The Soho Manufactory () was an early

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

which pioneered

mass production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...

on the assembly line principle, in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was deve ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, at the beginning of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

. It operated from 1766–1848 and was demolished in 1853.

Beginnings

In 1756, Edward Ruston leased land on Handsworth Heath from the Lord of the Manor. He deepened Hockley Brook, and built a rolling mill powered by it. In 1761 (or 1764) the "toy" manufacturer

Matthew Boulton Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engin ...

and his business partner John Fothergill leased the site including a cottage and the mill. The mill was replaced by a new factory, designed and built by the Wyatt family of

Lichfield Lichfield () is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated roughly south-east of the county town of Stafford, south-east of Rugeley, north-east of Walsall, north-west of Tamworth and south-west o ...

, and completed in 1766. The cottage was later demolished and Boulton's home ( Soho House) was built on the site, also by the Wyatts.

Production

The Manufactory produced a wide range of goods from buttons, buckles and boxes to japanned ware (collectively called "toys"), and later luxury products such as

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

ware and

ormolu Ormolu (; from French ''or moulu'', "ground/pounded gold") is the gilding technique of applying finely ground, high-carat gold– mercury amalgam to an object of bronze, and for objects finished in this way. The mercury is driven off in a kiln le ...

(a type of gilded

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

Steam engines

In 1782, it became the first site with a

Watt steam engine The Watt steam engine design became synonymous with steam engines, and it was many years before significantly new designs began to replace the basic Watt design. The first steam engines, introduced by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, were of the "a ...

with the

sun and planet gear The sun and planet gear is a method of converting reciprocating motion to rotary motion and was used in the first rotative beam engines. It was invented by the Scottish engineer William Murdoch, an employee of Boulton and Watt, but was patent ...

. It was also home to the first

steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizatio ...

-powered

mint MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaAE ...

, whose presses were subsequently used at the first Birmingham Mint.

Later

In later years, the Manufactory was served by canal at

Soho Wharf Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

, at the end of the short

Soho Branch Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

of the

Birmingham Canal Navigations Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) is a network of canals connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the eastern part of the Black Country. The BCN is connected to the rest of the English canal system at several junctions. It was owned and opera ...

Soho Loop The Soho Loop is a section of the eighteenth-century Old BCN Main Line canal in Birmingham, England, about west of the city centre, which opened to traffic on 6 November 1769, and was bypassed in September 1827 by a straight section of the N ...

. The manufactory was demolished in 1853 and the site subsequently used for housing.

Cultural references

In the 1990s the television

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...

programme ''

Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned online in 2022 for two episodes released on YouTube. Created by television producer Tim ...

'' excavated the foundations, in some of the local back gardens. (Series 4, Ep. 3, 1997) The Manufactory is featured on the

Bank of England £50 note The Bank of England £50 note is a sterling banknote. It is the highest denomination of banknote currently issued for public circulation by the Bank of England. The current note, the first of this denomination to be printed in polymer, entered ...

along with Matthew Boulton,

James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was ...

, and the

Whitbread Engine The Whitbread Engine preserved in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, built in 1785, is one of the first rotative steam engines ever built, and is the oldest surviving. A rotative engine is a type of beam engine where the reciprocating mo ...

References

*''A History of Birmingham'', Chris Upton, 1993,

External links

*Early photograph
Search for "Soho Manufactory early photograph"
fro
Birmingham Images
*Other engravings
Search for "Engraving soho staffordshire"
a
Birmingham Images
*Elevated view
Search for "Button and Silver Plate Works"
a
Birmingham Images
{{Steam engine configurations, state=collapsed 1761 establishments in England 1853 disestablishments in England Manufacturing plants in England History of Birmingham, West Midlands British companies established in 1761 Manufacturing companies established in 1761 Demolished buildings and structures in the West Midlands (county) Buildings and structures demolished in 1853