One of the truly great events in the history of Birmingham of this period—nay, of any period—was the foundation by Matthew Boulton of the famous Soho works in 1763. He possessed unbounded enterprise, enthusiasm, and taste, and his original business in Birmingham itself as a “toy–maker,” manufacturing sword–hilts, buckles, brooches, and other ornaments, increased rapidly, and he was compelled to transfer it to larger and better premises. It was to Boulton that James Watt ultimately came in despair at not being able to get his newly invented steam–engine well and carefully made. As events proved, he had come to the right man, and an engine factory, from which the whole world was eventually supplied, was speedily erected. The partnership lasted many years; Boulton, who was a skilled mechanic, was also, above all, a good business man—which Watt was not—and but for him it is more than probable that the inventor would have failed to attain either practical or financial success and recognition. Of this great workshop of Soho, one of the greatest early factors in Birmingham’s ultimate triumph as a manufacturing and industrial centre, Boulton is reputed to have said, “I supply here what all the world desires to have—Power.” And the founder of Soho, through stormy and even occasionally dangerous times, doggedly persevered, and by great powers of initiative and control secured for himself and for Watt large fortunes, and did much to assist in the general and speedy progress of the town by the invention of machinery and the practical application of the “new power.” But Boulton, who has left so deep a mark upon Birmingham history of his time, was by no means a mere ingenious manufacturer and good business man. He was a magnetic and personal force, which gathered around him and attracted to Soho from all parts of the world men of genius, scientists, and others. The “Soho circle” or “Lunar Club,” called the latter from the fact that it met only when there was a full moon, on account of the ill–lit and dangerous condition of the streets, was one of the most famous institutions of its kind of the age, and, indeed, probably of any succeeding age. To his house at one time or another came many men destined to prove famous or who were already so. Dr. Darwin; William Murdock, the inventor of—amongst other things—gas–lighting for houses; Priestly, with his keen brain and recent discoveries; John Baskerville, with his type, paper, and printing, which “astonished the Librarians of Europe”; Dr. Withering, the noted botanist; Joseph Berington, the Roman Catholic historian; and many others who brightened and made notable what may fairly be called “the golden age” of Birmingham’s eighteenth–century progress, and who were the initiators of the advances made in after years.