Birmingham Printers: Henry Butler & His Ballads

Cupid's Cabinet, p. 1.

Henry Butler was a printer in Birmingham between about 1719 and 1758, when an Esther Butler (his widow or daughter) took over the business. Butler was particularly a printer of ballads, such as Cupid's Cabinet Open'd (above and continued below) and ephemeral items, rather than books, and produced prints of Newcomen's steam engine in the late 1720s. His print shop was on New Street, probably tucked between the New Street entrance to the Swan Hotel, and what later became the Fountain Inn, not far from High Street. 

Curious Machines: Beautiful Machinery - Double Cylinder Steam Engine (1797)

Double cylinder engine produced for a mill in Nottinghamshire, 1797.

Many Birmingham industrialists fought for their decorative manufactured goods to be seen within the bracket of 'arts' and they were often called the 'useful arts'. The machinery produced in the town, though, had a beauty of its own, especially in the way it was drawn and depicted in the eighteenth century style of depiction. 

These engine plans were produced by Boulton & Watt at the Soho manufactory near Birmingham. They have been digitised by Digital Handsworth and placed online here, with additional information.

Engine for Henry Whately, gun manufacturer, Smethwick. 1796.

Six horse power crank engine for the Cockshead Colliery in Staffs. 1793.

Alteration to an engine by Boulton & Watt. 1776-7.

Pumping engine from the Paris Water Works, 1779.