were it needed, to the view that Boulton was not depending on the Government for support as a reward for his political activities. A list dated 9 February 1775 of the Minority in the House of Lords against the Address to the King upon die Disturbances in North America, , Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England (1814), XVIII, p. 296Google Scholar, gives the following names:

Dukes

Cumberland

Richmond

Devonshire

Portland

Manchester

Marquis

Rockingham

Earls

Abingdon

Besborough

Cholmondeley

Coventry

Effingham

Fitzwilliam

Scarborough

Shelburne

Spencer

Stamford

Strafford

Turberville

Viscounts

Courteney

Torrington

Lords

Abergavenny

Archer

Beaulieu

Camden

Craven

Fortescue

King

Sandes

Bishops

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