The Household Books and Documents (or Household Accounts) are records of receipts and expenditure connected with the day-to-day running of Soho House, the adjacent gardens and plantations, and parts of the estates owned by the Boulton family.
These documents are divided into six Parts, as follows:
Part I. Household Books and Accounts, 1766-1796.
Part II. Household Books and Accounts, 1796-1840.
Part III. Estate Records, c. 1800-1848.
Part IV. Accounts of Matthew Robinson Boulton, 1791-1809.
Part V. House and Land Agency Records, 1822-1848.
Part VI. Miscellaneous Accounts, 1752-1827
The Housekeeper’s Accounts, which are strictly speaking subsidiary to the Household Accounts, are, on account of their large number, listed under a separate head. See also the records of the House and Land Agent among the Other Agents’ Records.
Keepers of the Household Books.
It is not known when Matthew Boulton first appointed a person to keep his Household Books. The first man known to have done so was John Scale, whose duties began about 15 Jul. 1768, the date of the first entry in the earliest surviving cash book. It is clear from cross-references in the records that survive that similar books were kept at an earlier period , but these may have been kept by Boulton himself. The keeper of the Household Books also acted as a general house and land agent, collecting rents and supervising workers on the estate. Moreover, he usually held a position of importance within Soho Manufactory itself.
John Scale kept the books till 11 Aug. 1787, and on that day he paid over the money in his hands to John Roberts and Roberts made his first transactions as the new agent . Roberts kept the books till about 17 Feb. 1791, when they were taken over by Matthew Robinson Boulton, who in turn kept them till about 29 Apr. 1796. At this point it appears that the proper keeping of the Household Books fell into abeyance for some months; but towards the end of the year they were put into the hands of William Cheshire, who completely reorganized them. Cheshire’s tenure as bookkeeper continued till the end of 1811, whereupon William D. Brown succeeded him, and Brown was succeeded in turn by Zaccheus Walker Jr. on 1 Jul. 1815. After 26 Sep. 1818 the entries appear to have been made jointly by Walker and another unidentified clerk till the end of 1820. At this point, the books appear to have fallen into arrears again for some time, for the entries immediately following are in the hand of Alexander Rowan, who was employed to keep them (as well as other accounts) from 20 Jul. 1822. Rowan left Soho in March 1824 and responsibility for the books passed to John Robinson, who made his first cash book entry on the 25th of that month. He continued in charge of the books till the end of July 1834, when they were been handed to Joseph Westley, who made the remainder of the cash book entries. The series of Household cash books ceases in the year 1840, but Westley continued to keep them till his death in 1844. A division between the "New" and the "Old" Household account was made on 18 May 1842, the date of Matthew Robinson Boulton’s death.
It appears that about the year 1820 the duties of the House and Land Agent were separated from those of the keeper of the Household Books, and therefore the functions of either position may have been carried out by different persons, but this point has not yet been fully examined; see the House and Land Agency Records below.
Household Books and Documents, 1766-1796.
The records grouped together as Part I relate to the period prior to the substantial re-organization carried out by William Cheshire in 1796.
The Household Books opened by John Scale were a Ledger and a Cash Book. Cross-references in the Ledger show that entries were posted directly from the Cash Book, and there was no intermediate Journal. There are references in both books to an earlier Ledger , but this has not been found.
It seems likely that the compilation of these two books was begun about the same time-in 1768, or perhaps the following year, for although the earliest entry in the Ledger is dated 31 Jul. 1766 (f. 15), most accounts begin no earlier than 1769. Both were continued till the end of 1780.
The numbers placed alongside some of the entries in the Ledger refer either to pages of the Cash Book or to numbered Bills. Inside the front cover are various brief memoranda respecting taxes, rents, oats, and wine, and inside the back cover are several more substantial entries, mostly tables, as follows:
Particulars of Mr. Boulton’s Estate in Murrey, Staffordshire. (Surveyed by Thomas Wyatt in 1778.)
Particulars of Mr. Boulton’s Estate at Yoxall, Staffordshire. (Ditto.)
Total Amount of Housekeeping, Garden, Horses, Farming, &c., in 1768, 1769, and 1770.
Memorandum of an agreement with Edward Lowe, 7th February 1774.
Copy of the Farm at Curdborough, from a Letter Mr. T. Wyatt of Tamworth sent to Mr. Boulton, 18 August 1778, saying he had found it in Turning over some papers.
Copy of the pieces of Ground at Sarden, copied from Wm. Wyatt survey n 1776.
The folios in the first part of the cash book are headed simply "Cash," but on 7 Feb. 1774 a balance was struck and carried to Mr. Boulton’s debit "in Town" and thereafter the folios are headed "J. Scale in account with M. Boulton." The continuous series of numbers placed alongside the entries in this volume refer to the numbered bills; the other numbers refer to folios of the ledger. Inside the front cover is pasted "A List of nesasareys be Long in to Mr. Boulton’s Stable," dated 8 Jul. 1770, and memoranda respecting oats and beans had by the coachman in 1770 and 1779. At the back of the book are memoranda respecting an enclosure made in 1772, and purchases of china made in 1770, also lists of errors found by John Scale in examining this book and Mr. Boulton’s bills; an adjusting entry derived from these was posted to the new book on 24 Feb. 1781.
The first ledger and cash book were closed at the end of 1780, when Scale opened a new pair of books; of these only the cash book is extant. As in the preceding volume, the folios containing entries made by John Scale are headed "J. Scale in account with M. Boulton." At the back (pp. 361-2) are particulars of Mr. Boulton’s estates in Murrey and Yoxall, Staffordshire, as surveyed by Thomas Wyatt in 1778 (compare those in the ledger).
When the books passed into John Roberts’ hands on 11 Aug. 1787, he continued the cash book, but, judging by the pencil cross-references in that volume, began a new ledger. The cross-references cease in Feb. 1790, but this does not necessarily indicate that the ledger was discontinued at that point.
When Matthew Robinson Boulton took over the Household accounts, he began to make entries in the old cash book, but subsequently copied them into a new volume, which was termed a Waste Book. At the same time he began a ledger and a Journal. The ledger has has not survived, but the accounts contained in it are listed in an Appendix below. The journal (not previously used for the Household accounts) is a typical example of that kind of record; it was continued only to the end of 1795 and the accompanying ledger was probably discontinued at the same time. The waste book may be regarded as continuing the sequence of cash books, but it is not arranged in the same way-that is, with debit and credit entries on opposite sides of an open page; rather the entries, whether debits or credits, are entered one after another as the transactions occurred. It was continued till 29 Apr. 1796, but no waste book (or cash book) exists for the remainder of that year. Indeed, at this point it seems that the proper keeping of the Household Books fell into abeyance for some months. When William Cheshire took over the Household accounts about the end of the year, he apparently entered the bills for this intermediate period directly into his ledger.
To summarise, then, it appears that the Household books of account for the period in question are complete, with the exception of three ledgers covering the period from 1781 to 1795.
While the Matthew Boulton Papers were in the custody of the Assay Office most of the bundles of bills were broken up and their contents scattered. An attempt has now been made to reconstruct the original series, where possible, item by item. There are comparatively few problems of identification where the corresponding books of account have survived (particularly when the bills are numbered); but in other cases (as in the case of the "Other Bills of John Scale" described below) the arrangement is more doubtful.
The regular series of Vouchers are vouchers to entries in the cash books and waste book. The earliest group contains bills paid during John Scale’s tenure, which are numbered through in one sequence; these numbers match those of the corresponding entries in the cash book. However, only the bills of the year 1768 approach completeness: those for the years 1769 to 1774 are scanty, and none at all have been found for the period from 1775 to 1787. When he took over the bookkeeper’s duties, John Roberts began the numbering of the bills afresh, and this sequence was likewise continued till his departure. Matthew Robinson Boulton’s bills were not numbered, but were arranged in annual bundles, divided into several packets according to type; for further information on this point, see the corresponding Lists of Contents.
Two other files of bills will be found listed after the regular series of bills under the heading "Other Bills." First, a group of bills for the years 1768 and 1769 which are identical in appearance and kind to the earliest numbered Bills, but which do not relate to any entries in the surviving Household books; these have been grouped together under the admittedly unsatisfactory title "Other Bills kept by John Scale." Labels on the back of two of these bills-namely, "old Bills which I did not pay," and "Bills paid (some) Per JS in 1769" -suggest that the bills may once have been divided into at least two bundles, but it is impossible to determine their contents. It is not, indeed, certain that these bills belong with the Household Accounts: entries corresponding to at least some of these bills may have been made in an earlier Household book which does not survive; but on the other hand it may be noted that the series continues after the date of the earliest entries in the surviving Cash Book, and also that John Scale was responsible not only for the Household accounts, but also those of Boulton & Fothergill, and perhaps others besides. An addition to the second of the labels referred to above ("1768 to 1769") may indicate that these bills were incorporated in the same arrangement as the bills listed as Miscellaneous Accounts (see below). The second additional file of bills relates to Matthew Boulton’s journeys to Cornwall: for more information about this file, see the corresponding List of Contents.
Household Books and Documents, 1796-1840.
Towards the end of the year 1796 responsibility for the Household Books was passed to William Cheshire, and he continued to keep the books till 31 Dec. 1811, when the task was assumed by William D. Brown. When he left Soho on 15 Feb. 1812, Cheshire arranged the books, papers, and accounts still in his possession into ten packages (the most recent Cash Book, Journal, and Ledger having already been passed to Mr. Brown) and these packages were later "deposited in the receptacles of House and Land Documents in the Room at the Mint Office."
Cheshire’s first task on his arrival was to put the accounts in proper order, for they had clearly not been attended to for some months. Consequently he carefully arranged and docketed the various loose bills not yet entered, and then wrote up the corresponding Ledger entries all at once. As noted above, it appears that no cash book was kept for most of the year 1796, the cash payments for this period being recorded in the Cash account in the ledger. A separate Cash Book was opened at the beginning of the next year, but the Cash account in the ledger was continued for a while concurrently (till 15 Jul.). From 1805 onwards Cheshire also kept a Journal. Two cash books are missing from the series, namely for the periods from 19 Jul. 1801 to 31 Dec. 1811 and from 1 Jan. 1812 to 30 Jun. 1816 respectively. The earlier of these was among the records handed over to Brown in 1812; the dates of the later one may be deduced from cross-references elsewhere. Probably these missing volumes were destroyed by damp, for a number of the extant volumes of the same period are damaged from the same cause.
The title of the Cashier’s Annual and Monthly Abstracts is taken from the original box (Box D. VII) but does not appear on any of the items in the series; however, it serves as a useful general title since the accounts in this series vary in form over the period in question (1808-1845). Generally speaking, the entries on these accounts appear to be identical to those in the Cash Books, but this point has not been thoroughly examined. The series is incomplete; no accounts have been found for the years 1819, 1821, or 1822, and there are deficiencies in the accounts for the years 1818 and 1820. The accounts from 1808 to 1811 are each headed "William Cheshire’s Account of Receipts and Payments," and were compiled weekly, though occasionally the entries for two or more weeks were made on one sheet. The 1809 accounts include two memorandums of payments made on M. R. Boulton’s account, compiled from M. R. Boulton Account Book No. 2 (see below). The 1811 accounts include two accounts of William Cheshire’s expenses on journeys to London. William D. Brown introduced a drastic change in the form of the accounts, which henceforth recorded expenditure only, and were compiled on printed tabular forms, each headed "Expenditure and Debts paid off," whereon the various items of expenditure were analysed under the names of the various nominal accounts of the ledger. Another innovation was the inclusion of quarterly statements of payments made in London by the agents of the "London House" (M. R. Boulton, J. Watt, & Co.). Initially, these accounts were kept weekly, as before, but from 1815 onwards they each cover a month. From 1823 the accounts were entitled Household Disbursements, and a Summary of Expenditure was made at the end of each year. From this time until 1832 the quarterly statements of payments made in London were made on separate sheets (except for the first two quarters of 1824). From 1 Jul. 1832 the payments in London include, not only payments made by the London agent, but also payments made through the Bank of England. From the beginning of 1833 payments made in London were recorded, under separate heads, in the regular monthly accounts. From Jul. 1835 to Sep. 1844 the accounts include separate statements of cash expended on the Rents and Repairs account (written on separate sheets till Oct. 1836).
The Household bills for this period are of several types. Like those of the earlier period, mentioned above, they were badly muddled by the activities of the Assay Master, and a number of them remain in a disorganized state.
The series of Vouchers for Payments, or Weekly Bills, 1796-1810 overlaps the earlier series of vouchers, and bills for the weeks ending 19 Mar., 26 Mar., 9 Apr., 16 Apr., and 23 Apr. will be found with the Vouchers, Jan.-Apr. 1796, listed among the Household Books and Accounts, 1768-1796 (Part I). The weekly bills kept by Cheshire were individually docketed and made up into weekly packets, wrapped with a slip of paper marked with the date of the last day of the week (i.e. Saturday). The packets for all the weeks ending in a particular month were then formed into a pile, with the earliest one at the bottom, and tied with string, and this bundle was itself wrapped with a slip of paper, marked with the appropriate month and year. Afterwards the monthly bundles were formed into larger six-monthly bundles and tied again with string. Unfortunately, many of these bundles were disturbed before they came to be listed, and there are therefore many gaps in the series. Presumably the missing bills will be found among the various Miscellaneous Loose Bills (see below).
The bills kept by William D. Brown were filed in a slightly different manner from their predecessors, being arranged in alphabetical order. The first of the two 1812 bundles is labelled "Cash Payments," but the others are untitled; therefore the general title Vouchers for Cash Payments has been adopted. The Pay Papers for 1811 were extracted and placed in a separate bundle; probably the same was the case in the three succeeding years, as there appear to be no Pay Papers in the corresponding main bundles, but no other such bundles have survived. The bills for the year 1812 were formerly in two bundles, as were those for 1814.
Besides these vouchers, there are three other series of bills-namely, Bills of Parcels, Journalized Accounts, and Special Subjects Vouchers and Memoranda. These bills were presumably (for the most part, at least) paid at longer intervals than the bills already discussed.
The records handed over at Cheshire’s departure included Bills of Parcels for the years from 1795 to 1811. However, only a few of these bundles have been found intact; the contents of the remaining bundles are presumably among the various Miscellaneous Loose Bills (see below). The distinction between the Bills of Parcels and the Weekly Bills on the one hand and the Journalized Accounts on the other is unclear.
The Journalized Accounts were arranged by Cheshire in annual bundles, and he numbered the accounts in each bundle. According to his Catalogue, the records he handed over the Brown in 1812 included Journalized Accounts for the year from 1807 to 1811, which apparently indicates that, although he began keeping a journal in 1805, no such accounts were kept for the first two years. The Journalized Accounts for 1807 have not been found. The accounts for the years 1810 and 1811 were later used by William D. Brown, who rearranged them into alphabetical order, but for the sake of consistency they have been listed in numerical order. These accounts were sometimes annotated to show the nominal ledger accounts to which the various invoiced items were to be applied, and in such cases the ledger accounts were generally referred to by abbreviations; see the footnote.
The Special Subjects Vouchers and Memoranda were formerly contained in a Box labelled by John Robinson as follows:
Household Special Subjects Vouchers / & Memoranda
Will. Hollins’s Accounts 1796 to 1804.
Jno. Greens Acct 1796 to 1805.
Pool Dam Repairs 1811.
Geo. Jones Acct. Builder
Isaac Parkes’s Accounts 1805 to 1808.
Jno. Lloyds Accts. 1800 to 1805.
Mrs. Lloyds Disputed Manure Accts.
Chas. Glovers Accts. 1792 to 1802.
Benj. Wyatts Accts.
Freeths Acct. of Trenching &c under Mr. Green / the Surveyor.
Servants Wages Books.
These documents evidently comprised the contents of Cheshire’s Box 3 (see his Catalogue), with a few additions-namely the Pool Dam accounts from Box 4, and the Servants’ Wages Books. Not all of these documents have been found. Charles Glover’s Accounts have been listed in detail. Benjamin Wyatt’s Accounts comprise a bundle of miscellaneous documents and four account books. The bundle of accounts relating to the entry Pool Dam Repairs is actually labelled:
Repairing / Pool Dam / & / other Damage / by Flood. / 1811.
The Servants Wages Ledgers are two small books containing memoranda of agreements with servants and statements of their accounts. The earlier volume opens with the account of Theodocia Windsor, lady’s maid, who came to Soho on 4 Feb. 1788. It appears to have been begun by Ann Boulton, continued by her father, and then taken up by William Cheshire on his arrival at Soho, who put it into the more formal arrangement of a ledger. This book is entitled on the back "Check Acct Ledger" and inside the front cover "Agreements & Accts of Servants." The second volume was kept entirely by Cheshire, and is entitled on the front "Servants Wages." For convenience sake, these books have been denominated in the list by the common name given above.
A few other "Special Subjects" records have been listed under the titles Other Servants’ Books and Other Vouchers and Memoranda. The Servants’ Liveries Book (1834-1845) was compiled by Joseph Westley, and records the liveries given to coachmen, grooms, and footmen during this period. The Servants’ Wages Ledger is untitled, but identical in form to the earlier books already referred to under this name. For more information about the Miscellaneous Numbered Memoranda and the Papers relating to the House Late Scale’s see the respective Lists of Contents.
While the Matthew Boulton Papers were in the custody of the Assay Office, many of the bundles of bills were ransacked for items of particular interest (such as the bills of famous firms like Schweppes) and the bundles were left untied and in a disordered state. For want of time to investigate the proper location of each item, such Miscellaneous Loose Bills as appear to relate to the Household account have been collected together and arranged in annual files. It is probable that some of these documents will fill gaps in the series of Weekly Bills and Bills of Parcels, but it is likely that others are not Household bills at all. All such bills for the years 1797 to 1799 are vouchers to entries in the Household Cash Book, and the number of the folio on which the corresponding entry appears has been marked on each bill.
The correspondence of William Cheshire is in annual bundles.
Estate Records.
The records listed under this head are a series of Rent Rolls and two "Other Volumes."
There are two rent rolls each for the years 1808, 1814, and 1821. One of the 1808 rolls is marked as "taken from the Data of 1807," and one of the 1814 rolls is referred to as a duplicate "for the use of Mr: W D Brown." One of the 1821 rolls is undated. Inside the front cover of the 1825 roll is pasted a memorandum by Zaccheus Walker Jr., dated 27 Feb. 1813, "relative to Land to be set in Building-Leases adjoining the WHampton Turnpike-Road." Each volume lists the extent (in acres, rods, and perches) and annual rent of the various parts of the estates. The later rolls list the property consistently under the following heads:
Soho Demesne lands & Homestead
Farm Rents
House Rents
Ground Rents
Cottages Gardens & Crofts
Life Leaseholds
Workmen’s Gardens
Soho Manufactory Site & Pools
Summary
(The undated 1821 volume also has a heading for "Land not occupied," but no entries have been made on this page.)
Frequent reference is made in these volumes to certain plans, &c. made by John Snape, namely Snape’s Plans Nos. 1, 2, and 3, and his Book of References No. 1, but these records have not been found.
The Index of Tenants was compiled by William Cheshire in the early years of the 19th century. The date of the printed Act of Parliament is the date that Royal Assent was given to it. Pasted-in at the front is a memorandum by William Buckle, dated 5 Feb. 1834, respecting the arrangement of the Blue Gate and Thimble Mill streams.
Accounts of Matthew Robinson Boulton.
Among the records listed in Cheshire’s Catalogue in 1812 were "Bills & Receipts of M. R. Boulton Esqr prior to the 1st of Jan’y 1810" (i.e. till the end of the year in which Matthew Boulton died), and these appear to have survived absolutely intact. Also listed under this head are several Account Books which are not explicitly mentioned in Cheshire’s Catalogue, but which were probably handed over by him at the same time as the other documents. They mainly relate to accounts of employees in the stables-for it appears that the management of this part of the estate had been placed in M. R. Boulton’s hands some time before his father’s death. The titles in the list have been invented for convenience, for most of the volumes were originally untitled, though two of Samuel Hemming’s books have his name on them. The Saddlery Books were formerly in a small bundle labelled "Bridgeman’s & Nevill’s Books of Sadlery."
House and Land Agency Records.
Two large files of memoranda have survived. The Land and House Agents’ Memorandums was probably made up of several smaller original bundles. It contains papers relating to the renting of houses and gardens on the Soho estate, repairs to cottages, tax, tithes, and later the renting of Soho House, the sale of Thornhill Gardens and land at Nineveh, and the renting and sale of Soho Manufactory. The earlier material up to 1844 was gathered by Joseph Westley, the later papers are from the land agent Edward Price, who was probably Westley’s immediate successor and who was certainly land agent in the 1850s and early 1860s. The papers were kept in Price’s office, the "Soho Estate Office," at Soho Manufactory.
A large number of memoranda relating to both house and land agency affairs were contained in a portfolio titled "Land & House Agent’s Minute Book of Charges, Estimates, Calculations and Memoranda." This was sub-divided into the following bundles:
Land Agency Memoranda. 1813-1822.
Sundries Memoranda. 1812-1821.
Cash Memoranda. 1816-1822.
Household, Memoranda of Servants’ Wages &c. 1812-1841.
The relationship of the Miscellaneous Books to the regular Household records has not yet been examined. Inside the front cover of the letter book is the following memorandum by John Robinson: "All Orders & Letters referring to the House & Land Agency exclusively will be found in this Book from Augt. 1822." Prior to that date they had presumably been placed in the Private & Household Letter Book, which will be found among the Private Books and Documents.
Miscellaneous Accounts.
The documents listed under this head appear to have been kept with the Household accounts, but in fact they relate not only to the Household account, but to a number of other accounts as well.
The single volume listed under this head is a small Cash Book kept by Matthew Boulton between the years 1763 and 1768. It is possible that this is an early Household book, but as no other Household records exist for this early period, the question cannot be decided. Vouchers for some of the entries in this book will be found among the bills described below.
As already noted, while the Matthew Boulton Papers were in the custody of the Assay Office most of the bundles of bills were broken up and scattered in various places. This has created comparatively few problems of identification where the corresponding books of account have survived (particularly when the bills are numbered), as for instance many of the Household and Housekeeper’s bills. But in other cases it is extremely difficult to distinguish the various series of bills one from another. However, despite the fact that the bills listed here appear to relate to several different accounts, it seems likely that most of them were once arranged in a single series of bundles, each one covering a particular period. In each case, the label was written (apparently by Matthew Robinson Boulton) on the uppermost bill in the bundle, and some of these labels can still be seen, e.g.
"1760 to 1768""(bill of Henry East, 3 Aug. 1759-13 Dec. 1760)
"1769 to 1770" (bill of Mary Greaves, 6 Oct. 1769).
"1785 a 1788" (bill of Birmingham & Fazeley Canal Co., 20 Oct. 1787-23 Feb. 1788.)
"1795 to 1802" (bill of Gordon, Dermer, & Co., 27 Feb. 1795.)
Possibly these bundles may be identified with the "Accounts" listed among the Special Subjects files in William D. Brown’s Catalogue of Papers, compiled about 1791. The dockets of many of the bills written or amended by Brown, and he may also have written the bundle labels. On the other hand, there may also be some relation between the present series of bills and the following items in the Inventory compiled by William Cheshire in 1812:
Sundry Bills in the Y’rs 1753 a 1761.
Bills and Receipts 1789 a 1798.
Accounts settled with the late Mr Z. Walker in the Years 1772 a 1774.
The "Other Bills kept by John Scale" (listed with the Household Books and Documents, 1766-1796) may also have formed part of this arrangement, for a label similar to those described above ("1768 to 1769") appears on one of the items in that file.
The Bills are arranged in chronological order, according to the date of payment (or, if that is wanting, the date of the last item on the bill). They have been divided into a number of separate files, which follow the original labels, where they exist.
The Bills of Mrs. Linwood, which concern the education of Ann Mynd, are mentioned explicitly in Cheshire’s Inventory. There are also various small bundles of miscellaneous bills, accounts and papers which it has not been possible to place more accurately.
ACCESS AND USE
There are no restrictions on access to or use of the Household Books and Documents. However fragile items or those in a poor state of repair may not be served at the discretion of the Duty Archivist. Certain items have been identified as being too fragile to serve, and these are noted in the List.
List prepared by Adam C. Green and Tim Procter, Project Archivists, Birmingham City Archives, under the Archives of Soho Project, November 1998 to March 2004.