BOULTON (Marvasw), a Manufacturer and practical Engineer of great celebrity; son of Matthew on, by his wife Christian, daughter of Mr Peers of Chester ; was born at Birmingham the 14th of September 1728, and died in August 1809.
He was educated at a neighbouring grammar school, kept by Mr Ansted of Deritend, and was called early into active life upon the death of his fa ther in 1745. The various processes by which the powers of the human mind have given facility to the artist in rendering the different forms of matter obe dient to his command, afforded ample scope for the exercise of his inventive faculties, in improving the manufactures of his native place. His first attempt was a new mode of inlaying steel; and he succeed ed in obtaining a considerable demand for the pro ducts of his manufactory, which were principally ex ported to the Continent, and not uncommonly re imported for domestic use, as of foreign manufac ture.
In 1762, hie fortune being already considerable, he purchased a tract of barren heath in the neigh bourhood of Birmingham, with a single house on it, and there founded, at the expence of L. 9000, the manufactory which has been so flourishing, and so well known sander the name of Soho. His workmen were at first princkpeily employed in tha inikaties of or moulu, and in copytag oil paintings nit4 great as '0INAPU curacy, by means of a mechanical preens which was invented by a Mr Egginton, who afterwards tinguished himself by venous works in stained glut Mr Boulton, finding the force of horses inadequate to the various purposes of his machinery, erected, is 1767, a steam-engine, upon the original coastractiaa of &very, which, notwithstanding the inconveuience of a great loss of steam from condensation, by its immediate contact with the water raised, has still some advantages from the simplicity of the separates which it require% and has even lately been found to succeed well upon a small scale. But Mr Boultoa's objects required a still more powerful machine, and he had the discernment ,to perceive that they might be very completely attained by the adoption of the various improvements lately made in the steam-ea gine by Mr Watt of Glasgow, who had obtained # pateot for them in 1769, the privileges of which were extended, in 1775, by an act of Parliament, to a term of 25 years. Mr Boulton induced this ous and scientific inventor to remove to Sinnie$bsta They commenced a partnership in bassinets, end et, tablished a manufactory of steaux-englues, in which accurate execution kept pace so well with judicious design, that its productions continued to be equally is request with the public after the expiration of the term of that legal privilege, which at first gave the the exclusive right of supplying them; and which had been confirmed in 1792 by a decision of the Court of King's Bench against some encroach ments on the right of the patentee. It was princi pally for the purpose of carrying on this manufacto ry with greater convenience, that the proprietors es tablished an iron-foundry of their own at Smeth wick, in the qeighbourhood of Soho.
In 1785, Mr Boulton was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, about the same time with Dr Wither ing, and several others of his scientific neighbouri. In 1788, he turned his attention to the subject of coining, and erected machinery for the purpose, so extensive and so complete, that the operation was performed with equal economy and precision; and the coins could not be imitated by any single artist for their nominal value ; each of the stamps coining, with the attendance of a little boy only, about eighty' pieces in a minute. The preparatory operation of laminating and cutting out the metal, is performed in an adjoining room ; and all personal comanamica tion between the workmen employed is rendered un necessary, by the mechanical conveyance of the work from one part of the machinery to another. A coinage of silver was executed at this mint for the Sierra Leone Company, and another of copper for the East Indies, besides the pence and halfpence at present in circulation throughout England, and a large quantity of money of all kinds for Russia. In acknowledgment of Mr Boulten's services, and in return for. some specimens of his different manu factures, the Emperor Paul made him a present of a valuable collection of medals and of minerals.
Mr Boulton obtained, in 1797, a patent for a mode of raising water by impulse, the specification of to which is published in the ninth volume of the &par Arts, p.145. It had been demonstrated by Da Bernoulli, in the beginning of the last century, that water flowing through a pipe, and arriving at a part in which the pipe is suddenly contracted, would have its velocity at first very greatly increased; but no practical application of the principle appears to have been attempted, until an apparatus was set up, in 1793, by Mr Whitehurst, for Mr Egerton of Oulton, in Cheshire ; consisting of an air-vessel, communi eating with a wsterpipe by a valve, which was forced open Ivr the pressure or rather impulse of the water, when its passage through the pipe was suddenly stopped by turning the cock, in the ordinary course of domestic economy; and although the pipe, through which the water was forced up, was of nio• aerate height, the air-vessel, which was at first made of lead, was soon burst by the " momentous force," as Mi Whitehunt very properly terms it. The ap paratus had excited much attention in France, un der the name of Montgolfier's hydraulic ram, and Mr Bookon added to it a number of ingenious ma difications; some of which, however, are more cal misted to display the vivid imagination of a projec tor, than the sound judgment of a practical Engineer, which had in general so strongly characterized all his productions. .
He died, after a long illness, in possession of con siderable affluence and of universal esteem, leaving a son and a daughter to profit by the wealth and re spectability which he had acquired. He was buried on the 24th of August at Handsworth, near Soho, attended by a procession of 600 workmen, and by a numerous train of his friends and acquaintance. (Monthly Magazine, Oct. 1809, p. S68.) (z. J.)