SOHO WORKS

In 1761 Matthew Boulton II, metal wares manufacturer of Snow Hill in Bir-mingham leased the Soho estate and began operations at the mill. This quickly proved to be too small for his purpose, which was to create a great factory with power and machinery for his own employees and others, so inside a year he was erecting the famous Soho Works. The site was east of Factory Road, and the well known facade faced north, towards Boulton's house, Soho Hall. (This was built and altered between l764 and '89 with an advanced central heating system, and it still stands, off Soho Avenue). When James Brindley constructed his Birmingham Canal in 1769, Boulton had a branch brought to the opposite edge of the Hockley Brook valley, so that materials and products had only a short road journey to and from the works.

As the Works grew, water supply became a major problem : Boulton experimented with a Savery engine, so that water could be pumped back up to the pool for continuous use, and installed a horse mill to keep his wheels turning, but his problem was not solved until he financed James Watt's condensing steam engine and had it installed at Soho. In l775 the two men began their great partnership, and Watt engines were made for collieries, blast furnaces, and canal pumping stations. An engine installed at the foot of Smethwick locks in 1777 continued working until l895.

Watt's rotative engine was patented in 1782 and improved in successive years. It did away with the need for water-power, and was the main factor in the slow decline of watermills. Boulton applied steam power to all his repetitive manufacturing processes, notably to the minting of coins in 1786. The fine quality of the metalwares produced at Soho made Boulton's reputation, but steam-engines made his fortune and Watt's. The latter built a house on Heathfield and gave it that name in 1790 : it stood until the 1920's in the area now ringed by West and North Drives. To manufacture engines most efficiently a new factory, Soho Foundry, was built beside the canal just over the Smethwick boundary in l795; it was planned by the partners' sons and later managed by William Murdock. In 1802 he first publicly showed his invention of gas lighting at Soho Works. He, like Boulton and Watt, is buried at St. Mary's Church.

To complete the Soho story, James Watt II of Aston Hall died in 1848 and two years later the machinery of the Works was sold. The building was demolished in 1863 and the pool drained six years later. The name of Soho Pool was thereafter applied to the Great Pool below, until it too was drained a few year later. The Foundry has continued in use, though with much rebuilding and change of function. Murdock's terrace house may still be seen just inside what is now Averys' Works.

In 1793 the final enclosure of Handsworth took place, and the Birches sold their estates to the Earl of Dartmouth. The manorial administration had finally ended, and the affairs of Handsworth were the concern of the West Bromwich Guardians for the next 86 years.

From this point the story is best told as a number of topics rather than as a chronological account.

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