Short answers, pulled from the story.
Soho Foundry was built in 1795 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt, along with their sons Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. The land was purchased in 1795 and the foundry opened the following year, 1796. It was created to manufacture steam engines at Smethwick in the West Midlands.
Soho Foundry pioneered management and production techniques that would not become standard practice for around a century. The economist Eric Roll concluded that neither Henry Ford nor Frederick Winslow Taylor devised anything that could not already be found at Soho before 1805. The foundry used standardised interchangeable parts, specialist task division, spatially sequenced workshops, departmental profit centres, and employee welfare programmes.
Soho Foundry used standardised interchangeable parts, broke production into small specialist tasks, arranged workshops along the flow of production, and ran its three main departments as separate profit centres. It also introduced executive development programmes, sickness benefit schemes, and welfare programmes for workers. A document from 1801 records that four specific workers were assigned permanently to fitting nozzles, illustrating the degree of task specialisation.
The Smethwick Engine is the oldest working steam engine built at Soho Foundry. It was constructed to recover water used in the canal locks at Smethwick Summit. The engine is now on display at Thinktank, the Birmingham Science Museum.
The Pooley gates were cast by Henry Pooley and Son around 1840 for the Sailors' Home in Liverpool, and later ended up at Soho Foundry after the Avery and Pooley Foundries merged in 1931. Sandwell Council approved their return to Liverpool in March 2011, and they were restored and re-erected on the 8th of August 2011 in the pedestrian section of Paradise Street in Liverpool One, under the name "The Sailors Home Gateway".
William Edward Hipkins was the manager of Soho Foundry. He died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 while travelling as a first-class passenger. He was 55 years old, and his body was never recovered.