Love, espionage and Matthew Boulton

Jul 3 2009 By Chris Upton

Chris Upton discovers a bizarre case of industrial spying during the days of Matthew Boulton.

Spying is something we would normally associate with the Cold War – clandestine activity involving miniature cameras, invisible ink and poisonous umbrellas. But espionage has a wider and a longer history than that. If the stakes had not been so high, and the proceeds so vast, we would probably have called it theft.

The period of the Industrial Revolution – the late 18th to early 19th century – was rife with what was called “industrial espionage”. The ploy was to steal ideas, designs or even workers from one country and take them to another. There was legislation and import and export restrictions to prevent this kind of thing from happening, but the potential profits outweighed the risks.

Not every European country was as far advanced as others when it came to industrial production, and spying was one way to level the playing field.

Matthew Boulton saw plenty of such activity: foreign visitors to his Soho Manufactory making sketches of his machinery. In the end he had to close its doors to all but the most privileged and trusted of guests.

But Boulton was not above a spot of “technology transfer” himself – another telling euphemism – when he could get away with it.

Perhaps the most notorious industrial spy of the time – a true James Bond of his age – began his career as a button-maker in Birmingham.

Michael Alcock was born into a brass-making business in about 1714, and rose to become one of the most successful businessmen in the town. In partnership with William Kempson, Alcock owned one of the biggest factories in Birmingham, with as many as 400 workers on his books. The firm made buttons, brass fittings, snuff-boxes and all manner of metal toys, but Alcock had other fingers in steel production and machine tools.

In the winter of 1755, however, Michael Alcock mysteriously went AWOL. Initially it was thought that he had simply scarpered before his company was declared bankrupt, as it was in February 1756, but the truth was far murkier than that.

Firstly, Alcock had disappeared with £1,000 in his pocket, but he had also left with one of his young female employees, Sarah Green, leaving his wife and children behind. And he was taking the secrets of Birmingham’s great toy-making tradition with him.

His plan was to go to France and set up home with his mistress.