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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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When The Kids Are United…
Child Labour and Collective Action in
Cornwall’s Mines.
Iain Rowe
Plymouth University 2009
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Iain Rowe
Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines.
Iain Rowe
Plymouth University 2009
Contents:
Introduction
p.02
Chapter 1:
p.07
Changing Attitudes Towards Child Labour
Chapter 2:
p.14
Child Labour in Cornish Mines
Chapter 3:
p.21
Collective Action at Cornish Mines
Chapter 4:
p.28
Why Did the Mine Children of Cornwall Resort to Collective Action in 1872?
Conclusion
p32
Appendices
p.35
Bibliography
p.37
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Introduction
In May 1872, children working on the surface of a group of mines scattered
around Caradon Hill on the edge of Bodmin Moor in southeast Cornwall, joined
together and agitated for more pay. This event has been overlooked by the vast
majority of historians who have written about, either mining in Cornwall, or
collective action and unionism countrywide. Indeed, only one mention of the
event has been unearthed so far, though this was no more than a passing
comment in an academic paper exploring wider industrial action by Cornish
miners.1 However, no analysis was applied to the circumstances behind this
particular action or its outcomes. Indeed, very little has been written, about
children in history. Away from crime, punishment and education, childhood is a
much neglected historic subject area. Social historians have long been fascinated
with our predecessors‟ attitudes to child labour, but incidents of children acting in
an apparently independent way have rarely been unveiled and explored, and as
far as the author can find, never in an industrial situation. Surprisingly though,
strikes by children in the past were not uncommon; on the 5th September 1911,
a group of thirty or so boys marched out of Bigyn Council School in Llanelli2 to
protest over the caning of one of their peers. Indeed, in this country it would
seem strikes by children at school were quite common. During a presentation of
research carried out by former Ruskin College pupils in 1972,3 David Marson
evidenced that in 1911 alone, there were fifty seven towns that were affected by
strikes by schoolchildren. Authors have also covered such events, in 1991
Pamela Scobie published The School that went on Strike,4 a historical novel
based on the true story of the children of Burston County School in Norfolk who
went on strike in 1914 after their head teachers were sacked by the local
authorities. Overseas, collective action by children has also been reported upon
Susan Campbell Bartoletti compiled enough information of such events in
America to publish Kids on Strike5 in 1999. This book reports on children in
nineteenth-century industrial conditions, which are similar to the events on
Caradon Hill in 1872. However, the children identified by her as striking in the
1
Deacon, Bernard. „Heroic Individuals? The Cornish Miners and the Five-week Month
1872-74‟. Cornish Studies, No. 14. (Exeter University Press, 1986) p.46
2
BBC Radio Four [www] „History Section‟ accessed 09/01/09
3
The Times, Monday, May 08, 1972; p.12
4
Scobie, Pamela. The School That Went On Strike (Oxford University Press, 1999)
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Pennsylvanian mining fields were part of a larger industrial action which was
instigated and controlled by adults. Back in Britain one of the most appalling
abuses of human labour during the Victorian period was ended by the Match Girl
Strike at Bryant and May in 1888. Nevertheless, the „girls‟ were in general not as
in the Caradon case, young children. Moreover, as with the Pennsylvanian case
mentioned above, this action was assisted again by adults, in this case the
socialist and working condition campaigner Annie Besant.6
The Victorian era is firmly etched onto the modern national consciousness as a
time of conflict between the proletariat, a capitalist oligarchy who thought
nothing of subjugating the country‟s youth in order to feed its bank accounts and
a reformist movement looking to liberate and educate its minors. This thesis will
look at the resultant changing attitudes towards children labour in order to
contextualise the 1872 agitation by children.
The reporting of any type of collective or strike action in nineteenth-century
mines of Cornwall or West Devon7 is virtually nonexistent in the vast
historiography pertaining to the Cornish miner and his labours. In point of fact,
prior to Gillian Burke‟s reinterpretation8 of the previous historiography the fact
that the Cornish miner resorted to industrial action at all was barely recorded.
Nevertheless, they did strike, and moreover they did it quite often, as was later
verified by Bernard Deacon in papers published in 19829 and 198610.
Prior to Burke‟s revisionary thesis11 the reason why the Cornish miner „did not‟
resort to industrial action was the topic debated by the historians of the subject:
the effects of the various types of Methodism prevalent in the Cornish mining
districts are extolled as an antidote to collective action by Todd,12 Rowe,13 Rule14
5
Bartoletti, Susan, Campbell. Kids On Strike. (Houghton Mifflin, 1999) pp.82-108
See: www.mernick.org.uk/thhol/besant.html
7
The mines of West Devon were on the whole were regulated as part of the Cornish set-up,
many of the lodes they worked existed on both sides of the Tamar, their ores were sold at
ticketings in Cornwall etc. Thus, throughout the remainder of this report they will be regarded
as one entity, and called Cornish mines.
8
Burke, G.M. The Cornish Miner and the Cornish Mining Industry 1870-1921
(London University, 1981)
9
Deacon, Bernard. „Attempts at Unionism by Cornish Metal Miners in 1866.‟ Cornish
Studies, No.10, (Exeter University Press, 1982)
10
Deacon, ‘Heroic Individuals‟
11
Burke, The Cornish Miner
12
Todd, A.C. The Cornish Miner in America. (Barton, 1967)
6
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and Harris.15 Religion coupled with economic good sense was also often quoted.
Rowse took this a stage further by putting it down to the „Celtic virtues‟ of the
indigenous population as a whole.16 Indeed, many of those who emphasised the
influence of Methodism also highlight the unique „tribute‟ system of working in
the Cornish mines as a supporting element.17 This was an interpretation
advanced by Gregory18 as far back as 1968. John Rowe gives us a further reason
as to why the Cornish miner did not actively look to collective action: the easy
availability, during the nineteenth-century, of emigration. This it is argued, made
it easy to move to better prospects around the world when things got tough in
Cornwall.19
However, Burke and Deacon as hinted previously, have taken issue with the
longevity of these theories, positing that early on in the nineteenth-century any
one of, a mixture of, or even all these theories may well have kept the Cornish
miner from resorting to collective action. Nevertheless, after the copper crash of
1866 they have both identified a marked increase of such activity, resulting in
widespread strike action; a sequence ignored or overlooked by previous
academic writings. The copper crash arguably should have reduced the strength
of negotiation of the mining workforce, and thus made industrial action less
likely. However, as we shall see, it was in this case the „tribute‟ system of
working - which instead of placating the miners, gave them the reason to unite
against the mine owners.
No historian to date has looked at where the child fits into the Cornish mining
picture; perhaps they are assumed not to have been involved with any industrial
activities due to their naivety or simply their young age? Nevertheless, children
would have most surely been actively involved with any collective action that
took place. Until the governmental legislation of 184220 there was no lower age
limit relating to children working in mines, and even after the age of ten had
13
Rowe, J. The Hard Rock Men, Cornish Immigrants and the North American Frontier.
Second Edition. (Cornish Hillside Publications, 2004)
14
Rule , J. The Labouring Miner in Cornwall 1740-1870. (University of Warwick, 1971)
15
Harris, T.R. Methodism and the Cornish Miner. Occasional publication (No. 1, 1960)
16
Rowse A.L.The Cousin Jacks: The Cornish in America. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969)
17
Todd, The Cornish Miner in America; Rule, The Labouring Miner; Rowe, The Hard Rock
Men
18
Gregory, R. The Miners and British Politics, 1906-1914. (Oxford University Press, 1968)
19
Rowe, The Hard Rock Men
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been set, many of the boys would immediately go underground with their fathers
as there was no inspectorate, and most men were employed by other miners to
be a member of their pare21, not directly by the mine. Once the children started
work at the mine they too would inevitably become embroiled in any unrest and
the resulting collective action taken by the workforce, as Scobie has exemplified
happening in America . The plight of the workers on the dressing floors of the
mines has received separate attention from the underground activities by Lynne
Mayers.22 However, she does not focus down on the issues behind child labour,
and only takes a brief look at industrial action.
A series of steps will thus need to be taken in order to try and examine the
conditions which resulted in the collective action by children taken in 1872. This
research will also look at how our predecessors viewed child labour, and how the
Victorian reformers legislated to switch the emphasis for the children of the lower
classes from labour to education.
20
21
The introduction of the first Mines Act.
A „pare‟ was a team of miners who collectively worked a specific area of the mine together.
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Chapter 1: Changing Attitudes Towards Child Labour
According to the Bureau of Statistics of the International Labour
Organization, in 1995, at least 120 million of the world's children
between the ages of five and fourteen years did full-time, paid work.
Many of them worked under hazardous and unhygienic conditions and
for more than ten hours a day.23
The history of childhood as an academic topic has only recently been tackled;24
prior to this the historical plight of the child has been more or less bundled up
with the adult world. Undoubtedly, the childhood of a middling or lower class
minor born in Britain prior to the 1880 Elementary Education Act, would have
been short indeed, and even after 1889 the child would have been out of fulltime education and into the workplace from the age of twelve onwards. Before
the industrialization of Britain, indeed right back to the days of the first humans
to explore this country, a child would have been a vital unit of productivity for
the family group. They would not only have been seen as the family‟s investment
in the future, but from an early age, would have been helping with food
production and processing or in the manufacture of goods either for family use or
sale.25 Indeed, the more children you could maintain as a family group, the more
potential revenue assets you had. Indeed, George Henry Rowe, who grew up in
the parish of St. Cleer during the period of the Caradon Hill children‟s action, was
one of twelve children, but he knew of families with twenty-two, and twentythree children, both of whom were fathered by cobblers, both on their second
wives. There was also one family with twenty-four children, who Rowe tells us
“received a medal from Queen Victoria which was the custom to those having
such large families.”
26
So it is difficult for commentators today with their
average of two-point-five children, starting full time employment in their
22
Mayers, Lynne. Balmaidens. (Penzance: The Hypatia Trust, 2004)
ILO 1996; Kebebew Ashagrie 1998, quoted in: „Child Labour: Cause, Consequence, and
Cure, with Remarks on International Labour Standards‟, Basu, Kaushik. Journal of
Economic Literature, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 1083-1119
24
Heywood, Colin. A History of Childhood. (Polity, 2001); Hanawalt, Barbara A. Growing
up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History. (1993); Hendrick, Harry.
Images of Youth: Age, Class, and the Male Youth Problem, 1880-1920. (Clarendon Press,
1990)
25
Gills, John, R. Youth and History, Tradition and Change in European Age Relations, 1770Present. (Academic Press, Inc., 1981) p.17
26
Rowe, George H. Autobiography 1868-1946. (Unpublished) p.2
23
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twenties, to look back into what is another paradigm and make subjective
judgements. Colin Henwood, quoting the work of Prout, James and Jenks, tries to
explain this by making us think about childhood as a social construction. The
words „child‟ and „childhood‟ have implicit meanings specific to particular social
contexts.27 To cite James and Prout “the immaturity of children is a biological fact
of life but the ways in which this immaturity is understood and made meaningful
is a fact of culture.”28
To modern Britain the thought of child labour is abhorrent. However, as the
quotation at the head of the chapter reveals, the problem has not gone away. As
the novels of Charles Dickens vividly portray, during the nineteenth-century the
employment of children was widespread, and the positions they occupied, and
the hours they worked were many and long. Many cite Dickens‟ stories as being
a driving force behind the Victorian reforms. Numerous characters and plots are
based on his own experiences as a child; he was brought up with his father in the
Marshalsea debtor‟s prison, whilst he was working in a factory with little enough
food to keep hunger at bay.29 However the first legislation which recognised the
plight of the child was enacted just seven years after he was born, in 1819. This
formative legislation thus was also, by many years, pre-Victorian.30 However,
this legislation made no mention of mines, and was enacted only to protect those
employed in “cotton and other mills, and cotton and other factories.”31
The plight of the child from the lower classes changed with the introduction of
the factory system. This saw the skilled and semi-skilled workforce, especially in
the textile industries, removed from their home workshops, to be instead
transferred into a mass production environment. Richard Arkwright‟s Cromford
Mill which opened in Derbyshire during 1771 is seen as the precursor which
ushered in the system; over the next fifty years it totally replaced the domestic
system of textile production. Cromford was located next to a river so it could
harness its power to drive the power looms via a water wheel. However by the
27
Heywood, A History of Childhood, p.4
Heywood, A History of Childhood, p.4
29
Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Charles Dickens. [www]accessed: 20/04/09
30
Reid, Alistair, J. United We Stand. (Penguin, 2005) p.55. Also see: British Parliamentary
Papers 1819: A bill intituled an act to make further provisions for the regulation of cotton
mills and factories, and for the better preservation of the health of young persons employed
therein. [www] accessed: 21/04/09
28
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1820s James Watt had efficiently turned the steam pumping engine into a
spinning and weaving frame driver, so factories could be set-up anywhere coal
and raw materials could be delivered and the finished product could be shipped
out. By 1839 there were 419,560 factory workers, 192,887 of whom were under
the age of 18 and 242,296 were female.32 The introduction of the factory system
saw a break-up of the family productive unit, just as in the Cornish mining
industry, where the companies started employing the surface workers on a full
time basis, instead of them working for a single team of miners when required.
In the textile industry as in the Cornish mines, the women and children were no
longer employees of the head of the family, they were now all the employees of
a capitalist oligarchy, who called the tune on when, where, how long and for how
much they worked. It was not all doom and gloom, most families were much
better off under the new system, at least initially. However it was the plight of
the child, now tied to a regime of work out of the family‟s control, which set the
wheels of reform in motion.
Throughout the introduction of the factory system successive governments,
followed a policy of laissez-faire, intended, so they said, to allow workers the
freedom and liberty to negotiate over hours and rates of pay. However, by 1833,
with the abolishment of Slavery in the British Colonies, some, such as Richard
Ostler, a Tory MP, redirected the focus closer to home:
Thousands of our fellow-creatures […] are this very moment existing in a
state of slavery, more horrid than are the victims of that hellish system
„colonial slavery.‟
33
Ostler was in fact using a rhetorical ploy here, lambasting the industrialists,
many of who sat in Parliament, and had pressed for the abolishment of slavery,
but who had failed to address their own widely criticised employment policies.
Moreover, he was also a leader of the „Ten Hours Movement‟ which overcame
initial opposition, to became law for women and children in the 1847 Factory Act.
Prior to this, the Acts of 1833, forbade the employment of minors under nine
years old, and the 1844 Factory Act laid down that eight to thirteen-year-olds
were to work no more than six-and-a-half hours a day plus receive three hours
31
BPP Sess. 1819
Pinchbeck, I. Woman Workers and the Industrial Revolution. (Virago, 1981)
33
Cited in: Hollis, P. Class and Conflict in Nineteenth Century England, 1815-1830.
(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973)
32
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of schooling five times a week. An Act of 1836 legislated that all births must be
registered, enabling checks on age to be made, thus closing a loophole which
had been previously used by employees as well as employers. The various
Factory Acts however, did not affect mining sites.
Concerns though, were also rising about the treatment of both women and
children in the mines, and a Children's Employment Commission Report was
called for. Commissioners were sent out to all of the major mining districts and
the Royal Commission submitted a report to the Government which was debating
a Mines Bill during 1842. Dr. Charles Barham, who was a mine surgeon from
Truro, collected evidence for the inquiry from some of the Cornish mines, and
some of his evidence will be considered below.34
The resultant Mines Act of 1842 made it illegal for any women or boys under
ten-years-old to work underground in mines.35 Mayers has estimated from the
1841 census returns that there were 1,600 boys under thirteen-years working on
Cornish mines; many of these would have been affected by the new legislation.36
The House of Lords modified some of its points. The age under which child labour
was forbidden underground was dropped from thirteen to ten-years-old, and only
boys above fifteen-years-old were allowed to control machines. The obligation to
put children at work only every other day was removed from the text. It
demanded more inspections underground but did not regulate the working hours
of the miners. The House of Commons accepted the modified Bill, and on the
10th of August 1842, the Bill became law.
It was a further twenty-two years and the Report of the Commissioners of
Mines in 1864 before the situation in the mines was looked into again. There was
though opposition to the suggested changes in working practises, or any type of
34
The Royal Commission 1842: The Employment of Children and Young People in the Mines
of Cornwall and Devonshire, and on the State, Condition and Treatment of Such Children
and Young Persons. Accessed at The Cornwall Centre, Redruth.
35
British Parliamentary Papers 1842: A Bill to prohibit the employment of women and girls in
mines and collieries, to regulate the employment of boys, and make provisions for the safety
of persons working therein. [WWW Accessed 21/03/09]
36
Mayers, Lynne. A Dangerous Place to Work! (Blaize Bailey Books, 2008) p.15
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governmental regulation, emanating out of Cornwall thus the plan to set up an
inspectorate for the metalliferous mines was shelved.37
Indeed, it was not until the 1872 Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act which:
prohibited the employment in the mines of all girls and boys under the age of
ten-years-old; introduced powers to appoint inspectors of mines and set out
rules regarding ventilation, blasting and machinery,38 until regulations were
made to encourage safe working practises. Thirteen to sixteen year old boys
working underground were restricted to a maximum of fifty-six hours per week,
and all ten to thirteen-year-old boys working underground (who now had strictly
controlled hours) had to attend school for twenty hours every fortnight. The Act
as drafted, stated that it would not come into force until the first day of January
1873. This indeed may have been a key factor behind the perceived necessity in
seeking a wage rise by the children on the dressing floors of the Phoenix and
Caradon mines in May 1872. However what is far more likely is that it may have
contributed towards the rapidity at which some mines gave the raise of 1d. to
those, whom the newspapers of the day labelled the „smaller girls‟.39
At this period of time in England and Wales there was no other compulsion to
attend a school. However, in 1872, the Scottish Education Act was passed, which
created the Scottish Board of Education and local school boards, and made
school attendance in that country compulsory for children aged between five and
thirteen-years.40 Nonetheless, four years later the Elementary Education Act
(Sandon‟s Act) placed a duty on parents in England and Wales to ensure that
their children received elementary instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic;
created school attendance committees, which could compel attendance, for
districts where there were no school boards; and allowed the poor law guardians
to help with the payment of school fees.41
37
British Parliamentary Papers 1864: Report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into
the condition of all mines in Great Britain to which the provisions of the act 23 & 24 Vict.
cap. 151. do not apply, with reference to the health and safety of persons employed in such
mines [www Accessed 21/03/09]
38
British Parliamentary Papers 1872: Metalliferous Mines Regulation, a bill to consolidate
and amend the laws relating to metalliferous mines. [www Accessed 21/03/09]
39
As reported in the: Western Morning News of Tuesday 7 th May 1872, p.2
40
Scottish Education Act, The. [www Accessed 15/04/09]
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Of course the Elementary Education Act came four years after the collective
action by children on the Caradon and Phoenix mines. However, it is worth
considering the speed the reform movement picked up between 1872 and the
end of the century. In 1878 the Factories and Workshops Act consolidated and
extended factory provisions to workshops, gave protection to the surface workers
of mines, and stipulated that women and children were not to work more than
twelve hours a day. However, the mine owners were unhappy that the act also
banned night working on ore-dressing, which was a problem for them since much
of the process relied on continuous working. It was cheaper and more efficient to
keep steam driven processes (such as the stamps) going all night. Children aged
less than ten-years were stopped from working and those between ten and
fourteen were banned from full-time working.42 In 1880 the Elementary
Education Act (Mundella‟s Act) extended the provisions of the 1876 Act regarding
compulsory school attendance for children aged five to ten years. Nevertheless,
Mayers suggests that “it was known that some [children of school age] were still
employed illegally, well into the 1890s.”43 In 1893 the Elementary Education
(School Attendance) Act raised the school leaving age to eleven years old. And
finally the 1899 Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act (1893)
Amendment Act raised the school leaving age to twelve.
It is worthwhile remembering that as industry became increasingly mechanized
there would have been less demand for child labour anyway. However, just as
important to the Victorian reformers was the provision of universal education, for
which it was observed England was lagging behind other European countries,
indeed, Scotland was more advanced than it. The school-leaving age has risen
steadily throughout the industrialized world correspondingly also. Making school
compulsory does not automatically mean that children stop working and turn up
instead for education; the process takes decades. Nevertheless, if history
teaches us that there is a single mechanism most likely to reduce hazardous
child labour then compulsory primary education would be it. Nonetheless, the
1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 28, requires ratifying
governments to make primary education compulsory and available free to all.
41
British Parliamentary Papers 1876: Elementary education. A bill to make further provision
for elementary education. [www Accessed 21/04/09]
42
Mayers, A Dangerous Place, p.12
43
Mayers, A Dangerous Place, p.15
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Most of the world‟s governments have ratified the Convention, but as the
opening quotation of chapter one suggests, child labour still remains a huge
problem.
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Chapter 2: Child Labour in Cornish Mines
Contemporary reformers and legislators were looked at in the last chapter in
order to try to understand how they considered the plight of the children of their
time; this study must investigate the work the children would have been carrying
out on Cornish mines, and how they regarded it.
The children of the 1872 Caradon Hill strike worked at the surface of
metalliferous mines. The geology of Cornwall contains no coal, and little
recoverable iron. The principal minerals mined were ores of tin and copper,
though both lead and silver have been commercially recovered across the county
also.44 A by-product of metalliferous mining in the county is also arsenic which
came to prominence, as to being more than an impurity to removed, when it was
discovered it could be used to control the boll-weevil which was decimating the
North America cotton crop during the nineteenth-century.45 Arsenic however,
was not a recoverable product from the Caradon and Phoenix lodes, and
although both lead and silver were being mined some 5 miles (8km) to the south
at both Menheniot and Herodsfoot, the operatives from the dressing floors of
these sites do not appear to have joined the 1872 children‟s collective action for
more pay. Overlying the 280 million year old igneous granite rocks, which
contain the vast amount of the minerals lodes, are to be found the sedimentary
Devonian slates and shales laid down some 400 million years ago whilst the
region was submerged under a warm sea. Between the sedimentary and the
igneous rock also lies a band of metamorphic rocks, basically slates and shales,
literally baked into new rock types by the heat created when the liquid granite
magma was pumped under the extant Devonian rocks during a mountain
building phase which uplifted an area running from Southern Ireland to
Brittany.46 The resultant altered slates were mined at Carnglase some 6 miles
(9.5 km) to the southwest of the Caradon mines, where Meyers has noted
children were being used on the surface,47 but they also, do not appear to have
joined in with the collective action. Situated in and around the Caradon and
44
Earl, Bryan. Cornish Mining. (Cornish Hillside Publications, 1994); Stanier, Peter. The
Minions Moor. (St. Ives Printing & Publishing Company, 1996)
45
Earl, Cornish Mining, p.22
46
Stanier, The Minions Moor, p.51
47
Mayers, A Dangerous Place, p.41
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Phoenix mines were also a number of granite quarries, which would probably
have employed children. Nevertheless evidence has not been forthcoming to
ascertain either if they did, or if they joined in the collective action, but they
certainly were not mentioned in the press reports. Thus, the young agitators
were a close-knit group, both in the work they carried out as well as
geographically.
Our young Caradon and Phoenix agitators were employed on the surface of
their respective sites of employment; indeed, as well as working on the dressing
floors of mines, boys and girls would be used to drive horses on the whims and
around the tramways, amongst numerous other things. Nevertheless, according
to Mayers boys from the age of nine years old would also be employed
underground operating pumps and tramming ore to the shafts, although they
would not have been at the workface until the age of fourteen.48 She cites
William Angwin, aged ten who fell down the shaft, whilst following his father
down the ladders at Wheal Cock, Henry Hattam, aged thirteen who fell 10
fathoms (18m) at Wheal Cole and Benjamin Thomas, aged twelve at
Balleswidden Mine, caught in a rock fall, all of whom were killed as a result of
their injuries, as evidence of young boys working underground.49 Indeed, an
unpublished autobiography by William Crago starts “At the very early age of nine
years my Father told me one evening that on the following Monday morning I
was to go with him to the mine to commence work as a miner.”50 However, this
source should be treated with caution, for although it appears genuine, a more
in-depth reading proves it was not only written much later in life51 but some of
the details are inaccurate.52 Furthermore the cover uses a well known but
cropped image from Dolcoath Mine in Camborne but suggests it is of Crago in
South Caradon. Lord Kinnaird in his report on the mines, a more reliable source
which hints at the conditions experienced by those underground, said:
48
Mayers, A Dangerous Place, p.20
Mayers, A Dangerous Place, p.22
50
Crago, William. His Story. (Unpublished).
51 nd
2 page use of the word „pit‟ and 3rd page use of the word „subway‟, implies it was written
after emigration to North America, these terms were not used in Cornish mines.
49
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instead of having the bright clear complexion of the young people employed
at surface, those who labour in the mines have a very pale sallow
appearance, and this they seem to acquire even after having worked
underground for only a few months.53
Although these boys who worked underground were of a similar age to those on
the surface, nine or ten years old, they would not associate themselves with
them, as a certain kudos pervaded those who were able to work underground.54
Moreover, there is no indication that those working underground were any part
of the collective action taken by the surface working children in 1872. Girls, and
indeed women it would appear, were never employed underground in Cornish
mines; however the activities they performed on the surface were a crucial part
of the mining operation in Cornwall and as a means of contributing to the
viability of the family group:
I can buddy and I can rocky
And I can walk like a man
I can lobby and shaky
And please the old Jan.55
Initially they would have worked for their family group, processing only the ore
raised by them. However, during the nineteenth-century they more and more
became full-time employees of the mine.56 But what were conditions like for
children working on the surface of Cornish mines?
Unfortunately the recollections of the 1872 children do not seem to exist in the
historical record; however, other primary source material is available for
answering this, and it comes through questions asked by the governmental
commissioners alluded to above, and also from later recollections in the form of
poems and autobiographical accounts.
52
The depth he was working at he states was 1,600 feet but South Caradon is only recorded as
being 1,500 feet deep at its close – see: Dines, H.G. The Metalliferous Mining Region of
South-West England. (HMSO, 1956) p.601
53
Kinnaird Commission, 1864. Quoted in Mayers, A Dangerous Place, p.22
54
See: Schwartz, Sharron P. Voices of the Cornish Mining Landscape. (Cornwall County
Council, 2008) p.71, also this can be detected in the autobiographies of William Crago and
George H. Rowe.
55
From a Gwenap bal maiden‟s song collected in: James, C.C. History of Gwenap (Privately
Published, 1944). The „old Jan‟ meaning the head of the family, rocky, lobby and shaky being
slang terms for dressing operations.
56
Mayers, Lynne. Bal Maidens. (Blaize Bailey Books) p.vi
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This first account is from the poet miner John Harris, whose life was the classic
struggle against the harshest imaginable circumstances. He, it was said, could
not afford pen and paper so instead used blackberry juice for ink and grocery
wrappers for paper. However, cutting through the romanticism, he can be
regarded as a reliable primary source, as his observations were recorded as he
lived, not compiled at a later date and he does little to either romanticise or
criticise the industry. He is in fact commenting on a way of life, his life.57 He did
however spent the second part of his life as a nonconformist preacher, and thus
one must a little wary in that his earlier writings may have been re-used in part
as sermons.58
At ten years of age my father took me with him to Dolcoath Mine, to work
on the surface, in assisting to dress and prepare copper ore for market.
Sometimes I had to work at the keeve, sometimes at the picking-table,
sometimes in the slide, sometimes on the floors, sometimes in the cobbing
house and sometimes at the hutch. Sometimes I had to wheel the mineral
in a barrow until the skin came off my hands and my arms were deadened
with the heavy burden. Sometimes I was scorched with the sun until I
almost fainted, and then I was wet with the rains of heaven so that I could
scarcely put one foot before of another.59
This source not only gives a lucid description of the conditions a surface worker
was expected to endure, but also a record of the variety of dressing procedures a
metalliferous ore had to be put through in order to produce a saleable product.
George Henry Rowe started work at South Caradon Mine aged 11 years prior
to which his autobiography tells us he was privileged enough to attend the local
school which was subsidised by a local Lord, but a small weekly fee was also paid
by his parents.60 His autobiographical account of the mine some eight years after
the strike on the Caradon and Phoenix dressing floors is possibly the closest
available remaining insight into what roles would have been performed in 1872.
The account it would appear was written after he emigrated to North America in
1887, and thus must be treated with caution, although unlike the earlier William
57
See: Harris, John. The Mountain Prophet, the Mine, and Other Poems (London: 1860)
Stephan, M.A. „Harris, John (1820–1884)‟, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
Oxford University Press, 2004 [www Accessed 28 April 2009]
59
Mayers, A Dangerous Place, p.23
60
Rowe, Autobiography 1868-1946, p.3
58
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Crago account it checks out for historical accuracy, and the family are traceable
in both the 1871 and 1881 censuses. In the latter George‟s father, also a
George, is a thirty-six year old copper miner, as is his eldest son Richard;
George Henry is listed as a copper dresser.61
George Henry Rowe describes many of the roles which would have been
undertaken by children across Cornwall, though different minerals needed
slightly different dressing techniques, and often no two mines would be treating
identical ores, so some variance would have occurred. The basic procedure for
the processing of copper ore follows:
Ore was brought to surface in iron buckets called kibbles and once landed the
largest lumps were broken into smaller pieces by male surface labourers using
ragging hammers which weighed about 8 to 10lb (3.7 to 4.5kg).
The next stage in the separation of waste from the ore-stuff, was spalling. This
was nearly always done by women or boys. The object of spalling was to break
the ore down into an appropriate size for bucking, or for the steam powered
crushers, and to remove as much waste as possible at this early stage. Both
ragging and spalling required a firm base on which to break the ore, and areas of
cobbles were usually set immediately around the landing area for these tasks.
John Darlington, writing six years after the Caradon and Phoenix agitation, still
advocated hand spalling as the most economic way to process the copper ore. He
estimated an experienced spaller could produce about a ton of ore-stuff per
day.62
Picking was the sorting of the spalled and riddled ore, usually the first job a
child at a mine got given. Riddling or griddling was a dry sieving of the spalled
ore. The large lumps were returned to the spallers, whilst the lumps that fell
through were passed onto the cobbers. Many of the children who took collective
action in 1872 would have been employed in these processes.
61
1881 England Census, Liskeard Registration District, St. Cleer Parish, Higher Tremar
Coombe, page 14, schedule number 61
62
Darlington, John. „On the Dressing of Ores‟ in Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and
Mines (reprinted Dragonwheel, 2002)
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Writing in the 1770s, William Pryce described how cobbing took place at a stone
anvil with a “Bat-polled hammer.”63 In some cases, the cobbers had their feet
and legs protected by a screen; they separated out and rejected any waste rock,
and broke the mixed ore to hazelnut-sized pieces, ready for bucking. Cobbing
was considered only suitable for older girls. John Darlington estimated that an
expert cobber could “prepare about 10 cwts [454kg] of ore per ten hour shift.”64
Bucking was considered the hardest task carried out by the women and girls on
the dressing floors, and involved reducing the cobbed ore-stuff to small granules
and powder. The bucking girls and women stood at a bench or a mound of stone
packed with earth, into which was set an anvil. As hand bucking was so difficult
and demanding, it was one of the first processes to be mechanised. By 1839, De
la Beche65 was reporting that the best ores were being broken by steam-driven
crushing machines in most of the principal copper mines. Indeed South Caradon
mine had a 30-inch engine with one boiler, 24 head of stamps and crusher listed
in its closing down auction.66 This may be the same one George Henry Rowe
reports of seeing being installed for the first time at the mine.67 However, it
would be highly unlikely that a mine such as South Caradon, which was still
under the control of its original founders who were renowned for investing in
technology, to be fifty years behind the other principal copper mines.
Washing and jigging were methods of separating any waste material away from
the ore. Washing was done in long strakes with iron bottoms, whilst jigging from
the 1830s onwards was carried out in jigging boxes, which made what was a
backbreaking task a little easier.68 Indeed, working on the dressing floors from
1879 George Henry Rowe remarks on how he operated the hand jiggers before
progressing on to the machine jiggs, powered by a circa thirty foot water wheel
at South Caradon Mine.69 There were numerous other jobs for which young
children were also employed on the dressing floors. George Henry Rowe
mentions he had to start out running slime pit. This is one of a host of secondary
63
Pryce, William. Minerologia Cornubensis, 1778 (Reprinted: Bradford Barton, 1972) p.234
Darlington, On the Dressing of Ores, p.80
65
Beche, de la, H. Report on the Geology of Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset. (London:
British Geological Survey, 1839)
66
The Mining Journal (September 1885)
67
Rowe, Autobiography 1868-1946, p.3
68
Mayers, Bal Maidens, p.85
64
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methods of ensuring that as much of the ore as possible was recovered. He also
mentions hutches, ties and buddles as places where young children would have
worked.70
The children on the dressing floors who acted collectively must have taken a
lead from somewhere, and as alluded to above, their parents and more elderly
co-workers, had from the 1860s onwards became more prone to taking this type
of action. The next chapter tells their story
69
70
Rowe, Autobiography 1868-1946, p.5
Rowe, Autobiography 1868-1946, p.4
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Chapter 3: Collective Action at Cornish Mines
The Cornish Miner in the later part of the nineteenth-century, found reasons to
act collectively, that were just not issues, or did not unduly disturb them in the
early part of the century. The miners, as well as adventurers who invested in the
mines, were at the mercy of the metal markets. Indeed, from the mid 1860s
onwards, the Cornish copper mines struggled. The price of copper was set by
international markets71, and in 1866 dropped significantly. The Cornish mines
were deep, and the associated overheads were high; copper had been discovered
in Australia and North America, and these new deposits were easily and thus
cheaply accessible. This economic down-turn saw for the first time Cornish
miners pulling together collectively across different mines, and mining regions, to
articulate their grievances. The drop in the price of copper was followed in 1873
by a sharp plummet in the usually less volatile price of tin, which further
exasperated the situation for the mining communities.72 Indeed, the tribute and
tut-work employment systems used in the Cornish mines, as they were
intrinsically linked to the selling price of the ore, ensured a lower price at the
ticketings73 resulting in smaller wages going home to the family.
Prior even to these collapses in the price of the primary metals associated with
the mines of Cornwall though, there were grievances over the level that the
bargains were being set at the mines. This was seen by the tributers, as a
continual erosion of their earnings and these matters came to a head in both
1853 and 1859, but no long term solution was found.74
A few years later, certain resentment was being aired about Lord Kinnaird‟s
responses to the Report of the Commissioners of Mines in 1864. Cornish miners
were interviewed by the Commissioners but many complained of pressure being
applied to them by their Captains not to „rock the boat.‟75 Nonetheless, Kinnaird
in the following year was proposing legislation, in the light of the findings, which
would provide governmental inspections of all metalliferous mines. This initiated
71
Deacon, ‘Heroic Individuals‟, p. 40
Burke, The Cornish Miner, p.362
73
A market place where smelters bid on pre-sampled specimens by dropping folded tickets,
or slips of paper containing the price they were willing to pay for that parcel ore.
74
Burke, The Cornish Miner, p.363
72
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a series of letters to the local Cornish and Devon press, warning of the dangers
of such a scheme; the tone of the rhetoric implied that these letters were from
the mine workers themselves, and were signed by such monikers as „a Miner.‟76
Nevertheless, the underlying inference is that these were written by members of
the mine management or the shareholders, who in Cornish mines came from all
aspects of life. Any inspection would indeed, create far more inconvenience and
more importantly potential costs, to these people, than they would to the
workforce, who one would expect could only benefit from some kind of
regulation. Indeed, high on the agenda for the workforce was improved working
conditions and a living wage.77 That said, the notoriously close-knit Cornish, one
would have thought, would have been suspicious of any monitoring that was
carried out upon them by the authorities.
There were also other vexations, chief amongst which was the five-week
month, according to which the mines paid a flat monthly rate for all bargains,
including short term contract work, such as that carried out on the dressing floor,
whether the calendar month was of four or five weeks. As Deacon suggests, as
long as net wages were low [due to the low price of copper], such issues
heightened the sense of injustice being felt by the workforce. 78 Another objection
was the management of the „sick clubs‟. These were deducted from the mine
workers wages at source, but in most cases only covered initial treatment by a
mine doctor in case of an accident on-site, but without ongoing welfare benefit.
Phoenix United Mine in 1872 for the 800 hands employed was worth £200 per
year to the mine doctor.79 Taking the average yearly wage of a miner at the mine
was £45, and doing a simple average based on the number of employees this
equals £4 a year, or nearly 11% of the wage of one of the better paid workforce!
The miners indeed, on a daily basis, risked their lives for the benefit of the
shareholders; falls from ladders, explosive misfires, roof collapses, entrapment in
machinery, heart disease, the chronic lung diseases of phithisis and silicosis
incapacitated and killed on a daily basis. The average age of males being buried
in the parish of St. Cleer, where South Caradon and numerous other mines were
75
BPP, 1864, xxiv, question 2869
West Britain, May 12th 1865
77
West Britain, May 19th 1865
78
Deacon, „Heroic Individuals,‟ p.42
79
Royal Cornwall Gazette, April 27th 1872
76
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situated, dropped from 51 years and six months in 1813-19 to 21 years and 10
months in 1850-59.80 South Caradon Mine was the first big employer in the
district and opened in 1836. By 1850-59 the population of the parish had
quadrupled in just twenty years, and the mines were at their most productive.
The health cost to the parishioners is self evident. When one considers that
Phoenix Mine expended annually £35,000 - £40,000 on labour and supplies81 one
cannot help, but sympathise with the men who thought that the mine itself could
quite easily have paid the £200 a year for the doctor.
It was a combination of all of the above that was to transform the Cornish miner
from a collection of individuals who occasionally acted in a united way in order to
try and reverse their fortunes, into what has been observed as something
resembling trade unionism82 a move this occupation in this county had not
attempted before.
As mentioned beforehand, the historiographical view of the Cornish miner
resorting to collective action has shifted. However, it has not been generally
apprecated that prior to the use of strike action by the miners of Cornwall, other
means were used by them to achieve their aims. The primary concern of the
Cornish miner, as with any able bodied person, was to feed himself and his
family. This was achieved both via pay from the mine, and if he was lucky
enough, by living off any land he leased or owned. If there was a bad harvest, or
a crop was blighted, the miner suffered as much as the agriculturalist did.
Moreover, the prices of goods which had to be purchased fluctuated violently
during the eighteenth-century, a time when the country was almost constantly at
war. 83 The miners or „tinners‟ as they were known, were easily roused into action
and their subsequent activities were notoriously violent.84 John Allen, the midnineteenth century historian of Liskeard, reported that amongst the inhabitants
of the town, hearing “The French are coming” and “The Tinners are rising!”
80
Rowe, Cornwall in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (Cornish Hillside Press, 1993),
p.152
81
Royal Cornwall Gazette, April 27th 1872
82
Mayers, Bal Maidens, p.43
83
Rule J. & Wells R. Crime, Protest and Popular Politics in Southern England 1740 – 1850.
(The Hambledon Press, 1997) p.3
84
Rule & Wells, Crime, Protest and Popular Politics, p.5
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created equivalent anxiety during the Napoleonic Wars.85 The riot was the
traditional form of protest, and food riots in Cornwall, according to John Rule
were, on the whole, the domain of the tinner.86 Indeed, the mining town of
Redruth lost its corn market for good after a food riot in 1773.87 At common law,
riot, any disturbance involving three or more people, was initially a
misdemeanour, punished by whipping or a fine. Nevertheless, a statute of 1715,
The Riot Act, ruled that if twelve or more people acted in this way and failed to
disband within one hour of the reading of a dispersal notice by an officer of the
peace, a felony was committed, the ultimate punishment for which, was the
death penalty.88
Nonetheless, the fact that the last food riot in Cornwall was in 184889 goes
someway to highlight the desperate circumstances the people of the county were
continually subjected to. This in a British context, is an extremely late date for
such an occurrence. Highlighted by the fact that after 1841 the death penalty
was withdrawn for rioting, as there was the notion that it was rarely required.90
The tinners also have been cited as being prime movers in the organisation of
wrecking parties.91 A shipwreck was a welcome occurrence to those living on a
subsistence wage. Indeed, Parson Troutbeck has been cited as adding to his
litany the petition: “We pray Thee, O Lord, not that wrecks should happen, but
that if wrecks do happen, Thou wilt guide them into the Scilly Isles, for the
benefit of the poor inhabitants.”92 Although food rioting and wrecking does not in
any way point towards union activity, it does show a tendency to act collectively,
illegally, and with little regard for authority in times of dire need, or when
85
Allen, John. History of the Borough of Liskeard. (Liskeard: 1856) p.360
Rule, J. The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England 1750-1850.
(Longman, 1986) p.351
87
Rule & Wells Crime, Protest and Popular Politics p.19
88
Stevenson, John and Quinault, Ronald (eds). Popular Protest and Public Order. (George
Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1974) p.144
89
Deacon, B. “Attempts at Unionism,” p.30
90
Stevenson & Quinault, Popular Protest and Public Order, p.145
91
Hay, Douglas ; Peter Linebaugh, P.; Rule, John G. ; Thompson, E. P.; and Winslow, Cal.
Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth Century England. (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1975) p.181
92
Cited in: Hamilton Jenkin, Cornwall and its People. ( David and Charles, 1988) p.50
86
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opportunities present themselves, an activity not formerly appreciated by the
early writers on Cornish mining.93
Union activity was slow to get off the ground in Cornwall. The Chartist
Movement has been linked to unionism, and one of its founder members was
William Lovett, the son of the captain of a small fishing vessel, who was born in
Penzance, Cornwall on 8th May, 1800. Chartism though had little impact in
Cornwall, and Lovett himself only became interested in socialist ideas of those
such as Robert Owen after a move to London. Moreover, Chartism was a political
movement; its principal aims were to give the male working classes equal access
to the parliamentary privileges available to those in the classes above them, and
thus any attempt to link its objectives with that of unionism is therefore rather
tenuous.94 Indeed, the only activity relating to Cornish miners and unionism
during the Chartist era, comprised strike breaking in the North-east in 1844, and
in Lancashire in 1847. On both occasions the blacklegs, or „nobsticks‟ as they
were then called, were working in coal mines when members of The Miners
Association were striking.95 Having established that the miners did resort to
collective action, but in a non-structured way, when did they take those first
steps towards trade unionism?
The first recorded moves towards structured association in the east of the
county took place in June 1842, with the formation of the Caradon Miners‟ and
Mechanics Friendly Society. Monthly meetings were held in The Sportsman‟s
Arms, St. Cleer, with a subscription of one shilling six pence a month. Benefits
would be available to members after a year of contribution, in the case of
sickness or injury nine shillings a week,96 in the case of death one shilling to be
paid to the next of kin, by every member, and if a member‟s wife died 6 pence.97
However, friendly societies, were local organisations, and thus were less
concerned with labour law on a national scale as trade unions were.98 Moreover,
93
Before the revisionary thesis put forward by Gillian Burke in the The Cornish Miner and
the Cornish Mining Industry 1870-1921
94
Pelling, Henry. A History of British Trade Unionism, fourth edition.
(London: Penguin, 1987) p.33
95
Challinor, R & Ripley, B. The Miners Association – A Trade Union in the Age of the
Chartists. (Lawrence and Wishart, 1968) p.132 & p.191
96
The Rules of the Caradon Miners and Mechanics Friendly Society, 1861, p.5
97
The Rules of the CMMFS, p.10
98
Reid, United We Stand, p.68
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unlike a trade union they also tended towards exclusiveness, and had many rules
defining eligibility.99 Indeed the Caradon Miners and Mechanics had an age
stipulation of sixteen to thirty five years old100, and twenty eight separate rules,
not one of which makes any mention of payment in times of industrial action.
Thus any suggestions, no matter how tentative, that this was in any way a trade
union should not be drawn.
The circumstances behind the conditions which presented themselves in 1866
however persuaded the miners, at least in the east of the county, of a need to
unite as one voice. With a decline of the copper price, and the non-settlement of
grievances which had been bubbling under since at least 1853, the miners of
east Cornwall formed the Miners Mutual Benefit Association in February 1866.
The chief aim of this was an improvement in the financial rewards available to
the miner by forcing the mines to offer a more preferable rate of bargain on the
mine setting day.101 The mine owners though acted immediately and refused to
bargain with Association members, they indeed, cited rules five, six and seven as
being particularly objectionable.102 The Association was initially strongly
supported with an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 attending open air meetings on
Caradon Hill,103 and an alleged 20,000 of the 45,000 miners in Devon and
Cornwall being signed up members.104 However, ultimately the mine owners
prevailed and it was their collective action against the Association, whom had no
reserves from which to distribute strike pay, which won the day. Indeed it may
well have been the continued slide in the copper standard which enabled them to
do this. A price of £130 a ton in mid-January continued to slide to under a £100
by late June,105 thus making it an easy decision for the mines, to cease
production and ride out both storms at the same time. The men it is reported
“returned to work on the employers‟ conditions”106 just over three weeks into the
strike. The Association had threatened during the dispute, that if their demands
were not met, they would emigrate, and throw their families on the Parish.
99
Reid, United We Stand, p.27 & p.53
The Rules of the Caradon Miners and Mechanics Friendly Society, 1861, p5
101
The „bargain‟ was a percentage of the dressed ore paid to a mining team or „pare‟ at the
end of a contract. Although this percentage was bid upon by competing pares on setting day,
the mine Captains could easily artificially suppress the price.
102
Western Daily Mercury, 28th February 1866; Cornish Times 2nd March 1866.
103
Western Daily Mercury, 5th March 1866; Cornish Times, 10th March 1866.
104
Western Daily Mercury, 5th March 1866
105
Deacon, “Attempts at Unionism” p.33
100
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Evidence from the period after the fall of the Association shows this did
happen,107 but whether this was men sticking to their threat or just being barred
from working due to their association with the dispute is unknown.
The next period of unrest, conversely, was due to a substantial jump in the
price of tin, a rising copper standard and a lack of available labour which was a
result of mass emigration. The miners thus, took advantage of their strong
bargaining position and endeavoured to end the long disputed five-week month.
The Miners Protection Society was formed at Minions in January 1872,108 and by
early February, South Caradon Mine acquiesced, and it adopted the four-week
month after a mass meeting of 800 to a 1,000 miners at Minions.109 On the
strength of this success, strikes ensued across the county.110 Even though the
demands for a four-week month were almost universally accepted by the mines,
unrest still bubbled under the surface, and correspondence regarding the
unsatisfactory wage being paid to the metalliferous mine workers of the county
continued to appear in the local press.111 Indeed, this juncture brings us to the
moment grievances were being raised by the boys and girls of the mines
surrounding Caradon Hill.
106
Cornish Times, 17th March 1866
Western Daily Mercury, 9th April 1866; The West Briton 15th June 1866
108
West Briton, 30th January 1872
109
Royal Cornwall Gazette, 3rd February 1872
110
West Briton, 7th March 1872
111
For example see: The Royal Cornwall Gazette, 4th May 1872, A letter from „CARADON‟
regarding the unsatisfactory method currently used in the letting of tut and tribute bargains at
the present – dated April 22nd 1872.
107
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Chapter 4: Why Did the Mine Children of Cornwall
Resort to Collective Action in 1872?
The only information that has so far come to light regarding the strike by
the boys and girls of the Caradon & Phoenix mines has come via the reporting
of the event in the local press. Just one set of mine account books has come
to light, and unfortunately the surface account book for the period in question
is not amongst them.112 The local newspaper, the Cornish Times unusually,
has no file copies available after the 4th May until 1st June. This newspaper,
being the most local to the mining district concerned would, one would think,
have given a more in depth coverage than those that supplied the Truro or
Plymouth papers which are available. The incident first comes to light in the
Truro newspaper the West Briton on 7th May 1872:
Bal Children At Caradon - Last week upwards of 300 girls and boys
working in various mines in the Liskeard district, struck for wages. The
wages hitherto given to the girls have amounted to only six shillings
per week, but on those employed on the South Caradon mine
representing their grievances, and asking an advance they obtained an
addition on one penny per day. On this becoming known at the
neighbouring mine of West Caradon the girls there immediately struck,
and the agitation soon spread to Glasgow Caradon, Marke Valley,
Phoenix and other mines. At Phoenix the boys also struck. In some
cases the penny advance has been offered, as given at South Caradon,
but the children ask for twopence extra, which even then will only
amount to seven shillings per week. They are now seen daily
congregating on the downs, discussing their grievances and visiting
other mines. At Phoenix on Friday, Mr. West desired the people to
return and take what he would give them, but unless they receive the
twopence extra they refuse to work. At some mines the demands were
conceded on Saturday, but the other remain on strike today.
According to the Western Morning News of Wednesday 8th May 1872
settlements were made at South Caradon and Glasgow Caradon of 1d.per
112
Cornwall Record Office, Ref No: X19 - Glasgow Caradon and Wheal Gill mines, St Ive,
1858-1875
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day, at East Caradon and Marke Valley, to the smaller girls 1d.per day, but at
Phoenix Mine 112 girls and 108 boys were holding out for a 2d.per day. The
West Briton of May 9th, reported that all hands were back at work, but a great
deal of dissatisfaction remained by those who did not achieve their aims.
Thus reading between the lines, it was children who initiated this action;
there is no mention of any adult intervention on their behalf in any of the
headlines, or the text copy. There must have been some kind of collective
action amongst the children working on the dressing floors at South Caradon
in order for them to make the request for more pay. There is no indication if
they asked for a penny and got it, or asked for more and settled on a penny.
It would also appear that the other surface workers in the surrounding mines
were not part of this collective action until the request was made and agreed
at South Caradon. The other surface workers it would also appear, acted
independently of each other towards their own objectives, and went back to
work once these had been met. Thus there was no solidarity between those
who had achieved an acceptable rise and those that had not. This is also
implied by the fact that those who wanted a 2d. rise, and did not accept the
1d. the majority had agreed upon did not achieve any extra payment at all,
even though it is clear that Mr. West from Phoenix had offered them
something.
Most of the mines mentioned were big employers113, and main performers
Phoenix and South Caradon are part of the top ten Cornish producers by
value of all ore sold between 1845 and 1913, West Caradon was in the top
thirty, and East Caradon and Marke Valley the top fifty. Glasgow Caradon was
a much smaller mine but was still in the top hundred, and in 1872 was selling
more ore than its prestigious neighbours.114
What is clear though, is that the wage system was chronically unjust; the
penny raise given in 1872 brought the children up to the wages recorded a
113
Although full employment figures for them are not available until after1880
Burt, R. (Ed.). Cornish Mines. (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1987) p.li & p.lii. Also see
appendix 2
114
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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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full thirty years earlier for boys on the dressing floors at Fowey Consols.115
Not so clear, and the next challenge for this thesis, must be to try and
establish what stimulated the collective request for more pay at the Phoenix
and Caradon mines.
It is unfortunate that we have no first hand renditions of this action other than
the newspaper reports, or know why even they gave such little space to it.
Indeed a total lack of what the children were thinking or what initiated the action
is the real problem for this thesis. Research must then take place, via the media
coverage of the period, in order to try and identify the possible causes behind the
strikes of 1872.
In September 1871, surface workers at Dolcoath Mine went on strike for more
pay, and in January 1872, those at Wheal Basset left their work, demanding a
rise from 9d. to 11d. per day.116 These ultimately successful and related
agitations, along with a continuous stream of letters protesting against the unfair
conditions under which the mine workers were employed would have been
available to the Caradon workers via the local newspapers. For example a letter
from „A Pensilvian,‟117 stating “They currently work with a sledge, shovel or a
griddle for nine or ten hours a day for 12d.,” called for a meeting in mid-Cornwall
to discuss the current situation of surface and underground miners.118 Carters
were on strike in Liverpool, tailors in Dublin, cutlers and bricklayers in Sheffield.
Nationally demands were being made by agricultural workers for better pay and
conditions and the seine fishermen of Mevagissey were also threatening to strike.
The local and national papers of the weeks preceding the agitation by children on
Caradon Hill, are indeed full of the instance of workers uniting in protest against
the conditions that they were being employed under.
115
119
Barham, Children‟s Employment Commission, p.785. Also see appendix 1 for various
wage comparisons.
116
Mayers, Bal Maidens p43; Royal Cornwall Gazette, 6.1.1872
117
Pensilva was a mining village to the east of Caradon Hill.
118
Royal Cornwall Gazette, 29th April 1872, p8 Also see: Western Morning News 2nd- 6th
May 1872 inclusive
119
Western Morning News 2nd- 6th May 1872 inclusive
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Also, although the price of tin was high and copper was once again rising,120
there was a general realisation that the mines around Caradon Hill were coming
towards the end of their productive lives. For example in the „Liskeard‟ section an
excerpt from a meeting concerning the proposed billeting of a military unit near
to the town, foretelling that the “adventures in the district are now under a
cloud; many mines have been shut up and others are shortening hands,
thousands of the labouring population have been compelled to seek employment
in foreign climes; commerce is languishing; trade is declining.”121 So the press
can be convincingly observed as a consequential influence upon the action of the
children; however, one would feel this type of information would have to be
filtered down to them via their elders. This would also be the case with issues
regarding the cost of living which was rising due to the most extraordinary
atmospheric activity experienced this year. Large areas of the country had been
repeatedly flooded since January, ruining stored goods and a series of
horrendous storms at sea had affected imports.
What is equally important, and was indeed covered in the last chapter, is that
the Miners Protection Society was formed at Minions during January 1872,122 and
this, as this research has shown, was successful in negotiating the ending of the
five-day week in most of the mines in the area. Indeed, in that, as with this
action, South Caradon Mine was the first to acquiesce to the demands of its
workers, leading the way for a wider settlement across other sites. Has this an
underlying importance to this thesis, or was it just purely coincidental?
120
Burt, Cornish Mines, pxxii
West Briton, May 9th 1872
122
West Briton, 30th January 1872
121
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Conclusion
In conclusion this thesis is suggesting that the collective action by children
around Caradon Hill, was not part of a concerted move towards trade unionism,
nor it seems was the earlier 1872 combination under the banner of the The
Miners Protection Society. Both of these can be seen as successful for the
participants, as most who joined in achieved their aims. Here one would think,
with the solid foundations of a double victory over their employees, would be the
perfect time to build a strong association for the future. However this just did not
happen. Maybe the failure of the overtly militant Miners Mutual Benefit
Association of 1866, beaten by a united front of mine management, and the freefalling copper ore prices was a still a too bitter memory? It is an important fact
indeed, that at this period of time there was only a very small percentage of the
workforce countrywide who were incorporated into trade unions.
This thesis would thus like to propose that perhaps there is some middle ground
between the earlier writers on the industry and the revisionary theories proposed
by Burke and Deacon. The failure of The Miners Mutual Benefit Society to
negotiate with the mines over setting prices was because they, chose a time not
only when labour was plentiful, but more importantly whilst the mines were
suffering financially. Whilst the successes for the The Miners Protection Society
and the Phoenix and Caradon children, came at a time when the price of copper
was on the up, and labour was scarce due to a mass migration abroad due to the
formerly suppressed copper price. Perhaps then it really was the „economic good
sense‟ of the Cornish miner which negated the need for unionism, and the Miners
Mutual Benefit Society just got the timing wrong. However, it is equally likely
that this 1866 action was not intentionally unionist in its origins; it may have just
been a cultural throwback to the days of the „tinners riots‟, and the need to act
collectively when faced with desperate circumstances. The stubborn refusal to
drop the three contentious rules from their constitution also worked against
them.
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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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Two theories have also been suggested in this text as to why the Caradon Hill
children were successful in their negotiations. Firstly the knowledge by the mine
owners, that at the start of the next year with the introduction of the 1872
Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act, they would be faced with losing all dressing
floor employees under the age of 10, and those over this age, would have strictly
controlled hours of work imposed. Perhaps the concession to the „smaller girls‟ as
announced in the press, was based on the knowledge that in seven months time
they would be off at school anyway? As we have no first hand reports, and very
limited press coverage of the agitation, we cannot with any assurance confirm
this to be the case. The second theory suggested was that the successes both of
the children‟s agitation and that of the earlier Miners Protection Society were due
to an immediate acceptance by South Caradon Mines of their employees‟
grievances.
South Caradon apart from being the richest in the Caradon and Phoenix mining
area also had a unique shareholder structure. It was founded by two sets of
brothers, Tom and Richard Kittow, from East Cornwall farming stock; and James
and Peter Clymo, mine captains who moved to the area from the St. Austell
district. They collectively in their spare time, prospected for copper to the south
of Caradon Hill, and in 1836 made a massive discovery. Due to the fact there
was no copper mining east of St. Austell, potential shareholders were reluctant
either to believe the brothers, or to invest in what would be a start-up venture in
an area where it was generally thought no copper ore existed. The brothers were
thus forced to raise the capital to open up the mine themselves. The mine was
an instant success, and from the outset, the vast majority of the shares were
thus held by a local farming family and working miners. Although by the time of
the collective action the Clymos, James (in 1848) and Peter (in 1870), had
passed away, the majority of their shares were still held within the family.
Moreover, the Kittows, Tom who was the mine purser (accountant), and Richard
a trustee who always preferred farming to mining, also held a major percentage
of their original shares. This thesis is thus suggesting that it was the altruistic
nature of these families, who saw the merits of both cases, and agreed to their
terms immediately, which then put pressure on the other mines to follow suit.
The altruism of the shareholders, can be substantiated by the fact that this and a
lead/silver mine at nearby Menheniot, which also had the Clymos as majority
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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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shareholders, were the only mines in East Cornwall to install man-engines. These
were built at great cost, had no other purpose than to ease daily toil of the
miners getting to and from their underground places of work. The reason they
would not negotiate with the Miners Mutual Benefit Society was because of the
three problematic rules, which not only called for an Association man to decide
what steps should be taken if the income offered by the mine was deemed
insufficient, but also offered a provision of strike pay for Association members
and the banning from membership of any miner taking a pitch under dispute.
Rules they could not possibly countenance as they undermined their authority as
managers.
This then leaves us with the question why did the Phoenix children hold out for
two pence, but get nothing? The thesis would suggest this was due to the fact
the mine was producing much more tin than the other mines, and at this time
the price of that metal was riding very high indeed. They were maybe trying their
luck, having seen the ease at which raises were being given elsewhere. However,
they did not account for William West‟s connections to South Caradon, where he
started out in the area as their engineer. Once again, solidarity amongst the
mine management was able to crush perceived misanthropy by the employees.
This thesis has recognised the actions of the children of the Phoenix and
Caradon mines surrounding Caradon Hill, and has highlighted that collective
action by children existed outside of the previously known context of schools,
and possibly there are many more yet to be discovered! This action should then
be acknowledged, if not as a small step on the way to unionism in Cornish mines,
then as one towards child liberty, and children once again being treated with
respect. Liberty from the workplace for England‟s youths was to be sealed with
the implementation of the Education Acts. Indeed, history teaches us that if
there is a single mechanism which has reduced child labour worldwide then
compulsory primary education was it. However, as has been highlighted
elsewhere, this gave the children of England a different context from which to act
collectively if the necessity arose!
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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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Appendix 1.
Date – age/location
Wage per day (pence)
1773 – Buddle Boy 8 years
3½d.
1828 – Women Clay Workers
8d.
1840-50s – Girls on Dressing Floors (average)
4d.
1840-50s – Women on Dressing Floors (average)
12d.
1841 - 9 year old boy @ Consolidated Mines
3d.
1841 – Boy Ore Jiggers @ Fowey Consols
13d.
1842 - Miner in Central District
30d.
*
1842 - Childs Average Earnings in Central District
**
10d.
1847 – Pickers @ Devon Great Consols
10d.
1852 – Boy Drawing Ore @ Wheal Trelawny
6d.
1871 – Miners Average Earnings @ Phoenix U. mine
38d.
1872 – 1st Class Police Constable
44d.
1872 - Girls on Dressing Floors @ South Caradon
13d.
1880 – 8 & 9 year old Ore Dressers @ South Caradon
6d.
1887 – Fuse Girls @ Tuckingmill
4½d.
Pre-decimal Currency
Relative Value in 2009
1d. (pence) = 2 halfpence or 4 farthings
£0.30p
1s. (shilling) = 12d.
£3.60
£1 (pound) = 20s. or 240d.
£70.00
I guinea
£73.60
= £1. 1s. or 21s or 252d.
* The equivalent to the cost of 4 gallons of potatoes and 3lb of fish.
**The equivalent to the cost of a 1lb of butter
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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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Appendix 2.
Mine
Copper Output in 1872
Ore/tons
Tin output in 1872
Ore/tons
South Caradon
5,195
Marke Valley
4,427
6
Phoenix
1,348
364
Glasgow Caradon
2,195
East Caradon
2,133
West Caradon
853
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Child Labour and Collective Action in Cornwall’s Mines
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