Page 40 - May2008

May 2008 THE NATIONAL 'BuTTon BULLETIN 93

Above: 18th-century steel buttons with cut steels-perhaps from Matthew
Boulton's Soho Manufactory. Top row left is "Aeneas and the Bull," a blue
Wedgwood jasperware probably mounted in Boulton steel. At right is a
very rare pictorial steel with inlaid gold, one of a set of 16 sporting buttons
thought to be Boulton steel, and previously in the Ertell Collection. 7/8"
Collection of
Bruce and
Jane Beck
A list of Matthew Boulton's accomplishments over his lifetime
would fill a book, going far beyond the scope of this article, including a famed part-
nership with James Watt in the invention of the steam engine, and the manufacture
of fraud-resistant coins at the Royal Mint. An excellent overview can found online at
http://jquarter.members.beeb.net/moremboul ton.h tm
Two interesting articles about Josiah Wedgwood, his life and considerable contribu-
tions to the button world can be found in National Button Bulletin issues: "Josiah
Wedgwood: A Tribute," by M.W. Speights, July 1986, pp 105, 106; and "Wedgwood
Buttons," by Kitty Dillon, October 1992, pp 184-189.
Our foreign correspondent, Jim Stephenson, is from Stoke Poges, Bucks, England
You can visit Jim and Rita on almost any Saturday selling buttons in London's famed
Portobello Road.