INDUSTRIES 



upon sales sent the price of tin far above its 

 former level, and the labourer's wages rose 

 accordingly ; but with the Restoration the coinage 

 was reimposed, and matters fell into their old 

 ways, the century ending in a long depression 

 among the mining classes of Cornwall, during 

 which thousands of miners were driven to semi- 

 starvation. 1 At the expiration of the last pre- 

 emption in 1717, the dealers again closed in, 3 

 and the situation in 1 8 1 1 is described by Carew's 

 editor as no better than two centuries before. 3 



The task of tracing these various institutions 

 back into the Middle Ages is one which the 

 absence of all stannery account rolls renders ex- 

 tremely difficult. Of the most primitive type of 

 miner, the working adventurer, we again find 

 traces in 1510.* The further back we go the 

 more likely are we to find these small stream 

 works carried on by associations of labourers. 

 Scattered references in mediaeval records point to 

 such an organization. Henry Nanfan et socit su't 

 complain to the Black Prince that they are 

 molested in their tin work at Lamorna Moor. 6 

 Entries in a coinage roll of 1305 show certain 

 quantities of tin accounted for by Ben Rynwald 

 and his associates. 6 As late as 1495 so little did 

 the custom of the stanneries contemplate the 

 possession of tin bounds by any but working 

 tinners, that Prince Arthur's ordinances provided 

 that 'no persone, neyther persones, having pos- 

 session of lands and tenements above the yerely 

 value of jio,ornoone other totheyr use,beowners 

 of eny tynwork or parcell of any tynwork, with 

 the exception of persons claming by inheritance 

 or possessed of tyn works in their own freeholds.' 7 



But the tinner was probably not dependent 

 wholly upon his mine. An analysis of several of 

 the coinage accounts result in figures of no small 

 interest. Thus in Cornwall in 1300 we find 

 that nineteen men presented tin in amounts of 

 less than a thousand-weight ; fifty-five, from one 

 to three thousand ; twenty-nine, from three to 

 seven ; thirteen, from seven to twelve ; eleven, 

 from thirteen to seventeen ; and, finally, seven 



1 The Tinners' Grievance. Yarranton, England?! 

 Improvement, pt. ii, 149. 



"Lansd. MS. 1215, fol. 230. 



3 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1811), 50, . 

 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, fol. 293. 



4 Add. MS. 6713, fol. 251. 



6 White Book of Cornwall, cited by Smirke, Vice 

 v. Thomas, App. 26. 



6 P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 261, No. I. 



'Add. MS. 6713, fols. 101-104. The laws of 

 other free miners abound with passages which show 

 that this type was the prevailing one in the Middle 

 Ages. Thus one of the Mendip laws provided that 

 whoever should 'throw the axe,' in any 'groof or 

 gribb ' should be one of the eldest partners {Trans. 

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. vi, 331). It is a curious fact 

 that in the Tasmanian tin districts to-day a system of 

 co-operative ' streaming ' is prevalent (' Tin Fields of 

 Tasmania, ' by John MufFord, Proc. Mining last. Cornw. 

 i, No 5, pt. 161-162). 



men who present amounts varying from thirty- 

 three to 294 thousand-weight. 8 The same 

 might be repeated for almost any year. Even as 

 late as 1524 432 tinners presented less than 

 a thousand-weight each, amounts which in many 

 cases must have been supplemented from the 

 earnings of by-occupations. 8 



Many of the tinners were doubtless small 

 farmers or fishermen. _ John Aunger, the blower, 

 was, as we know, a husbandman as well ; 10 and in 

 later years, when the mines were said to be 

 decaying, a constant subject for complaint was 

 that the tinners were leaving the stannaries and 

 turning to husbandry. 11 During the Common- 

 wealth, on the other hand, we find the process 

 reversed, and artisans and clerks forsaking their 

 callings to become tinners. 12 



Another point which seems indubitable is the 

 fact that at an early stage in history we meet 

 with tin works of considerable extent run upon 

 capitalistic lines. Just how far this tendency had 

 gone by the fourteenth century we are unable to 

 say, but it should be remembered that one of the 

 chief complaints which the two shires continu- 

 ally made was that not only the stannary work- 

 men but their masters were claiming the fran- 

 chises of the mines. 13 Of Abraham the tinner 

 we are told that he owned six large stream 

 works, where he employed over three hundred 

 workmen. The Statute of Labourers was, as 

 we know, enforced in the mines, 14 and in 1342 

 occurs the case of Michael Trenewyth, and 

 others, large tin producers, 16 who ' usurped works, 

 and compelled stannary men to labour there for 

 a penny a day, whereas before they worked 

 above twenty pence worth of tin each day, with 

 the result that the tinners have all left their 

 mines.' 16 



Yet, side by side with the entries of miners' 

 associations and of large tin producers, appear on 

 the coinage rolls the names of persons who 

 could not have worked the mines with their own 

 hands, and who could not all have been pur- 

 chasers of ore, and the smallness of whose ac- 

 counts shows that they could not have been 

 small entrepreneurs. We find, for example, that 



' P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 260, Nos. 20, 2 1. 



9 Ibid. bdle. 271, Nos. 9, 12. 



w Cal. of Pat. 1426, 1 08. 



"Lansd. MS. 86, fol. 67 ; 19, fol. 99. 



11 The Tinners' Grievance. 



13 Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 343-344. P. R. O. 

 Lay Subs. R. bdle. 95, No. 12. Smirke, Vice v. 

 TAontas,App. 13, citing Annales Monaiterii Burtonienses, 

 290 (1237). Hired labourers were common enough 

 in the Mendip mines in the fifteenth century to be 

 subject to special regulations. (' Certain Peculiarities 

 in the old Mining Law of Mendip,' by C. Lemon, 

 Trans. Rt>y Geol. Soc. Cornto. vi, 327-333). 



14 P. R. O. Ct. R. bdle. 156, No. 27 ; bdle. 161, 

 No. 8 1. 



15 P. R. O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 262, No 26. 

 16 Pat. 1 6 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 



559 



