Soho Foundry | |
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Location | Birmingham, United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 52°29′50″N1°56′51″W / 52.4972°N 1.9475°W |
Owner(s) | Matthew Boulton James Watt |
Soho Foundry is a factory created in 1775 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt and their sons Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. [1] at Smethwick, West Midlands, England (grid reference SP037885 ), for the manufacture of steam engines. Now owned by Avery Weigh-Tronix, it is used for the manufacture of weighing machines.
The early history of the Soho Foundry is of pivotal importance both to the history of the Industrial Revolution and to the study of the development of management theory. The Soho Foundry stood out from other factories of the day in the sophistication of its planning, its production processes and its management techniques; practising concepts that would not become commonplace until a century later. [2] Comparing its workings to the techniques of mass production and scientific management made famous by Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor in the United States in the early 20th century, the economist Eric Roll wrote "Neither Taylor, Ford nor any other modern experts devised anything in the way of plan that cannot be discovered at Soho before 1805". [3]
The factory was built on the edge of the Birmingham Canal on land bought in 1795. The following year the foundry was open.
The Soho Foundry was planned with a degree of sophistication unprecedented for a factory of its time. [2] Its products were produced out of standardised interchangeable parts, reducing the need to supervise work as it was executed, simplifying stock control and enabling more efficient repair of faults for customers. [4] Production processes were broken down into small tasks, enabling an extremely high degree of specialisation among workers [5] – one document from 1801, for example, describes how a team of four specific workers was "to be constantly employed in fitting nozzles". [6] These tasks took place in a series of workshops spatially located along the flow of production, minimising the expense and time-wastage of the movement of materials through the works. [7]
The accounting procedures of the foundry bore a striking similarity to modern processes, [8] with each of the three main operating departments - the Foundry Department which made cast iron parts, the Smithy Department which made wrought iron parts, and the Fitting Department which machined the parts and assembled them together - being operated as separate profit centres. [9]
The Soho Foundry was also innovative in the field of personnel management, setting up executive development programmes, sickness benefit schemes and welfare programmes. [10]
By 1840 James Watt Jr. owned the factory after the death of the founding Boulton and Watt. He died in 1848 and his place was taken by H. W. Blake and the name changed from Soho Foundry to James Watt & Co..
In 1857 the screw engines for the steamship SS Great Eastern were built at the foundry. In 1860 a new mint was started at the Foundry, the Manufactory having closed in April 1850 by Matthew's grandson, Matthew Piers Watt Boulton.
In 1861 tests were performed at the Soho Foundry for the London Pneumatic Despatch Company.
In 1895 W & T Avery Ltd. acquired the Foundry as a going concern.
In 1912, the manager of the company William Edward Hipkins, died at the sinking of Titanic while he was travelling as a first class passenger. He was 55 and his body was not recovered.
It is now the home of Avery Weigh-Tronix and Avery Berkel, who make weighing scales. The site includes William Murdoch's cottage and overlooks Black Patch Park.
There was a small museum there, open only by appointment, but is now closed.
The grade II listed Pooley gates, of cast iron, are marked with "a Liver bird above ropework draped with cloth, flanked by nautical symbols including oars, flags and bugles, ships' wheels and intersecting dolphins". A plaque reads: "These gates were cast by Henry Pooley and Son about 1840 for the Sailors' Home, Liverpool. The Avery and Pooley Foundries were amalgamated in 1931". There was an active campaign to return these gates to Liverpool, [11] resulting in the approval by Sandwell Council in March 2011 of an application to return them. After restoration the gates were returned to Liverpool on 8 August 2011 and were re-erected under the name "The Sailors Home Gateway" in the pedestrian section of Paradise Street in Liverpool One, close to the original site of the Sailors' Home. [12] [13]
The building is a Grade II* listed building. The gates and adjacent canal bridge are Grade II listed.
The oldest working steam engine, built here, is the Smethwick Engine built to recover water used in the nearby canal locks at Smethwick Summit, and now in Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum.
Matthew Boulton was an English businessman, inventor, mechanical engineer, and silversmith. He was a business partner of the Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the mechanisation of factories and mills. Boulton applied modern techniques to the minting of coins, striking millions of pieces for Britain and other countries, and supplying the Royal Mint with up-to-date equipment.
Soho House is a museum run by Birmingham Museums Trust, celebrating Matthew Boulton's life, his partnership with James Watt, his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham and his contribution to the Midlands Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. It is a Grade II* listed 18th-century house in Handsworth, part of Birmingham since 1911, but historically in the county of Staffordshire. It was the home of entrepreneur Matthew Boulton from 1766 until his death in 1809, and a regular meeting-place of the Lunar Society.
Boulton, Watt and Murdoch is a gilded bronze statue depicting Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and William Murdoch by William Bloye, assisted by Raymond Forbes Kings. It stands on a plinth of Portland stone in Centenary Square, Birmingham and marks the contribution these individuals made to the development of the steam engine and hence the start of the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.
Smethwick is an industrial town in Sandwell, West Midlands, England. It lies 4 miles (6 km) west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before being placed into then West Midlands county.
Handsworth is an inner-city area of Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. Historically in Staffordshire, Handsworth lies just outside Birmingham City Centre and near the town of Smethwick.
Soho is an area split between the Birmingham and Sandwell metropolitan boroughs of the West Midlands in England. The area is located on the A41 road. The name is an abbreviation of South House, denoting that it was located to the south of Handsworth. The section of the A41 separating Handsworth from Winson Green is known as Soho Road.
Boulton & Watt was an early British engineering and manufacturing firm in the business of designing and making marine and stationary steam engines. Founded in the English West Midlands around Birmingham in 1775 as a partnership between the English manufacturer Matthew Boulton and the Scottish engineer James Watt, the firm had a major role in the Industrial Revolution and grew to be a major producer of steam engines in the 19th century.
The Smethwick Engine is a Watt steam engine made by Boulton and Watt, which was installed near Birmingham, England, and was brought into service in May 1779. Now at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, it is the oldest working steam engine and the oldest working engine in the world.
The Soho Manufactory was an early factory which pioneered mass production on the assembly line principle, in Soho, Birmingham, England, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It operated from 1766–1848 and was demolished in 1853.
Avery Weigh-Tronix is a subsidiary of Illinois Tool Works specialising in industrial weighing machines. Its headquarters stands on the site of the Soho Foundry in Smethwick, West Midlands, England. The company additionally has a United States-based manufacturing and retail manufacturing plant. The company is one of the largest suppliers of weighing devices. The company is registered as Avery Weigh-Tronix, Ltd. in the UK and Avery Weigh-Tronix, LLC in the US.
Black Patch Park is a park in Smethwick, West Midlands, England. It is bounded by Foundry Lane, Woodburn Road, Perrott Street and Kitchener Street, at grid reference SP038888.
The Engine Arm or Birmingham Feeder Arm near Smethwick, West Midlands, England, is a short canal which was originally part of a feeder tunnel for a pumping engine. When the Smethwick flight of locks were reduced from six to three, the pumping engine was moved to a new site, which allowed part of the feeder tunnel to be opened up and made navigable, so that coal supplies for the engine could be delivered by barge. The Engine Arm also supplied the pumped water to the 473-foot (144 m) Wolverhampton level of the lowered summit. The arm was extended between 1825 and 1830 by Thomas Telford to carry water from Rotton Park Reservoir to the Old Main Line of the BCN Main Line Canal, and the Engine Arm Aqueduct was inserted to carry it over the new main line constructed at that time, which was 20 feet (6.1 m) lower. The arm is now managed by the Canal and River Trust and the basin beyond the site of the pumping station, which was replaced by a new engine house near Brasshouse Lane bridge in 1892, is used for residential moorings.
The BCN Main Line, or Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line is the evolving route of the Birmingham Canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in England.
Liverpool Sailors' Home, was open for business in Canning Place, Liverpool, England, from December 1850 to July 1969. The home was designed to provide safe, inexpensive lodging for sailors, and to offer educational and recreational opportunities, in contrast to the temptations on offer in the docklands area.
Spon Lane Junction is the original junction of the Wednesbury Canal and the Birmingham Canal, near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.
W & T Avery Ltd. was a British manufacturer of weighing machines. The company was founded in the early 18th century and took the name W & T Avery in 1818. Having been taken over by GEC in 1979 the company was later renamed into GEC-Avery. The company became Avery Berkel in 1993 when GEC acquired the Dutch company Berkel. After the take over by Weigh-Tronix in 2000 the company was again renamed to be called Avery Weigh-Tronix with Avery Berkel continuing to operate as a brand. The company is based in Smethwick, West Midlands, United Kingdom.
Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England.
Old Bess is an early beam engine built by the partnership of Boulton and Watt. The engine was constructed in 1777 and worked until 1848.
The Boat Gauging House is a building in Tipton, West Midlands, England. It is situated by the Main Line of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and was used for calibrating new canal boats in order later to ascertain the weight of cargo carried. It is a Grade II listed building.