Matthew Boulton was born in Birmingham in September 1728, the son of a buckle-, button- and ‘toy’-maker. ‘Birmingham toys' were not children’s playthings, but small decorative objects such as snuff boxes, toothpick cases, nutmeg graters and other trinkets. After attending a local school, Boulton joined his father’s business in the early 1740s. At 21 he married Mary Robinson, daughter of a prosperous Lichfield mercer. Both Mary and Boulton senior died in 1759. Matthew Boulton took over the business, and soon began to think about remarriage. In 1760 he married his late wife's sister, Ann Robinson.

The following year he acquired land at Handsworth, some two miles from Birmingham town centre, and began building the great Soho Manufactory. Here, introducing modern production methods and a pioneering workers’ insurance scheme, he set about becoming what JosiahWedgwood called ‘the Most compleat Manufacturer in Metals in England’. Jewellery, ‘toys’, Sheffield plate and sterling silver tableware, ormolu (gilded ornamental wares), coins, medals and tokens poured out of his workshops and were exported all over the world.