Gwennap Pit, Redruth, Cornwall, c.1905-10 - Postcard

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Gwennap Pit near Redruth, Cornwall, c.1905-10 - Postcard

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Victorian Cornwall’s leading sector: metal mining

There was no question about Cornwall’s leading economic sector in the mid-1800s. In terms of income, productivity and employment it was metal mining. The early 1860s marked the peak of Cornish mining. Deep copper mining had broken out of its eighteenth-century heartland west of Truro in the 1810s, first to mid-Cornwall in the 1810s and then further east in the 1830s and 40s, where it joined earlier smaller tin mining ventures. At the same time, the predominantly tin mining concerns of the St Agnes, Helston and St Just districts continued to employ a large number of miners.

In 1861 30 per cent of men aged 15 to 69 were enumerated in the census of that year as working on and in mines. This includes surface workers, enginemen, mine smiths, mine clerks and others, as well as the iconic underground tributer. A map of the relative distribution of these men clearly indicates the districts most affected by mining – west Cornwall from Perranporth to St Just, mid-Cornwall around the Hensbarrow granitic outcrop and east Cornwall (where it had spilled over the Tamar into west Devon in the 1840s.)

Few of Cornwall’s 212 parishes were wholly untouched by mining; a large block in north Cornwall made up the main non-mining district while other non-mining parishes were to be found along the south coast. But of the over 29,000 miners in 1861 over a quarter (7,453) lived in just four parishes – Camborne, Illogan, Redruth and Gwennap. These four comprised the Central Mining District. They accounted for more than twice the number of miners at work in east Cornwall for example, the relative importance of the latter being exaggerated by the lower population density of the area.

The role of mining is therefore perhaps better illustrated by a map of the absolute number of miners, which more clearly portrays the mining districts of Cornwall. Here it is.

#Camborne #Gwennap #Helston #Illogan #miners #Redruth #StAgnes #StJust

Gwennap and the 1801 insurrection: Part 2

By March 1801 the price of food in the market towns of Devon had reached an unbearable level. Residents began to adopt the by now familiar tactics of the food riot – imposing a maximum price at the markets and touring local farms with the aim of ‘encouraging’ farmers to send more grain to market.

Cornish mining communities, described at this time as ‘more in a state of independence and less subject to the influence of superiors’, needed no second invitation to join in. But the first place to see action west of the Tamar was not the mining west but the farming east. At the very end of March, a large crowd of women at Launceston seized some grain from a farmer and sold it at a reduced price.

This example was soon picked up elsewhere. By April 9th ‘rioting’ was being reported from Falmouth, where women again took the lead by insisting on a lower price for potatoes, and other places – Liskeard, St Austell, Helston, St Ives, Penzance and St Just were mentioned. A newspaper claimed that miners from Polgooth mine near St Austell ‘visited the farmers … carrying a written paper in one hand, a rope in the other. If the farmers hesitated to sign this paper … the rope was fastened around their necks and they were terrified and tortured into compliance’. 

At Redruth, it was widely expected that the miners of Gwennap would take action at the next market. William Jenkin uneasily recorded the unrest drawing ever closer as ‘Gwennap mines pour forth their hundreds of desperate labourers who can with great caution and difficulty be prevailed on to be quiet.’ William’s forebodings proved prescient. Sure enough, at the next market he ‘had the disgusting sight of a riotous assemblage of tinners from Gwennap who broke into the market and are now compelling the people to sell potatoes, fish, butter and salt pork etc. at the prices they choose to fix.’ Not barley it should be noted as Redruth had lost its grain market following a previous food riot in 1773.

Some magistrates had sympathised with the demand for price controls but after a little hesitation decided on firm action. On the succeeding market day, the magistrates swore in 50 ‘principal inhabitants’ of the town to help protect it from the Gwennap miners. This they did, although the presence of a small detachment of soldiers was no doubt a factor helping to keep the peace.

After this, the tumult slowly subsided as more grain supplies arrived along with more troops. The local magistracy, which had temporarily lost control, regained it. The miners drifted back to work. Nonetheless, fixed maximum prices remained at Launceston for a month until May 9th and at St Austell for over three months until late July.

Fifteen people were charged with various offences although no one was hanged (unlike in Somerset where it was thought a couple of executions would set a good example). In Cornwall 13 were found guilty, with fines of up to £5 and/or two or three months in prison. It was presumably concluded that any more draconian ‘examples’ would serve merely to inflame the populace once more.

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#foodRiots #Gwennap #Helston #Launceston #Liskeard #Penzance #Polgooth #StAustell #StIves

Gwennap and the 1801 insurrection: Part 1

In May 1800 a less than crystal clear entry was made in the Gwennap vestry records. The vestry agreed to pay the constables for ‘putting down’ the Cornish Supplementary Militia. The militia was made up of part-time soldiers and had been re-introduced in the 1750s. They were greatly expanded in 1796 during an invasion scare. In Cornwall, when active the militia were usually at this time housed at Penzance in the west and Lostwithiel in mid-Cornwall. The Gwennap entry suggests an extra force was raised and quartered for a time in the parish.

The harvest of 1799 had been a poor one and perhaps the magistrates were taking precautions in case of food rioting, the traditional recourse in the mining districts at times of high prices and scarce supplies. Indeed, in the previous month the overseers had been told by the parish vestry meeting to purchase a stock of ‘100 bushels of barley for the poor’. This anticipated the Parish Relief Act of December 1800 that permitted and encouraged parishes to lay in stocks of food.

In the spring of 1800, the militia proved to be surplus to requirements as no trouble ensued. A year later however things were not so quiet.

In fact, the harvest of 1800 in Cornwall was good, much better than the average further east where a second poor harvest had occurred. Yet the price of corn rose steadily over the winter months of 1800/01. This was because the usual supplies from East Anglia and parts of southern England were not forthcoming. Farmers in those places could sell their produce in markets nearer to hand where the price was higher than in Cornwall and Devon, a state of affairs that persisted until April 1801.

Yet by this time the increase of the mining population in west Cornwall and the wartime boost to the growth of Devonport and Plymouth meant that the district could not be fed solely from the resources of farmers in Cornwall and the south west of England. The continuously rising price of food was reflected in a growing number of people applying for poor relief in Gwennap

Some other parishes started to follow Gwennap’s lead and lay in stocks, Breage for example purchasing grain at the end of October 1800. But this just served to add pressure on supply. Growing talk of impending trouble became more than mere rumour in March 1801 when news of rioting in the towns of Devon provided the spark that lit up Cornish involvement in what one historian called the ‘revolt of the South West’.

#foodRiots #Gwennap

In the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, politicians made the workhouse the centrepiece of the New Poor Law, a more ‘efficient’ and cheaper way to relieve the poor in England, Wales and Cornwall. Workhouses were intended to discipline the poor by forcing idlers to work and shirkers to become strivers. But in practice, they became populated disproportionately by single mothers, widows, orphans, the old and the chronically sick. As a consequence, many of our nineteenth century forebears would have ended their days in the workhouse.

Before the New Poor Law there was the Old Poor Law. This was managed by local parish vestries who appointed their own overseers of the poor. The Old Poor Law was less efficient and cost the ratepayers more but on the whole it was more humane. Some workhouses had begun to appear in the larger parishes by the late 1800s but in the main the poor received aid while living in their own homes. The Gwennap Poor Law records give us an insight into the operation of the poor law at the beginning of the 1800s.

The population of Gwennap was recorded as just under 4,600 in the 1801 census, making it one of Cornwall’s more populous parishes. This was a recent development as the parish had grown rapidly during the eighteenth century as miners turned the land inside out in their search for copper. Mining flourished and people flocked to the villages of St Day, Carharrack and Lanner. Nonetheless, the mining boom had not eliminated poverty. In 1799 between 450 and 500 persons had received some form of poor relief, around ten per cent of the population.

How were they helped? Here’s the first 20 entries in the list of 68 recipients of poor relief agreed at the vestry meeting of the 7th January 1800. (The spelling has been updated, e.g. two pair of shoes for ‘to pear of shoues’.)

• George Bray’s wife – swaddling clothes, inside petticoat, gown and waistcoat for the boy
• Thomas Perry’s maid [probably daughter rather than servant] – shoes, shift, shoes and waistcoat for Thomas Perry, shift and shoes for wife
• Anthony James – to clothe his son some dowlas [a coarse calico]
• Kate Gregor – pair of shoes
• Cath Carvolth – low price rug
• Richard ‘Rimpre’ [probably Remphry] – ten yards of dowlas and ‘checks’ [chequered cloth], pair of shoes
• Christian Kneebone – shift
• Jane Bawden – shift and shoes
• Cath Francis – bed sheet
• James Cannon – pair of shoes and eight yards of dowlas
• Alex Holman – shoes, shirt and a waistcoat
• John Seppe [?] – 15 yards of dowlas and shoes for his wife
• Alice Webb – blanket and shift
• Richard Odger – goods
• John Brown – in necessity five shillings and sixpence
• Edwards Rimpre’s wife – swaddling clothes
• Kate Cornish – rent for Leaches [it’s not clear whether Leaches referred to a place or a family. There were families with that surname in Gwennap at this time so my guess is that Kate Cornish was the landlady to whom the rent was due]
• John Brown – waistcoat, breeches [trousers] and cotton shirt
• Ann Nicholas – seven and a half yards of dowlas and five yards of baize
• Blanch Lean – a ‘stuff’ gown [possibly woollen as opposed to cotton or other material]

As we can see, virtually all of the relief was in kind, most being items of clothing or shoes. Almost three quarters of the total relieved on that day were women, probably widows and single mothers, although this is not stated in the records. The total cost of the relief given in January 1800 was £8, two shillings and six pence, equivalent to around £850 today.

[from Gwennap Poor Law Records, 1799-1808, transcribed by W.L.Bawden]

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