James Watt’s 1779 Instruction Book: a manual for enterprise

The Soho Manufactory in Birmingham is renowned for its output of material objects and machines, heralding the nineteenth century industrial era. But it should also be recognised for its parallel ‘paper manufactory’. Boulton and Watt (B&W) established one of the first engineering Drawing Offices in Britain and an archive of Pattern Books and printed items. James Watt’s 1779 Instruction Book is a modest production of letterpress text and engraved images taken from Watt’s design drawings but with few of the alluring visual qualities we associate with B&W presentation drawings, and was an internal user manual for distant workmen assembling condensing steam engines. Nonetheless, this booklet gained enormous public significance, both then, during the ‘patent trials’ of the 1790s, when B&W successfully defended their commercial hold on the condensing engine through an extended patent, also recently, as an element in economic history and technology studies in relation to hierarchies of knowledge and intellectual property during the ‘industrial enlightenment’. As a ‘manual’ the Instruction Book also gives insight into new areas of book and publication history in Britain at this time, and sheds useful light on the workings of B&W as an emerging enterprise between 1780-1800 and the role of the ‘paper manufactory’ in its consolidation.