Steps were immediately taken to open up new connexions and agencies at home and abroad; and a large business was shortly established with many of the principal towns and cities of Europe, in filagree and inlaid work, livery and other buttons, buckles, clasps, watch-chains, and various kinds of ornamental metal wares. The firm shortly added the manufacture of silver plate and plated goods to their other branches,[99] and turned out large quantities of candlesticks, urns, brackets, and various articles in ormolu. The books of the firm indicate the costly nature of their productions, 500 ounces of silver being given out at a time, besides considerable quantities of gold and platina for purposes of fabrication. Boulton himself attended to the organization and management of the works and to the extension of the trade at home, while Fothergill devoted himself to establishing and superintending the foreign agencies.
[99] Mr. Keir, in a MS. memoir of Mr. Boulton now before us, says he was the first to introduce the silver plate business at Birmingham, and to make complete services in solid silver. But the business was not profitable, in consequence of the great value of the material, the loss of interest upon which was not compensated by the additional price put upon it for workmanship. One good consequence of the silver plate business, however, was the establishment of an assay office in Birmingham, the necessary Act for which was obtained at Mr. Boulton’s expense, and proved of much advantage to the town.
From the first, Boulton aimed at establishing a character for the excellence of his productions. They must not only be honest in workmanship, but tasteful in design. He determined, so far as in him lay, to get rid of the “Brummagem” reproach. Thus we find him writing to his partner from London:--“The prejudice that Birmingham hath so justly established against itself makes every fault conspicuous in all articles that have the least pretensions to taste. How can I expect the public to countenance rubbish from Soho, while they can procure sound and perfect work from any other quarter?”
He frequently went to town for the express purpose of reading and making drawings of rare works in metal in the British Museum, sending the results down to Soho. When rare objects of art were offered for sale, he endeavoured to secure them. “I bid five guineas,” he wrote his partner on one occasion, “for the Duke of Marlborough’s great blue vase, but it sold for ten.... I bought two bronzed figures, which are sent herewith.” He borrowed antique candlesticks, vases, and articles in metal from the Queen and from various members of the nobility. “I wish Mr. Eginton,” he wrote, “would take good casts from the Hercules and the Hydra, and then let it be well gilt and returned with the seven vases; for ’tis the Queen’s. I perceive we shall want many such figures, and therefore we should omit no opportunity of taking good casts.” The Duke of Northumberland lent Boulton many of his most highly-prized articles for imitation by his workmen. Among his other liberal helpers in the same way, we find the Duke of Richmond, Lord Shelburne, and the Earl of Dartmouth. The Duke gave him an introduction to Horace Walpole, for the purpose of enabling him to visit and examine the art treasures of Strawberry Hill. “The vases,” said he, in writing to Boulton, “are, in my opinion, better worth your seeing than anything in England, and I wish you would have exact drawings of them taken, as I may very possibly like to have them copied by you.” Lord Shelburne’s opinion of Boulton may be gathered from his letter to Mr. Adams, the architect, in which he said:--“Mr. Boulton is the most enterprising man in different ways in Birmingham, and is very desirous of cultivating Mr. Adams’s taste in his productions, and has bought his Dioclesian by Lord Shelburne’s advice.”