James Watt Partners with Matthew Boulton

1775

At Boulton's Soho Manufactory near Birmingham, Watt finally found the capital and precision machining to build his engines at scale. Their first commercial installations pumped water out of Cornish tin mines. Boulton told Boswell, 'I sell here, sir, what all the world desires - POWER.' The partnership would last twenty-five years and produce over five hundred engines that powered mines, mills, and the dawn of industrial capitalism.