Come in, Come in...

Come in, come in, we must be quite though as a demonstration is going on in the centre of the room. The demonstrator is showing the effect of removing the air from around a white cockatoo, if the air is removed much longer the bird will die, a truely shocking prospect for some of the younger members of the audience present.

But why are we here? What's this all about? We are in the midst of a new age, the industrial age, and the midlands is booming. The toy trade (small items made from metal such as belt buckles and medallions) in particular is doing well and becoming world renowned, bringing in specialists and artisans from far and wide, the main player is Matthew Boulton. He has become very rich in the past few years, after inheriting his fathers buckle making business, abandoning the old premises he has built a vast manufactory in Soho. In patenership with the engineer James Watt, he has got a monopoly on building Watt's new design of steam engines now used at almost every mine in the midlands, and is now applting the new steam tehnology to produce coins of the realm far more quickly than before. Forgers had been shaving off the egdes of coins and melting them into new coins. The new methods that Boulton is using is the first to produce exactly reproducible coinage and the introduction of reeded and lettered edges has made shaving a thing of the past. His practices for all of the companies transactions now being recorded on paper and the continual driving towards even greater efficiency, have formed the first truly modern office's.

Togther with his doctor William Small, the physician Eramus Darwin and business partener James Watt, and the enthusiansm for all things new, scientific, and techinical. Has lead to the formation of this the lunar society. They meet on the monday of each month nearest the full moon so as to have light enough to ride home in after mant hours of discussion, a collection of brilliant minds possibly seconded only by the royal societies in Paris and London. One of whom is talking to Boulton as we speak..

The great man Matthew Boulton himself

(http://www.bmag.org.uk/soho_house/history/)

Main image form: http://fb14.uni-mainz.de/projects/dot/airpump/