STAFF AND EMPLOYMENT RECORDS

MS 3147/8

STAFF AND EMPLOYMENT RECORDS

1784-1888

Survival of records relating to the workforce is particularly poor. Almost all the surviving records relate to employees at Soho Foundry, and there is nothing from before 1784. The latter part of the firm’s life, as James Watt & Co., is also barely represented. Only two wages books and one copy of the Insurance Society rules survive for the latter part of the 19th century.

Note that some further memoranda from the 1800s about wages, conditions, placing children in Handsworth school, bookkeeping etc. will be found in the bundle ‘Occasional Manufactory Memoranda’ among the Premises Records (MS 3147/9/29).

Wages Books.
Wages Book & Foundry Accounts, Soho Foundry.
This book is a one-off, detailing the wages paid during the construction of Soho Foundry between 1795 and 1797. The first part of the book records the wages in table form, divided up by area of work or individual. The second part contains a running record of the wages paid.

Weekly Wages & Extras Books, Soho Foundry.
This series is incomplete. These books are small pocket books made up of printed forms. The forms list the different groups of employees, for example smiths, boilermakers, and so on, and the total amount of wages paid to each group each week was entered by hand. Any extra weekly wages payments were also noted by hand. The forms grow longer to include more employees, for example fitters, doorkeepers, and from c. 1833, the forms record the number of each type of employee. These books do not contain any individual names of employees.

Articles of Agreement and Apprenticeship Indentures, Memoranda and Papers concerning Salaries and Agreements etc.

Articles of Agreement Dispensed With, Soho Foundry, 1797-1819.
These agreements were made with employees at Soho Foundry. The agreements were usually signed by the employee and two witnesses and sometimes one of the partners in Soho Foundry (M. R. Boulton and James Watt Jr., from 1796 to 1800; Matthew Boulton, M. R. Boulton, James Watt Jr., and Gregory Watt from Nov. 1800 to 1804; Matthew Boulton, M. R. Boulton and James Watt Jr. from 1804 to 1808; M. R. Boulton and James Watt Jr. from 1808 on). They were usually docketed with the term of the agreement and details of yearly pay. Some of the agreements appear to have been used as drafts for new ones, as sometimes names and dates have been changed in pencil. They were set aside as ‘dispensed with’ because the employee in question had left or died. Details of the individual agreements will be found in the separate lists of each bundle.

They were kept in the counting house at Soho Foundry. They were originally arranged in an unknown number of chronological bundles. At some point, possibly when the agreements were under Henry Hazleton’s care in the Watt Room, this arrangement was undone, and the agreements were arranged alphabetically. However this process was not completed, so the final bundle is in fact still chronological, covering 1809 to 1814.

Apprenticeship Indentures, Soho Foundry, 1796-1826.
These indentures record the terms and conditions on which apprentices were taken on at Soho Foundry. The indentures were usually signed by one of the partners, the apprentice’s guardian (usually his father) and the apprentice himself. They were also witnessed, usually by one of the clerks at Soho Foundry. They were usually docketed with the term of the indenture and details of yearly pay. Some of the identures appear to have been used as drafts for new ones, as sometimes names and dates have been changed in pencil. Details of the individual agreements will be found in the separate lists of each bundle.

The indentures were also kept in the counting house at Soho Foundry. Card labels found among them revealed that they were originally kept in three chronological bundles, and this order has now been restored.

Letters and Papers concerning Expired Articles of Agreement.
This bundle contains papers, mostly correspondence and memoranda, relating to the pay and conditions of some of Boulton & Watt’s most senior employees, including William Murdock, James Lawson and John Southern. However it contains few of their original agreements or indentures.

Articles of Agreement, Memoranda of Agreements, Correspondence with Clerks, Engine Erectors etc.
This large series of material contains a wealth of information on the pay and conditions of clerks and engine erectors. It is made up of original agreements, memoranda and correspondence, and appears to have been assembled from material taken from other bundles. It is arranged alphabetically, and some of its subjects have just one item relating to them, others ten or more. Further details will be found in the separate lists.

Lists of Employees, Salaries, Commissions etc.
Four miscellaneous bundles of papers listing men and apprentices and detailing salaries, commissions and the Christmas presents given out at Soho. There is also a bundle of lists of engine erectors and engines to be erected (MS 3147/8/44). This is the only surviving formal record of the number and whereabouts of the engine erectors, and it is assumed that this was one of several bundles, the others having not survived.

The Soho Insurance Society (‘Sick Club’)
Very few records of the Insurance Society survive, probably because the majority of the records were kept by the individuals on the governing committee rather than by the firm itself. There is one large bundle of notes ordering payments to sick workers, some copies of the poster detailing the rules of the society, and a copy of the Foundry Insurance Society’s rules from 1877.

The Staff and Employment Records are arranged in various series. Some of these series contain s many volumes or bundles, but many contain only one volume or bundle, either because no other examples from that series survive, or because the volume or bundle in question was a one-off. The series are grouped together thematically, as follows:

Wages Books
Articles of Agreement and Apprenticeship Indentures; Memoranda and Papers concerning Agreements, Salaries etc.
The Soho Insurance Society (‘Sick Club’)

More detailed information on each series is given in the Description field, while reference numbers and covering dates of the actual records, and a list of the old reference numbers will be found in the pdf of the full series list attached. Item level lists are available in the searchroom of Birmingham Archives and Heritage.

8 volumes, 7 boxes

There are no restrictions on access to or use of the Boulton & Watt Staff and Employment Records. However fragile items or those in a poor state of repair may not be served at the discretion of the Duty Archivist.

The records listed here are the surviving records relating to Boulton & Watt?s employees, mainly their wages and terms and conditions of service. Records relating to the employees? actual work and organisation will be found among the Production Records (MS 3147/4) and the introduction to the Production Records should be consulted for details of how the workforce was arranged.

Boulton & Watt?s workforce grew slowly. In the 1770s, only a few men were employed in the engine business? workshops at Soho Manufactory. The workshops were initially under the charge of Joseph Harrison, a smith who also worked as a field engineer or ?engine erector,? travelling to customer?s premises to erect their engines. (For more information on the people and businesses mentioned in this Introduction, see the Guide to Persons & Firms in the Archives Searchroom).

In 1778 the first formal foreman was appointed, one John Hall. The workforce gradually grew as the workshops expanded and the engine business increased, and the construction of Soho Foundry from 1795 marked a major increase in the workforce. The majority of the men employed were local, from Handsworth, Smethwick, Nineveh, Birmingham itself, and other nearby parishes. However skilled workers from other locales were sometimes sought, particularly when the Foundry opened; several men who had previously worked at John Wilkinson?s Bersham works in Shropshire were hired at this time, including the first head of the Foundry department, Abraham Storey. The majority of the workforce were metal workers of some description ? smiths, forgers, founders, filers, turners and fitters. Carpenters, bricklayers, furnacemen and labourers were also employed. Casual or outside labour was generally used for work on the actual fabric of the premises. As the firm grew, so did the number of administrative staff ? bookkeepers, clerks, cashiers, storekeepers, gatemen and even a post boy.

As well as the workforce at Soho, Boulton & Watt also employed travelling field engineers or ?engine erectors? to attend the customer?s premises, erect the engine, and if necessary train someone to work the engine. In the first few years of the business, Boulton & Watt tended to hire local engineers on an ad hoc basis, for example Thomas Dudley in Cornwall. However Joseph Harrison, the smith who had initial charge of the engine business workshops at Soho Manufactory, also acted as an engine erector, and the number of permanent engine erectors employed directly by Boulton & Watt grew steadily. By the late 1790s the firm had a network of erectors based not just at Soho but also in Cornwall, London, Manchester and Newcastle upon Tyne. It should be noted that the term ?engine erector? was generally not used on agreements. Most of the erectors? agreements use terms such as ?filer and fitter? or ?smith and engineer,? describing the work they would do when working at Soho, as erectors would work in the workshops when not travelling around the country.

The firm also appointed various agents to protect their interests and direct the erectors in various areas, for example Thomas Wilson in Cornwall, James Lawson in Manchester, and Thomas Barnes in Newcastle upon Tyne. (More information on the engine erectors and agents can be found in the lists of their correspondence in MS 3147/3).

Most of Boulton & Watt?s employees were articled men, that is they signed articles of agreement with the firm. These agreements set out the men?s terms and conditions of work and fixed their rates of pay. The agreements were usually for five years, with pay increasing gradually over the five years, and they quickly reached a standard wording. At the expiration of an agreement, a worker either made a new one or left the firm. Apprentices were also taken on, for seven years or until they turned 21, and their terms and conditions were recorded in indentures of apprenticeship, made between the firm and the apprentice and his guardian. Workers were also entitled to join the Soho Insurance Society, commonly called the ?Sick Club.? (See Eric Roll, An Experiment in Early Industrial Organisation, and H. W. Dickinson, Matthew Boulton, for detailed descriptions of the Soho Insurance Society).

They paid regular contributions to it in order to receive payments when they were ill and unable to work. The society was largely self-governed, and appears to have also maintained club rooms for the members (see Premises Records, MS 3147/9/26).

The day-to-day administration of the workforce was carried out by the clerks in the engine business? counting houses at Soho Manufactory and Soho Foundry. They paid the wages, and kept the majority of the records relating to the employees, such as the wages books, copies of agreements, correspondence about terms and conditions, and so on.