Matthew Piers Watt Bolton

Wikipedia Biographical Summary

Matthew Piers Watt Boulton of Tew Park and Haseley Court, also believed to have been published additionally under the pseudonym M.P.W. Bolton (22 September 1820 – 30 June 1894), was a British classicist, elected member of the UK's Metaphysical Society, an amateur scientist and an inventor, best known for his invention of the aileron, a primary aeronautical flight control device. He patented the aileron in 1868, some 36 years before it was first employed in France by Robert Esnault-Pelterie in 1904.

Boulton was the son of Matthew Robinson Boulton, and as well the grandson of Matthew Boulton, who founded the Soho Manufactory and the Soho Mint. His grandfather also co-founded the Soho Foundry with James Watt, which employed steam engines of the latter's design. Born into a family of significant wealth and means, M.P.W. was broadly educated in the classics, philosophy and sciences, subsequently becoming well versed in steam engine design, and then transferring his interest to the basic conceptual designs of jet propulsion and rocket motors. However, whatever personal interest he held in the foundry's operation and the coinage mint he inherited from his father soon waned, and he subsequently closed and sold the mint facility in 1850. Thereafter he conducted numerous studies, wrote a wide variety of papers and earned a number of patents, including for an aileron flight control system, various types of motive power engines and their components such as propellers and pumps, plus other works on solar heat, photography and more.

Despite being married twice and raising a large family, Boulton was described as reclusive by those who knew him. He was one of only five members of the Metaphysical Society who did not appear in the British Dictionary of National Biography. His Times obituary described him as "a gifted member of a gifted family... [with] wide knowledge and sterling qualities"; however, he appears to have never sought notability nor gained it in his lifetime, and his accomplishments are known chiefly through his patents and published writings.

Early life

Boulton was born 22 September 1820 at Mose Old Norton, Staffordshire, England to Matthew Robinson Boulton (8 August 1770 – 16 May 1842) and Mary Anne Wilkinson (27 November 1795 – 7 June 1829).[1][2] He was baptized at St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, Staffordshire on 9 November 1820. M.P.W.'s ancestors can be traced back to John Bolton (his surname missing the 'u', which was included one or two generations later) of Lichfield, Staffordshire, who married (the later-to-be wealthy) Elizabeth, daughter of Matthew Dyott of Stichbrooke, Staffordshire in the late 15th-century. John Bolton is believed descended from, possibly a grandson of Robert Bolton (1572 – 19 December 1631), rector of Broughton, Northamptonshire in 1609 until his death.

M.P.W. Boulton's immediate family included two younger brothers (both whom survived childhood but died unmarried) as well as three sisters and eight cousins. His brother-in-law, James Patrick Muirhead (1813–1890, husband to Boulton's elder sister Katharine Elizabeth, 1816–1890), would become James Watt's biographer.

Boulton's grandfather Matthew Boulton and James Watt had perfected the steam engine during the 1770s which soon set off the Industrial Revolution in England, and later the rest of the world. Matthew Piers Watt was named after his grandfather as well as his grandfather's close business partner, James Watt who had jointly created the Soho Foundry which employed their engines. Boulton’s second given name also reflected the family of his great-grandmother, the Piers of Chester, Bull Ring, Birmingham.

In 1815–16 M.P.W.'s father, Matthew Robinson Boulton, bought the 3,250 hectares (8,000 acres) Great Tew Estate and manor in the civil parish of Cotswold Hills in Oxfordshire. In 1825 he added a Gothic Revival library to the east end of the manor house, and by the middle of the 19th century the Boulton family had a large Tudor style section designed by F.S. Waller added to the west end. The Great Tew Estate would remain with Boulton's immediate family until M.P.W.'s son Matthew Ernest Boulton died without heirs in 1914, after which it was eventually inherited by a more distant relative.

Boulton's early education included instruction at a private school in Royal Leamington Spa (simply called Leamington) run by Reverend Atwood, the Vicar of Kenilworth. There were but six boys in this school with a good measure of religious instruction. He attended with his younger brother Hugh William (1821–1847) who would die at age 26, and with Francis Galton, later Sir Francis Galton, the brilliant English polymath who became his friend and remained so through Cambridge.

Boulton studied the classics, philosophy and sciences at Eton. In one letter written from Eton with "boyish enthusiasm", Boulton described life at his boarding school:

"About a week ago two boys named Waring & Stanley . . . having procured a pack of beagles went out hunting, and, being discovered by Mr Luxmoore, ran away. They were not heard of for two or three days after, but they came back on Monday, and were flogged and turned down....." "The chief games are still foot-ball and hockey, but a great many go out in boats, which however are forbidden at this time....." "My new companion Fane is rather older than I am, as he will be 14 in May, he is rather good-natured, and is neither clever nor stupid."

Then in October 1938 he went to Trinity College (part of Cambridge University) to study mathematics, logic and classics. His first tutor in Cambridge was the English mathematician George Peacock (already Cambridge's Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and a friend of Charles Babbage). Among Boulton's earliest accomplishments was the Eton Prize in February 1839 for his essay, The Decline and Fall of the Persian Empire, and an award for his collection of witty epigrams at Cambridge University in 1841. He also won two of Cambridge's Sir William Browne Medals for Latin and Greek poetry. Dr. Chris Upton of Birmhingham's Newman University wrote on Boulton's 1841 Latin poem Vehicula vi vaporis impulsa, roughly meaning "Vehicles driven by the power of steam", and described the poem's English rendering thus:

"Devilish" he calls the machine, cutting through the middle of mountains, slicing through the countryside. Faster than a thunderbolt it speeds... until (and here you will have to accept rhyming couplets in English translation):
"But ah! an axle breaks, and then; Off line the train goes crashing; With dire destruction, men on men, Noses on noses dashing. . ."
Having brought the headlong dash to a grinding halt, the poet concludes with a sober moral:
"Of such mere trifles, who complains?; May science reign eternal, And in these railroad days run trains; Express to realms infernal."

However even as a young man Boulton earned a reputation for avoiding the notice of his peers as he had "...no wish to attract the attention of his contemporaries", eventually eschewing university scholarships and other limelight. Boulton showed a "compete indifference to all the rewards and distinctions attached to the manifestations of them", as written by his second Cambridge tutor, Reverend John Moore Heath (1808–1882), in a letter to the student's father and sponsor. Boulton's refusal to compete for Trinity and other university scholarships was based on his belief that the competitions did "more harm than good", and in any event their awards were of far greater value to the poor students of the university.

Boulton graduated from Cambridge with his B.A. in 1845.

Family life

Boulton was married twice; his first marriage on 27 November 1845 was to Frances Eliza Cartwright (b. Northamptonshire 1817 – d. Great Malvern, Worcestershire 1864), the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel William Ralph Cartwright and his second wife Julia Frances Aubrey. Her father served as a Tory politician and sat in the British House of Commons between 1797 and 1846. Boulton's first marriage produced two daughters, Marianne Aubrey (sometimes Mary Anne Audrey, b. London, 1854–1934) and Ethel Julia (b. Tew, 1858–1924).

After selling Soho House and his father's mint facility in 1850, Boulton retired to his family's manor and estate of Great Tew, in the Oxfordshire village of the same name, and also living in London. An 1851 census listed him at the former as a landed proprietor, along with a nephew, Thomas Robert Cartwright (age 20), and nine servants.

Following the death of his first wife Frances Eliza in 1864, Boulton remarried with Pauline Gleissberg (b. Germany, 1837–1911), daughter of Ernst Gleissberg, dean of the city of Cannstatt in the German kingdom of Würtemberg. Together they had four children: Clara Gertrude (later to be Lady of the Manor of Great Tew, b. Knightsbridge, 1868–1954), his first son Matthew Ernest Kensington (b. Paddington, 1870–1914), Pauline Margaret (b. Switzerland, 1872–1918) and Frederick Montagu (b. Great Tew, 1875–1912).

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SOURCE: Wikipedia contributors, 'Matthew Piers Watt Boulton', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 31 December 2013, 14:52 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Matthew_Piers_Watt_Boulto...> [accessed 24 January 2014]

Other References

• Burke, Bernard, Sir. A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain & Ireland 6th ed. London : Harrison 1879. Vol I. page 167