Explains how Boulton, a Birmingham "toy"--Maker producing buttons, buckles and silverware, went into business with James Watt and exported Boulton & Watt steam engines all over the world. His determination to discourage counterfeiters led to a contract to manufacture British coinage at his mint, and his ormolu ornaments decorated aristocratic drawing rooms.
This 1939 work gives deserved recognition to the achievements of the engineer and businessman Matthew Boulton. Boulton's importance has generally been overshadowed by that of his partner James Watt, but he was a significant figure in his own right, particularly in relation to the Soho Foundry and his production of coins and medals. He belonged to a network of highly significant men of the period, including Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin and Benjamin Franklin, and was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. An engineer by profession, H. W. Dickinson researched widely, and published highly readable works on the history of the steam engine, Watt, and Trevithick, also reissued in this series. He succeeds in producing a work which appeals to the scientist, the historian and the general reader, without feeling obliged to over-simplify the technical details.
Matthew Boulton was a leading industrialist, entrepreneur and Enlightenment figure. Often overshadowed through his association with James Watt, his Soho manufactories put Birmingham at the centre of what has recently been termed 'The Industrial Enlightenment'. Exploring his many activities and manufactures-and the regional, national and international context in which he operated-this publication provides a valuable index to the current state of Boulton studies. Combining original contributions from social, economic, and cultural historians, with those of historians of science, technology and art, archaeologists and heritage professionals, the book sheds new light on the general culture of the eighteenth century, including patterns of work, production and consumption of the products of art and industry. The book also extends and enhances knowledge of the Enlightenment, industrialization and the processes of globalization in the eighteenth century.
This volume outlines a Christian theology that takes worship as its basic framework, as the occasion of not only an approach toward God in piety but also separation from God in sin. Drawing on Luther, Calvin, and especially Karl Barth, Matthew Myer Boulton builds a Reformed liturgical theology, maintaining that the God of Jesus Christ is a "God against religion," one who saves human beings from religion by entering it, transforming it, and ultimately ending it.
Contemplates Calvin's Institutes as practical spiritual theology For many today, John Calvin is best known as an austere, strictly intellectual teacher of Protestant doctrine. But Matthew Myer Boulton reads him very differently, arguing that for Calvin, Christian theology is properly conceived and articulated primarily for the sake of everyday, practical formation through the church's treasury of spiritual disciplines. Although Calvin famously opposed the cloister, Boulton shows that his purpose was not the eradication but rather the democratization of spiritual disciplines often associated with monasticism. Ordinary disciples, too, Calvin insisted, should embrace such formative practices as close scriptural study, daily prayer and worship, regular Psalm singing, and frequent celebration of the Lord's Supper. This deeply formational approach to Christian doctrine provides a fruitful template for Protestant theology today -- and tomorrow.
Industrial Enlightenment explores the transition through which England passed between 1760 and 1820 on the way to becoming the world’s first industrialised nation. In drawing attention to the important role played by scientific knowledge, it focuses on a dimension of this transition which is often overlooked by historians. The book argues that in certain favoured regions, England underwent a process whereby useful knowledge was fused with technological ‘know how’ to produce the condition described here as Industrial Enlightenment. At the forefront of the process were the natural philosophers who entered into a close and productive relationship with technologists and entrepreneurs. Much of the evidence for this study is drawn from the extraordinary archival record of the activities of Matthew Boulton (1728–1809) and his Soho Manufactory. The book will appeal to those keen to explore the dynamics of change in eighteenth-century England, and to those with a broad interest in the cultural history of science and technology.
Concentrating on the Industrial Revolution as experienced in Great Britain (and, within that sphere, mainly on the early development of the engineering and chemical industries), the authors develop the thesis that the interaction between theorists and men of practical affairs was much closer, more complex and more consequential than some historians of science have held it to be. Deeply researched, gracefully argued and fully documented. First published in 1969, and established now as a "classic" in the field, the present edition has a new foreword by Margaret C. Jacob. (NW) Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
In the 1760s a group of amateur experimenters met in the English Midlands. Blending science, art, and commerce, the Lunar Men changed the face of England. Uglow's vivid, exhilarating account uncovers the friendships, political passions, love affairs, and love of knowledge that drove these extraordinary men.
