Soho Foundry

The factory site of the firm Boulton & Watt in Soho, Birmingham, established in 1795.

The factory was established in order to manage all the steps involved in manufacturing steam engines at one location, in particular the casting and boring of the cylinders, which had previously been supplied by William Wilkinson. Wilkinson went out of business, and Watt’s patent expired in 1800; as a result, Matthew Boulton and James Watt had to reorganise their steam engine business. Hitherto, they had sold only the licence and the vital individual parts, whereas now they began to produce and assemble the entire engine. This marked the birth of the industrial machine industry.

The Soho Foundry had workshops for turning and boring the valves and pistons, a foundry and a boring machine to produce the cylinders, model wood shops, drying sheds for the moulds, and more. All the machines were driven by steam, and the entire factory was lit by gas lamps.

See organisation: Boulton & Watt.

Note about the map: The coordinates of the site are not known. For the localisation they were derived from the context.