What was here?
The house and workshops of the Boulton family’s buckle and ‘toy’ business, on the east side of Snow Hill near the Slaney Street end. Matthew Boulton worked here from his teens, lived here until 1766 and used it as his town warehouse until 1777.
History
A toymaker’s yard
Before Soho there was Snow Hill. By 1745 Matthew Boulton senior had a well-established “toy” business here, making the small metal goods Birmingham was famous for, according to the historian Val Loggie, drawing on H. W. Dickinson’s 1937 life of Boulton. That year his son, also Matthew, joined the firm while still a teenager. He was made a partner at 21 and inherited the business on his father’s death in 1759.
The family lived where they worked. One small scrap survives from those years: a militia receipt, printed in 1885 in Showell’s Dictionary of Birmingham, made out to “Matthew Boulton, tagmaker, Snow Hill”. For three shillings and sixpence, someone promised to find a substitute if Boulton was drawn by lot to serve in the militia.
Water, or the lack of it
Snow Hill had a problem: no reliable water power. The family rolled their sheet metal miles away at Sarehole Mill on the Cole, but “Snow Hill was where most of the work took place”, Loggie writes. In 1761 Boulton took over a mill at Soho in Handsworth, and in June 1762, with his new partner John Fothergill, he moved production there.
Snow Hill was not abandoned. It became the firm’s town warehouse and Boulton’s home. He and his second wife, Ann, lived here until they moved to Soho House in 1766. Directories of the early 1770s still listed Boulton & Fothergill as merchants of Soho and “Factors at Snow Hill”. A study of the Soho firms by T. Procter notes that some manufacturing went on at the town warehouse in the 1760s.
Number 38
The only house number found is 38 Snow Hill, from which the warehouse moved in 1777, according to research by Quickenden cited by Loggie. In the street numbering of 1849–79, No. 38 stood on the east side of Snow Hill, just south of Slaney Street, next door to the Three Tuns Inn. Whether the 1770s numbers matched the later ones has not been proved, so the pin marks the right side and end of the street, not a known doorway.
From here the warehouse moved to the old Colmore mansion of New Hall, and then to Livery Street. The family workshop on Snow Hill was where Birmingham’s most ambitious manufacturer learned his trade, in an ordinary street of buckle makers.
What happened here?
Matthew Boulton senior’s toy business worked here by 1745. His son joined it in 1745, became a partner in 1749 and inherited it in 1759. After production moved to Soho in 1762 it was a warehouse and home until 1766, and a warehouse until 1777.
Why it mattered
This was the starting point of the business that became Soho. Boulton learned the toy trade here, and its lack of water power is the reason he went looking for a mill in Handsworth.
Why it disappeared
Redevelopment
Boulton moved his warehouse from 38 Snow Hill in 1777. The street was rebuilt many times afterwards, and the old line of Snow Hill now lies under the Snowhill office development.
What’s there now
What replaced it
Later Snow Hill buildings, cleared for the Inner Ring Road; today the Snowhill office development and Snow Hill Queensway.
What survives
Nothing. No picture of the house is known. Bradford’s plan of 1751 and Hanson’s of 1778 show the street and its plots.
Today
Stand at Colmore Circus, by the Snow Hill Queensway exit. The old line of Snow Hill lies under the Snowhill office buildings just to the west; modern Snow Hill Queensway roughly follows old Slaney Street. The Birmingham Civic Society blue plaque to Boulton is nearby.
Sources and further reading
Birthplace: the Library of Birmingham says Boulton was born in Slaney Street; Grace’s Guide says New Hall Walk, Snow Hill; Uglow, as cited on Wikipedia, says the family moved to Snow Hill after his birth; the Civic Society plaque at Colmore Circus says only “born near here”. Deep plots on the east side of Snow Hill ran back to Slaney Street on Hanson’s 1778 plan, which may explain the different wordings, but Eric Robinson’s 1957 study of the question has not been read. No birthplace is pinned. The house number 38 comes from Quickenden (1990), via Loggie; the pin assumes the 1849–79 numbering, which may not match the 1770s. Loggie dates Swinney’s directory listing both to 1773 and 1774.
- Soho Depicted: prints, drawings and watercolours of Matthew Boulton, his manufactory and estate, 1760–1809 (PhD thesis) — V. A. Loggie, University of Birmingham, 2011. pp. 28–29, 34, 46 n. 184, 75, 88
- Two men of industry, many businesses: the Soho firms of Matthew Boulton and James Watt — T. Procter, Business Archives
- Showell’s Dictionary of Birmingham — Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell, Cornish Brothers, Birmingham, 1885. militia receipt
- Matthew Boulton (1728 to 1809) — Archives of Soho — Library of Birmingham, Birmingham City Council. Ref. MS 3782/16/1; MS 3782/12/108/1. ‘born in Slaney Street’
- Matthew Boulton — Grace’s Guide. birthplace (lead)
- Blue Plaque: Matthew Boulton — Birmingham Civic Society
- History, Gazetteer and Directory of the Borough of Birmingham — Francis White & Co., 1849. Snow Hill cross-references
- Post Office Directory of Birmingham — Kelly & Co., 1879. Snow Hill, east side, Nos. 37–43
- Ordnance Survey 1:500 town plan of Birmingham, 1887–88, georeferenced — National Library of Scotland, 1888. Snow Hill / Slaney Street
- Plan of Birmingham, survey’d by Thomas Hanson — Thomas Hanson, 1778. Ref. Bibliothèque nationale de France copy
Archive references: Library of Birmingham MS 3782/6/190/175 (Joseph Hunt to Matthew Boulton, 27 June 1765)
Comments
Comments will load here.