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Samuel Wyatt and the Albion Mill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

A. W. Skempton
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Extract

The Albion Mill was built during the years 1783–86 on the Surrey bank of the Thames at the foot of Blackfriars Bridge. Designed to grind corn on a large scale, the mill was outstandingly the most advanced industrial building of its day and the first to be planned, from the start, to incorporate the newly invented Boulton & Watt double-acting rotative engines. The mill was also one of Samuel Wyatt’s major works and one to which he devoted a great deal of attention as architect and builder and as the principal promoter of the undertaking. By good fortune many of his letters relating to the mill have survived and can be studied in the Boulton & Watt Collection at the Birmingham Reference Library and in the Tew MSS at the Assay Office, Birmingham. Letters on the mill written by Matthew Boulton, John Rennie and James Watt also exist in these collections. There are structural drawings in the Reference Library; several views of the mill were published as engravings, and in the Public Record Office drawings can be seen of two schemes by Wyatt for rebuilding the mill after its destruction by fire in 1791. All these sources have been used in the present paper.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 14 , 1971 , pp. 53 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1971

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References

Notes

1 I am indebted to Mr A. H. Westwood, Assay Master, and to Mr A. Andrews, Archivist of the Boulton & Watt Collection, for their help and courtesy to me while working at Birmingham. Permission to reproduce drawings and prints has been granted by the following authorities: Birmingham Reference Library (Figs 37a & b), Guildhall Library (Figs 38, 40a & b), Public Record Office (Figs 39a & b). I wish also to thank Mr J. M. Robinson for information.

2 Westworth, O. A., ‘The Albion steam flour mill’, Economic History ii (1932), 380–395 Google Scholar.

3 Insull, A. D., ‘The Albion Mill Story’, B A(Hons) thesis, University of Nottingham (1955), 87ppGoogle Scholar.

4 Farey, John, A Treatise on the Steam Engine, Historical, Practical and Descriptive (1827), 438, 442–444, 514–515Google Scholar.

5 Dickinson, H. W. & Jenkins, Rhys, James Watt and the Steam Engine (Oxford 1927), 165–166, 200, 214, 220Google Scholar.

6 Smiles, Samuel, Lives of the Engineers ii (1862), 129–133, 136-141Google Scholar.

7 Smiles, Samuel, lives of Boulton and Watt (1865), 353–359 Google Scholar.

8 J. Mosse, ‘The Albion Mill’, History thesis, Archit. Assoc. (1963), 37pp, published, in part, in Trans. Newcomen Soc. xl (1971), 47–56.

9 Skempton, A. W., ‘The Albion Mill foundations’, Geotechnique, xxi (1971), 203–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Johnson, H. R. & Skempton, A. W., ‘William Strutt’s Cotton Mills, 1793–1812’, Trans. Newcomen Soc. xxx (1956), 179–201 Google Scholar; Skempton, A. W. & Johnson, H. R., ‘The first iron frames’, Arch. Rev. cxxxi (1962), 175–186 Google Scholar.

11 There are numerous contemporary accounts of the fire e.g. Gent’s Mag. 1791, pti, 274–275. See also letters from Rennie to Watt 2 March and 5 March 1791 (Boulton & Watt Colin).

12 Walford, Edward, Old and New London vi (1878), 383 Google Scholar: ‘The front of the mill remained for many years unrepaired but was subsequently formed into a row of handsome private habitations.’ Just when this conversion took place I have not discovered, though it was certainly after 1803.

13 Blackfriars Bridge was designed by Robert Mylne and constructed under his supervision 1760–69.

14 The quotation is given by A. Oswald in his informative articles on Tatton Park, Country Life cxxxvi (1964), 162–165, 232–236, 292–296.

15 It is significant that George Richardson in The New Vitruvius Britannicus (2 vols, 1802, 1808) chose three of Samuel Wyatt’s buildings for illustration. Of the forty-four architects whose works are illustrated, few receive so much attention and only John Carr of York is more frequently represented.

16 Papworth, Wyatt (ed.), Dictionary of Architecture viii (APS, 1852–92), 78 Google Scholar. The Weeford parish registers record Samuel Wyatt’s baptism on 27 December 1737. The baptisms of his six brothers, including James, and his two sisters, also appear in these registers, the children of Benjamin and Mary Wyatt.

17 Gent’s Mag. 1807, pti, 189: ‘Feb. 8. At his house at Chelsea, Samuel Wyatt esq a celebrated architect and clerk of the works at Chelsea Hospital.’

18 PCC, 1807, f. 162.

19 Letters dated 31 July 1765, 6 March 1766, 12 June 1766 (Assay Office).

20 Letter to John Scale, 9 September 1769 (Assay Office); Survey of London xxxiv (1966), 345 Google Scholar.

21 Survey of London xxxi (1963), 232–233.Google Scholar

22 The timber merchant’s business was carried on at 63 Berwick Street, 1799–82, at St Catharine Dock, 1782–88, and at 369 Oxford Street, 1789–93. Wyatt held the Office of Works contract for carpentry in the Westminster district from 1780 until his death in 1807 (ex. inf. J. Mordaunt Crook).

23 ’Samuel Wyatt builder’ or ‘architect, surveyor & builder’, at 63 Berwick Street, are entries in the local directories up to 1803.

24 Royal Academy catalogues, 1785–98.

25 Colvin, H. M., A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects, 1660–1840 (1954), 734–736 Google Scholar.

26 Survey of London xxxi (1963), 270–273 Google Scholar.

27 Broughton, D. L., Records of an Old Cheshire Family (1908), 40, 76–78Google Scholar; G. Richard son, op. cit. (1802), pl. 57–60; Nares, G., ‘Doddington Hall, Cheshire’, Country Life cxiii (1953), 344–347 Google Scholar.

28 List of the Proprietors for Building a Playhouse in New Street, Birmingham, with Minutes of their Meetings, MSS Birmingham Ref. Library.

29 G. Richardson, op. cit. (1808), pl. 17–22; Life of Thomas Telford (1838), 19 Google Scholar; Hussey, C. ‘Admiralty House, Portsmouth’, Country Life cxxxv (1964), 774–777, 834–837Google Scholar.

30 Letters to Matthew Boulton 10 December 1787, April 1788 (Assay Office).

31 Letters to James Watt 17 April 1787–29 November 1790 (B&W Colin); drawings, building accounts &c. in Muirhead Colin, Birmingham Ref. Library.

32 Ex. inf. J. M. Robinson.

33 Survey of London xxix (1960), 148–153 Google Scholar.

34 G. Richardson, op. cit. (1802), pl. 22–23; Tipping, H. A., ‘Trinity House on Tower Hill’, Country Life xlv (1919), 460–467 Google Scholar; Trinity House MSS.

35 Survey of London xxx (I960), 508–509 Google Scholar.

36 PRO plans MPD.40 and MPD.60; House of Commons Reports xlvii (1795–96), 155–156, 158–159, 160–163 and Appendix Oo (with plans and drawing).

37 Letters to Boulton 11 February 1799 (Assay Office), 20 December 1799 (B&W Colin).

38 Cockerell Diaries, ante, 16.

39 Trinity House MSS.

40 Mylne’s diary has been published by A. E. Richardson, Robert Mylne Architect and Engineer 1733 to 1811 (1955).

41 The building and machinery were insured for £26 000 and the stock for £15 000. The insurance companies chose to pay cash rather than reinstate. For details, with quotations from two of Wyatt’s letters, see Raynes, H. O., A History of British Insurance (1964), 196–200 Google Scholar.

42 Old London Bridge was not replaced by Rennie’s fine structure until 1832. For the great but unsatisfied need for docks and warehouses, see SirBroodbank, Joseph, History of the Port of London i (1921), 77–91 Google Scholar.