A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



the prohibition of liveries 1 among tinners, and 

 affording an insight not only into the unscru- 

 pulous practices at times resorted to, but perhaps 

 as well the early forms assumed by capitalistic 

 enterprise. 



From this sketch of stannary administration we 

 may now turn to the operations of the industry 

 itself, the nature and distribution of the mines, the 

 excavation of the ore, its smelting, and the disposal 

 of the refined product. At the outset, attention 

 should be called to the absolute amounts of tin 

 put upon the market from year to year. Already^ 

 it has been noticed that the yield, judged from 

 modern standpoints, was small ; yet until the 

 reign of Charles II little permanent increase was 

 obtained over the amount produced in 1214. 

 The industry seems to have been subject, in some 

 inexplicable way, to long waves of activity or of 

 depression. 



Although the story of the wealth which 

 Richard of Cornwall is said to have drawn from 

 his tin-mining prerogatives cannot be confirmed, 

 a decline is evident in the output of tin during 

 the last quarter of the thirteenth century and 

 the first years of the fourteenth. The produc- 

 tion in Devon fell from 87 thousand-weight in 

 lagi, 2 to 38 in I296. 3 That of Cornwall 

 was but 560 thousand-weight in 1301,* and 

 although it had risen to 863 in 1306,' it was far 

 below its level of the previous century. 6 



Whether or no it was the economic situation 

 of the miner which gave rise to the charter of 

 1305, its issue was followed by a mining 'boom,' 

 interrupted only by the Black Death, the amount 

 from Cornwall in 1337,' namely, 1,328 thousand- 

 weight, proving the greatest yield on record. 

 The plague, however, almost ruined Cornwall. 

 Thorold Rogers does not believe that the Black 

 Death extended into the extreme western parts 

 of England. 8 He might have been of another 

 opinion had he seen the stannary tax-rolls for the 

 years immediately before and after 1350. A 



1 Prince Arthur's Ordinances of 1495 (Add. MS. 

 6713, fol. 101). ' Pipe R. 23 Edw. I, Devon. 



3 Ibid. 29 Edw. I, Devon. 



4 Ibid. Cornw. 



5 Exch. K. R. Duchy of Cornw. Accts. port. 5. 



6 Due, possibly, to the banishment of the Jews from 

 England in 1290. The question as to the presence 

 of Jews in the tin mines is one which admits of no satis- 

 factory answer. The probabilities, however, seem to 

 point to their playing an important part in the 

 industry. The question as to the derivation of the 

 name ' Marazion ' may be neglected, but the ordin- 

 ances issued by De Wrotham in 1198 are made to 

 apply explicitly to both Christians and Jews. Abra- 

 ham the Tinner in 1342 owned a number of 

 stream works in Cornwall (Smirke, Vice v. Thomas, 

 App. p. 25), and the county as a whole did not lack 

 Hebrew names among its inhabitants in the Middle 

 Ages. ('The Jews in Cornwall,' by J. Baumeister, 

 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. Oct. 1867, 324-331.) 



1 Exch. K. R. Duchy of Cornw. Accts. port. I. 

 8 Hist, of Agriculture and Prices, i, 601-602. 



single instance will suffice. Tribulage produced 



in !349 & 'OJ. 3^; 9 in I35O, 15*- 8^. ; 10 

 and in 1357 only gs. 4</. n The actual amount 

 of tin mined in 1355 from Cornwall was but 

 496 thousand-weight, 12 nor was it until about 

 1390 that affairs began to improve. 13 So 

 great, indeed, appear to have been the ravages 

 of disease among the miners, that the Prince 

 of Wales was obliged to make proclama- 

 tion that no tinner or owner of shares in a tin 

 work should neglect to bestow upon it as much 

 labour and expense as had hitherto been usual. 14 



A third period of depression began in, and 

 lasted through, the fifteenth century, the produc- 

 tion, which in 1400 had been almost sixteen 

 hundred thousand-weight, 15 falling to eight hun- 

 dred in I455, 16 and not rising much above a 

 thousand until forty years later. 17 In the first 

 half of the sixteenth century the yield slightly 

 increased, averaging over sixteen hundred thou- 

 sand-weight, 18 until Elizabeth's reign, when it 

 fell again to small proportions and so continued 18 

 until the period of the Commonwealth, dying 

 out completely during the Civil War. 19 Then, 

 for reasons to be named later, began a renewed 

 activity in tin mining, and the annual production 

 mounted steadily, until the maximum was reached 

 some decades ago. 



What were the conditions under which all 

 this metal was produced ? Cornwall's chief 

 geological features consist of a central ridge of 

 rock which runs longitudinally from east to 

 west, throwing out ramifications that meet the 

 sea, on either side, in the rugged outlines that 

 render the country so attractive to the tourist 

 and the artist. This ridge gives rise to numer- 

 ous streams, flowing, for the most part, from 

 north to south, and traversing small valleys, 

 broadening out at places into moorlands of con- 

 siderable extent. Here it was that tin mining 

 had its birth. 



Tin ore occurs either in veins in rocks, or in 

 the form of gravel or sand, in alluvium. The 

 detrital tin deposits are easily explained. The 

 lodes have been degraded, and their contents 

 washed out. The specific gravity of tin ore is 

 so high (6'8), that, as the carrying force of the 

 water moderated, it sank to the bottom in beds. 20 



9 Mins. Accts. 23 Edw. III. 



10 Ibid. 24 Edw. III. " Ibid. 31 Edw. III. 



11 Receiver's Roll, 29 Edw. III. In Devon appar- 

 ently every mine shut down. 



u P.R.O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 263, Nos. 21, 22. 



14 White Bk. of Cornw. 25 Edw. Ill, Feb. 



15 Receiver's Roll, I Hen. IV. 



16 Ibid. 33 Hen. VI. 



" Ibid. 1 1 Hen. VII. '" Receiver's Roll. 



19 Duchy of Cornw. Audit Accts. 1646-1648. 



80 ' The Antiquity of Mining in the West of 

 England,' by R. N. Worth, Journ. Plymouth Inst. 

 v, 126; Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Origin 

 and Progress of Mining Skill, 5, 8 10 ; Pryce, Min- 

 erahgia Cornubiensis, 66. 



540 



