MINING—TIN
Tin mining claims an antiquity unsurpassed by any other industry in
this country, but with what degree of justice may well be doubted. The
claim of the western promontory of Britain, later known as Cornwall
and Devon, to be the Cassiterides or Tin Islands whence the Phœnicians
obtained their stores of that metal at least five hundred years before
the Christian era rests upon rather shadowy grounds.[204] Diodorus
Siculus, who wrote about B.C. 30, is the first writer definitely to
connect Britain with the tin trade, and his statements appear to be
based rather upon a doubtful understanding of earlier topographers than
upon actual knowledge. According to him the tin was produced in the
promontory of 'Bolerium' and brought to the island of 'Ictis,' whence
it was transported to Gaul. If 'Bolerium' is Cornwall, then there is no
reason to doubt that 'Ictis' is 'Insula Vectis,' or the Isle of Wight,
which was at that date still connected to the mainland by a narrow
ridge of rock, covered at highwater, but dry at low water, as 'Ictis'
is said to have been.[205] It is certainly strange, if an ancient
and well-established trade in tin really existed in Britain when the
Romans came over, that that race, with its keen eye for metallic
wealth, should have made no use of the tin mines of Cornwall. Yet
there is no reference to these mines in the literature of the period
of the Roman occupation, nor are there traces of anything approaching
an occupation of Cornwall by the Romans, who appear to have ignored
this corner of Britain completely. After the departure of the Romans,
and before the Saxons conquered this district, which did not happen
till the middle of the tenth century, there is some evidence of tin
being worked here, as Cornish tin is said to have been carried over to
France in the seventh century, and in a life of St. John of Alexandria,
who died in 616, there is a story of an Alexandrian galley coming to
Britain for tin.[206] That the Saxons worked the tin seems probable
from the discovery of Saxon remains in the St. Austell tin grounds and
elsewhere,[207] but the industry can hardly have been of any great
importance at the time of the Norman Conquest, as there is no reference
to it in the Domesday Survey.
While the history of tin mining in Britain prior to the middle of the
twelfth century is problematical, there is from that time onwards an
immense mass of material bearing upon the subject. This material has
been patiently examined by Mr. George Randall Lewis, and summarised in
his work on _The Stannaries_,[208] a book so full and complete that I
have saved myself much labour by basing this chapter almost entirely
upon it.
There are, as might be expected, many analogies between the mining
of tin and the mining of lead. The processes were very similar, and
the laws governing the workers had much in common, but it is in the
case of the Stannaries that we find the full development of the 'free
miner,' so far as England is concerned. Certain initial differences in
the methods employed are observable owing to the form in which tin is
obtained. Tin, like other metals, exists in veins or lodes embedded in
the rock at various depths; where these veins outcrop on the banks of
a stream they are broken up by the action of the water and climatic
variations, the resultant pile of stanniferous boulders being known as
'shode'; the waters of the stream constantly wear away small pieces of
the tin ore and carry it downwards until, owing to its heavy specific
gravity, the tin sinks, forming a deposit in the bed of the stream
which may sometimes be as much as twenty feet thick. It was this third
class of alluvial tin which was alone worked in prehistoric and early
medieval days. This might safely be assumed, but rather remarkable
confirmation is obtained from an account of tin worked for Edmund of
Cornwall in 1297. From this it appears that twenty-eight and a half
'foot-fates' of ore produced a thousand-weight (1200 lbs.) of 'white
tin,' the proportion corresponding pretty closely with those—three
'foot-fates' of ore to yield 105 lbs. of metal—given in the sixteenth
century by Thomas Beare for alluvial or 'stream' tin, which was far
richer than mine tin.[209] It cannot have been very long before the
miners realised that the stream tin was carried down by the water, and
started to search for its source. The 'shode,' or boulder tin, must
therefore have been worked almost as early as the alluvial deposits,
and the final stage was the working of the 'lode.' In this lode mining
the first workings were no doubt shallow trenches and confined to
places where the ore lay close to the surface; a somewhat greater
depth was obtained by 'shamelling,' the trench being carried down in
stages, a 'shamell' or platform being left at each stage at the height
to which the miner could throw his ore; finally came the deep shaft
with galleries. But here, as in all mining, the question of drainage
came in. Where the workings were quite shallow the water could be baled
out with wooden bowls, or a 'level,' or deep ditch, could be dug. For
greater depths the adit, or drainage gallery (see above, p. 50), was
available, and although Mr. Lewis[210] cannot find any instance of the
use of the adit in tin mining before the seventeenth century, it does
not seem reasonable to doubt that it was in use much earlier. Exactly
when pumps and other draining machines were introduced into the tin
mines is not clear, but probably they were little used during our
medieval period, when few of the mines were of any great depth.[211]
The primitive miner, when he had got his ore with the aid of his simple
tools, a wooden shovel and a pick, also in earliest times of wood,
but later of iron, constructed a rough hearth of stones on which he
kindled a fire. When it was burning strongly he cast in his ore and
afterwards collected the molten tin from the ashes. The next stage was
to construct a regular furnace, exactly similar in type to the boles
or furnaces used for lead-melting (see above, p. 51). These furnaces
were enclosed in a building, the 'blowing-house,' in early times a
rough thatched shanty, which was burnt from time to time to obtain
the metallic dust which had lodged in the thatch, but afterwards more
substantial. The cost of a 'melting howse' (80 feet by 20 feet) built
at Larian in Cornwall by Burcord Crangs, a German, in the time of Queen
Mary, was about £300, composed as follows:[212]—
For the ryddyng, clensing and leveling of
the ground for setting of the foundacon
therof £23 6 8
For making foundacon of the walls and
the poynyons of the meltyng howse 120 0 0
For making of the audit[213] to build the
fornas and meltyng chymney upon 30 0 0
For tymbering and covering the howse
with esclattes 50 0 0
For dores, windows, locks, and barres 6 0 0
The whele, exultree and the stampers 10 0 0
For 4 paire of grete bellowes wt their
geames and other necessaryes 20 0 0
For makyng of the Colehouse 15 0 0
For makyng of the Rostingehowse[214] 20 0 0
For makyng of the lete and dyke comyng
to the meltynghowse 66 0 0
For the hatt and the crane 20 0 0
The lumps of ore were first broken up with hammers or in a mill;
the powdered ore was then washed to free it as far as possible from
earthy impurities. Sometimes this was done with a 'vanne,' or shovel,
the heavy ore remaining at the point of the shovel and the lighter
impurities being washed away. An elaborate process was also used, in
which the water containing the powdered ore was allowed to run over
pieces of turf, the metallic portion sinking and becoming entangled
in the fibres. The usual method, however, was by means of troughs
or 'buddles.' This washing was not only a necessary preliminary to
the smelting, but had an economic importance, as it was at the wash
that the ore was divided when a claim was worked by partners, and the
tribute or share due to the lord of the soil was apportioned; it was
also, towards the end of the medieval period, the only place where the
ore might be bought by dealers.[215] To prevent fraud it was therefore
enacted that due notice should be given of washes, and no secret
buddles should be used.
When we first get any details of tin-working, in 1198, it was usual
for the tin to be smelted twice, the first being a rough process
performed near the tinfield, but the second, or refining, being only
permitted at special places and in the presence of the officers of the
stannaries. The tin from the first smelting had to be stamped by the
royal officers within two weeks of smelting, a toll being paid to the
king at the same time of 2s. 6d. per thousand-weight in Devon, and of
5s. in Cornwall. Moreover, by the regulations of 1198, within thirteen
weeks the tin had to be resmelted and again stamped, this time paying
a tax of one mark.[216] The double smelting possibly ceased before the
end of the thirteenth century. In any case the fiscal arrangement was
altered, and in 1302, not long after the stannaries had reverted to
the Crown, after being in the hands of the Earls of Cornwall from 1231
to 1300, we find the stampage dues consolidated into a single coinage
duty. Under this system of coinage all the tin smelted had to be sent
to certain specified towns, those for Cornwall being Bodmin, Liskeard,
Lostwithiel, Helston, and Truro; and for Devon, Chagford, Tavistock,
Plympton, and Ashburton. Here the tin remained until the two yearly
visits of the coinage officials, at Michaelmas and Midsummer, when
each block, weighing roughly 200 to 300 lbs., was assayed, weighed,
and taxed: it was then stamped and might be sold. To prevent fraud
an elaborate system of marking was gradually introduced during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the use of private marks by
the owners of the blowing-houses was probably of much earlier origin.
The use of these marks was designed not only to protect the merchant,
but also to act as a check on smuggling, of which an immense amount
undoubtedly went on.[217]
One result of the coinage system, by which tin might not be sold until
stamped, and could only be stamped twice a year, was that the smaller
tin-workers inevitably fell into the hands of the capitalists. The
small independent tinner, with no reserve of capital to draw upon,
had almost always to pledge his tin in advance to the adventurers
and tin-dealers, and as a result he was often worse off with his
theoretical independence than he would have been as a recognised
wage-labourer. The wage work system must have been introduced into the
stannaries at quite an early period. Even in 1237 there are references
to servants who worked the mines for the tinners.[218] In 1342 certain
of the wealthier Cornish tinners endeavoured to force their poorer
brethren to work for them at a penny a day, when they had been working
tin worth 20d. or more daily, and it is said that Abraham the tinner in
1357 was actually employing three hundred persons on his works. Side
by side with these hired workmen were the independent tinners, working
either separately or, more usually in partnerships; but from the small
amounts which many of these tinners presented for coinage, Mr. Lewis
has concluded that they may have been only partly dependent upon their
mining.[219] There is, however, the complication that the small amounts
presented may in part have been due to their having sold their ore to
the larger dealers, but it is clear that some of the tinners did also
carry on farming.
While the economic position of the smaller tinners must often have
been little, if at all, superior to that of ordinary labourers, their
political position was remarkable. They constituted a state within
a state; the free miner 'paid taxes not as an Englishman, but as a
miner. His law was not the law of the realm, but that of his mine. He
obeyed the king only when his orders were communicated through the
warden of the mines, and even then so long only as he respected the
mining law. His courts were the mine courts, his parliament the mine
parliament.'[220] The tinner was a free man and could not be subjected
to the system of villeinage. He had the right of prospecting anywhere
within the two counties, except in churchyards, highways, and gardens,
and might 'bound' or stake out a claim by the simple process of cutting
shallow holes and making piles of turf at the four corners of his
claim, and such claim would be his absolute property provided that he
worked it (the exact amount of work necessary to retain a claim varied
in different places and at different periods). For his claim he paid
to the lord of the land, whether it were the king or a private lord,
a certain tribute of ore, usually the tenth or the fifteenth portion.
He had, moreover, the right to divert streams, either to obtain water
for washing his ore, or to enable him to dig in the bed of the stream,
and the important privilege of compelling landowners to sell him fuel
for his furnace. Further, he had his own courts, and was under the
sole jurisdiction of the warden-officers of the stannaries. Each
stannary, of which there were five in Cornwall and four in Devon,
had its own court, presided over by a steward, and no tinner might
plead or be impleaded outside his court, from which the appeal lay
to the warden, or in practice to the vice-warden. How and when these
privileges were obtained must remain a matter for speculation, but
they can be traced when William de Wrotham was appointed warden in
1198, and were definitely confirmed to the tinners by King John in
1201. By development, apparently, from the two yearly great courts
of the stannaries, arose the 'stannary parliaments.' The parliament
for Cornwall consisted of twenty-four members, six being nominated
by the mayor and council of each of the four towns of Lostwithiel,
Launceston, Truro, and Helston; that of Devon contained ninety-six
members, twenty-four from each of the stannaries. Those parliaments
were summoned, through the lord warden, by the Duke of Cornwall,
in whom the supreme control of the stannaries was vested from 1338
onwards, and had power not only to legislate for the stannaries, but
to veto any national legislation which infringed their privileges.
When the parliaments originated is not known, but they were certainly
established before the beginning of the sixteenth century, prior to
which date all records of their proceedings are lost.
With all these privileges, to which may be added exemption from
ordinary taxation and military service, though the tinners were
liable to be taxed separately and enrolled for service under their
own officers, it was natural that the exact definition of a tinner
should have given rise to much dispute. On the one hand, it was
argued that these exemptions and privileges applied only to working
tinners actually employed in getting ore; on the other, the tin
dealers, blowers, and owners of blowing-houses claimed to be included.
Eventually the larger definition was accepted, and, indeed, it was
almost entirely from the capitalist section of the industry that the
parliaments were elected, from the sixteenth century, if not earlier.
It is rather remarkable that when the stannaries first come into
evidence, in the reign of Henry II., the chief centre of production
appears to have been Devon rather than Cornwall.[221] So far as can be
estimated the output during this reign rose gradually from about 70
tons in 1156 to about 350 in 1171. Richard I., with his constant need
of money, reorganised the stannaries in 1198, and at the beginning of
John's reign the output was between 400 and 450 tons. The issue of
the charter to the stannaries in 1201 does not seem to have had any
immediate effect on the industry, but about ten years later there was
increased activity, the output rising in 1214 to 600 tons.[222] During
the early years of Henry III. the tin revenues were farmed out, and
no details are available either for these years, or from the period
1225-1300, during which time the stannaries were in the hands of the
Earls of Cornwall. Two things only are clear, that the total output
had fallen off, and that Cornwall had now far outstripped Devon. The
grant of a charter confirming the privileges of the stannaries in 1305
seems to have marked the beginning of a more prosperous era, and by
1337 the output had reached 700 tons. The Black Death, however, in 1350
put an end to this prosperity, and with the exception of a boom during
the reign of Henry IV. tinning did not recover until just at the end
of our medieval period. Even at its worst, however, the industry was a
source of considerable revenue, the coinage duties[223] never falling
below £1000, and amounting in 1337 and 1400 to over £3000, in addition
to which there were other smaller payments and perquisites.[224] The
royal privileges of pre-emption was also of value to needy kings who
frequently availed themselves of it to grant this pre-emption, or
virtual monopoly, to wealthy foreign merchants and other money-lenders
in return for substantial loans.
Before leaving the subject of the tin mines of Cornwall and Devon, it
is perhaps worth while noting that there is virtually no documentary
evidence of the working of the copper deposits of Cornwall prior to the
late sixteenth century, and it would seem that most of the copper used
in medieval England must have been imported.