I am a history student wanting to specialise in Cornish industrial history. To this end, I am currently researching the history of uindustrial relations in Cornwall. I particularly want to focus on the period from about 1880-1939.

If i tell you where I've got to so far, I was hoping you might point me in the direction of any further information.

1. the election of conybeare and newspaper records about some of the meetings relating to the mining bills/acts

2. Brenard Deacon's publications, inc his pHD thesis.

3. comparison between cornish in cornwall and overseas, there's a fair chunk in Making Moonta.

4. contacted the trevithick society, courtney library, cornish studies library and UNITE (successor to the workers unions I think) to ask about what information they have.

5. I have one person lined up so far whose father was working at crofty in '39 and is willing to relate her father's stories to me on tape.


If there is anyone who can point me in the direction of anything else they think I need to be looking at, I would really appreciate it.

TY all

and thanks to the bloke on another site who pointed this place out to me a while back when he heard i was interested in Mining history

If you are looking at labour relations in the mining industry you really should look at The Miners Mutual benefit Association which was active in the Liskeard and tamar Valley districts in the mid 1860s.

Also of interest (although not Cornwall) is the 1878 Five week month strikes at Devon Great Consols.

Whilst a number of authors have made mention of these disputes the best source of information is the Tavistock Gazette which is available as micro fiche in the local studies library at Plymouth.

Another relevant topic, in terms of labour relations in the area to which Tamarmole refers, is the development of the Co-operative Movement. The Pensilva Philanthropic Co-operative Society had its shop in the mining village of that name, and the St Cleer Co-operative Society was another offshoot of the same movement. The Pensilva Co-op had its own gated access to the Liskeard and Caradon Railway, suggesting strongly that goods were delivered by rail to the Society.

The interesting fact is that these Co-operatives date from the 1880s - i.e. the declining years of Caradon mining, when unemployment and emigration were rising , and family incomes were falling. The Pensilva Co-op's full title gives a pretty clear indication of its mission in relation to the labour force.

Alec

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thankyou very much. it is good to have some information about the eastern side of the county. much of the mining history seems to focus exclusively on cambourne/redruth with a brief mention of st just.

I have found some documentation about the fight over the 5 week month, which was slightly earlier than periods I've examined in detail before. that looks like just the sort of thing I've been looking for.

There is a mention from Deacon's work of friendly societies, are these linked to/the same as the cooperative societies? If they are, I can start to chase up some of the references he has used. makes it a lot easier.

The 1880;s also seems to be when the workers in cambourne/redruth seem to get more involved in more noticable forms of cooperative activity. i know there is a lot of evidence before of worker cooperation and activity, but Cornwall was still said to be 'union free' at arround that time. i've already got ;links there with the growth of radical liberal politics, Conybeare etc. I think it is also the time of the anglican push into cornwall (combined with the high church movement and leading into the celtic 'revival'), although I really can't start to guess at this point whether that had significant effect on the cornish working classes.

I just need to start to link some of these ideas together, then at some point it will all click and I'll have the pattern i need to write into a paper.

If you think of any other ideas, please let me know.

and thankyou

I think you may find that the growth of non-conformist strands like Primitive Methodism may have had a lot more influence on the Co-operative movement than High Anglicanism - and I speak as a member of neither! In the 1880s, Rillaton in East Cornwall - better known now as Minions -at the heart of the Caradon mining district, had at least two non-conformist chapels of strands spun off from Methodism. Try looking at Kelly's Directory for Cornwall for 1909 - or earlier - for details of Co-operative stores, their managers, and the wealth of non-conformist chapels. 'KD' is available on-line.

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Also of interest the Devon Great Consols pickers strike of 1850. This was reported as a small part of an extensive article on the mine in Mining Journal of October 28th 1850, which you can consult at the Cornish Studies Library at Redruth.

In examining the lack of unionisation in the South West mining industry it might be worth considering whether the competative nature of the tribute system militated against the organisation of labour.

think what i'm getting at with the anglicans is that they made a big push into cornwall at about the time cornwall started to obviously unionise. if the methodist movement is seen as a stop to the introduction of unions, which some do see it as, would an attack on cornish methodism's dominance have left a gap that let the unions in?

no idea really.

i'm looking at all the what if's

In examining the lack of unionisation in the South West mining industry it might be worth considering whether the competative nature of the tribute system militated against the organisation of labour.

i have heard that. think that there is a paper Arguing that point. authored by Rule IIRC.

I've also heard people disagree with it stating that the miners did cooperate so as not to step on each others toes and bid on someone else's pitch and in running ore through the pitches where they would get the most return rather than where it was actually dug from.

Bernard Deacon's thesis (available on the ICS website) covers some of this debate among a hell of a lot of other stuff. I'm ploughing through it atm. Deacon seems under the impression that the lack of working class organisation was rose coloured glasses.

ATM, my working theories are a combination of geographic isolation, their own way of doing things and not wanting outsiders to tell them how to organise their organising. also the rivalry with the welsh? not sure how far this went. what i've read about that is opinion pieces only.

Hmm, I'm not sure whether it is possible to describe Methodism as a 'block' to Unionism in quite that way, and it may be preferable to allow several parallel interpretations of events to co-exist.

The roots of Methodism in their political context are very well explored in England in the Eighteenth Century by J H Plumb, 1964, Penguin Books. Chapter 3 is probably the priority read. Methodism had strong Tory and Anglican roots, seeing itself as a religion for the poor, rather than of the poor. Thrift, abstinence, hard work and concentration and ultimate salvation were the essential virtues, says Plumb, rather than the political radicalism of other Dissenting faiths. There is something in the midst of that rather basic approach that captured the miners, and whether, in later years, what was seen as a dilution of these core values led to a development of 'Primitive' Methodism, for example, would need further reading on my part to offer any opinion at all.

Plumb was regarded as a left-wing historian and his views remain of interest.

I think you are exploring a pretty rich vein here and it will be interesting to see what conclusions you draw.

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Thankyou Alec.

I'm reading something at the moment which is best described as a sharpe notes to the bits about religion in EP Thompson’s the making of the English working class. I will need to read it again, then go back to Thompson and the text you refer to. I have a tutor who is decidedly into left wing social history and lends out her own books to us. what she doesn’t have, I can get free on inter library loans. what i am getting so far is that some historians beleive factory owners used early methodsm to indoctrinate workers into good behaviour. Others do not agree with this. I will need to track the debate through some of the major writers on it.

what is clear is that methodism remained to focus of working class mining culture for longer than religion did in many other regions, and the level of support for socialism has been decidedly low. (although IIRC, there were peaks at certain times, it was never the firce it was elsewhere. another of those cornish differences that even some cornishmen, like rowse, never understood)

I'm also going to examine Jaggard's books/papers and Gary Tregida's papers on various stages in Cornish politics.

and thankyou to Ty Gwyn, who pointed me here from elsewhere has recommended where I need to go look for some of the information about the rivalry between the cornish and the welsh. I have some anecdotes about that so far that I cannot remember where I read, but I can't use my own anecdotes. I only get to use them when someone else tells me the stories.

I'm also going back to a freind who once was ordained as a baptist minister who should be able to put some of this into a personal religious perspective that I don't always get as a non believer.

and I have promiced a copy of the paper and my research notes to Angela at the Courtney library. so it should be available to anyone who can cope with reading undergrad research papers.

Toggle, may I wish you every success with this apect of mining social history? You seem to me to be working along some very interesting lines, and your proposal to consult an ordained minister should certainly get you close to the core set of values of a major Dissenting faith with a significant presence in many mining districts.
One (final) suggestion: Tamarmole and I have both provided insights to the social organisation of the East Cornwall/West Devon mining district. I am pretty sure that South Caradon, at the height of its production, also experienced a strike, and this in the midst of a thriving Nonconformist community. There has been some excellent work undertaken on the growth of Methodism in the Liskeard and Caradon area, and it may be worthwhile giving Liskeard Museum a ring for further guidance. It's Heather Medlen, the Hon Curator, you need to speak to. But only if you have time!

With best wishes for your work,

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again, thankyou.

For a slant on methodism and mining in a different area, parts of John Hardy's "the Hidden Side of Swaledale" may be worth a look, the author was a minister in upper Swaledale in the 1950s and although mining had ended by then, some of his older parishoners remembered it and also how the communities functioned in those days.

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I've also had someone elsewhere suggest that another relatively isolated area I could compare to would be the lead mines of the North Pennines for non conformist and quaker influences.

I a starting to feel that I am getting somewhere. I know where to look and have some ideas what I wll find. it feels like a very good place for quite early into a 3 month project.

thanks again all

As a shop steward for UNITE representing those working in the China clay industry, I know we have also been trying to collate much of the union history regarding clay workers.
Obviously Wheal Martyn museum is a good source and if you contacted UNITE, they may have referred the matter to the St.Austell office. Most of us only know about the famous strike of 1913 and recent stuff. If I find anything further, I will send you a PM.

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I have contacted UNITE and have been given contact details for a former union officer in Cambourne, Mr J Foster. I shall also be looking into contacting wheel Martyn.

Recent stuff is good as well. I'm planning to look up to the start of WW2, I believe there were some quite nasty conflicts at Crofty in the late 30's, that included fights with the police and blowing up a part of the mine?

thankyou

Does anyone involved in this thread know if there is a list of those who participated in the Wheal Martyn strike of 1913?

I am looking for William Biddick Stone.

Thank you

Sarah Mcqueen

What a fascinating thread, have found a bunch of fellow travellors.
Have you come across matthew johnsons archaeology of capitalism?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Archaeology-Capitalism-Social-Matthew-Johnson/dp/1557863482/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1348736608&sr=8-2 
Although this is a general work and not specific to Cornish mining history , it is important to frame any attempts of accounts of the past in a broader more general terms. it is very well written and a fascinatingly new approach to industrial history. 😉

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Does anyone involved in this thread know if there is a list of those who participated in the Wheal Martyn strike of 1913?

I am looking for William Biddick Stone.

Thank you

Sarah Mcqueen

Only a William Stone or a WH Stone:
"On Saturday 2nd August a clay workers’ conference was followed by a ‘monster demonstration’ in St Austell. Soon after 6pm some 800 clay workers paraded through the town headed by the Rev’d Booth-Coventry, Charles Vincent, Matt Giles, Sam Behenna, Alf Yelland, Samuel Jacobs and W Stone for the St Austell clay workers. "

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At Geevor, quite a lot of archival material - employees records etc. - some going back to 911 and up to the final closure in 1990 is held. Cataloguing this material has been going on for some years. Contact the Curator, Nick Thomas, if you are interested.

Bill