Enfilade

From Historic England and Liverpool UP:

George Demidowicz, The Soho Manufactory, Mint, and Foundry, West Midlands: Where Boulton, Watt, and Murdoch Made History (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2022), 296 pages, ISBN: 978-1800349285 £40.

This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the ground-breaking historic industrial complex created to the west of Birmingham in the eighteenth century and associated with Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and William Murdoch. The Soho Manufactory (1761–1863) and Soho Mint (1788–1850s) were both situated in the historic parish of Handsworth, now in the city of Birmingham, and the Soho Foundry (1795–1895) lay in the historic township of Smethwick, now within Sandwell Metropolitan Borough. Together they played a key role in the Industrial Revolution, achieving many world ‘firsts’: the first working Watt steam engine, the first steam-engine powered mint, and the first purpose-built steam engine manufactory (the Soho Foundry), to name but a few. Existing literature focuses largely on the biography of the people, primarily Boulton and Watt, or the products they manufactured. The place—the Soho complex—has attracted very little attention. This volume is the first to concentrate on the buildings themselves, analysing not only their physical origins, development, and eventual decline but also the water and steam power systems adopted. An interdisciplinary approach has been employed combining archival research in the magnificent Soho collection at the Library of Birmingham with the results of archaeological excavations. The volume is profusely illustrated with archival material, most published for the first time, and contains a large number of reconstruction plans and drawings by the author.

George Demidowicz, FSA, is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of History, University of Birmingham.

C O N T E N T S

List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations

1  Introduction
2  A Short History of the Soho Manufactory and Mint
3  The Soho Mill
4  The Manufactory Engine Works
5  The Soho Mint
6  The Soho Manufactory and Mint Site After
7  The Soho Foundry
9  The Significance of the Three Sohos

Appendix 1  The Archaeological Excavations, 1994–1996
Appendix 2  The Soho Businesses
Appendix 3  Biographies

Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index