The Hat that Changed the World
Young William’s hat caught the eye of Matthew Boulton, and the world was never the same again.
1777
Young William’s hat caught the eye of Matthew Boulton, and the world was never the same again.
1777
The invention of the steam engine and the railways changed the world out of all recognition. It might never have happened had the firm of Boulton and Watt, pioneers in the steam engine, not employed a self-taught Scotsman with a very unusual hat.
IN 1777, after walking there all the way from Scotland in search of work, twenty-three-year-old William Murdoch sat in the offices of the engineering firm of Boulton and Watt in Smethwick, fiddling nervously with his hat.
Matthew Boulton had to disappoint William, as the firm was not hiring, but to ease the awkwardness remarked on the hat. It seemed curiously stiff, and even to have been painted. ‘What is it made of?’ he inquired in wonder. ‘Timber,’ replied William. ‘I made it myself, sir, on a lathe of my own contriving.’ Impressed with the wooden hat, but more so with the home-made lathe, Boulton promised to see what could be done, and William left, still fiddling with his hat.
Soon after, Murdoch was engaged at 15s a week. James Watt came to rely on his ingenuity and energy in equal measure, and in 1781 they developed the first commercial rotative steam engine, nothing less than the power behind the machinery of the industrial revolution.*
See also The Genius Next Door, which tells how Murdoch’s experiments with steam traction led directly to the first steam locomotive.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
How was William’s long walk to England rewarded?
With employment for a pioneering engineering firm.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
William fiddled with his hat. Matthew Boulton was curious. He asked what it was made of.