The main events and activities planned for the bicentenary celebrations are set out below. More comprehensive listings, including dates and times, will be added to the diary section of this website as individual events are confirmed.
The centrepiece of the Bicentenary celebrations will be a major exhibition focussing on Matthew Boulton’s life and times at Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, Gas Hall Exhibition Gallery, 30 May – 27 September 2009. Entitled Matthew Boulton – selling what all the world desires, the exhibition will showcase important material from Birmingham Museum’s and the City Archives’ own world-famous collections, but will also feature significant loans from national museums, Birmingham Assay Office, private collectors and other external partners.
There will also be satellite exhibitions and displays at Soho House, the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, Sarehole Mill and other museums and galleries in the UK and beyond.
An exhibition dedicated to Matthew Boulton’s Mint, and entitled The Art of Making Money, at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham University, May - December 2009. The coins, medals, and trade tokens produced by Boulton were by far the most widely distributed images of his era and utterly essential to the growth of the modern cash economy. This exhibition will draw on the Barber Institute’s own collections plus items from the British Museum, Birmingham Assay Office and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. It will also look at the production techniques in use at the Soho Mint, and the local, national and international dimensions of the Mint’s activities.
A full supporting programme of family and school activities, open days, guided tours, talks, concerts and other events will take place throughout the year at venues across Birmingham.
A ‘Boulton Trail’ will be produced to provide both tourists and local people with a fresh perspective on Boulton-related landmarks around Birmingham and the region.
Birmingham Assay Office will launch a competition in partnership with Birmingham colleges of further education to design a commemorative hallmark for use in 2009.
The University of Birmingham and the University of Central England will co-host a major academic Boulton conference from 3-5 July 2009. The conference is already generating international interest.
A substantial permanent reference work, with contributions from specialists in various fields, will accompany the main exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Matthew Boulton – selling what all the world desires will be published by Yale University Press, and will also incorporate the catalogue for the main exhibition.
A shorter exhibition guide and schools pack will also be produced.
A new book by Professor Peter Jones, Industrial Enlightenment: Science, Technology and Culture in the West Midlands, 1760-1820, will be published by Manchester University Press later this year.
The Barber Institute will publish a catalogue to accompany its exhibition.
The University of Birmingham /University of Central England Conference proceedings will be published at a later date.