Fortunes gained and fortunes lost

Cornwall

 I have recently been catching up with the Poldark series which is based on the novels by Winston Graham and are set in the beautiful county of Cornwall at the end on the 18th and beginning of the 19th Century.  My Strickland ancestors were also living in this area at this time and also had investments in tin and copper mines, infact many of the names used in the Poldark series are names that I have come across whilst doing my genealogical research. In my blog of the 20th October 2016 I talked about my 5th great grandfather John Stickland who was a merchant but unfortunately died young as did his wife, leaving their five children to be raised by his parents Robert and Bridget Stickland.
Bridget outlived her husband and was 76 when she died in April 1788, thankfully her surviving four grandchildren were old enough to fend for themselves. At the time of Bridget’s death the economic situation in Cornwall had never seemed bleaker, in Paris a mob had stormed the Bastille, and by 1793 Britain had been drawn into war with revolutionary France, a desperate struggle that was to last until the battle of Waterloo a generation later. The consequent dislocation of trade and loss of markets intensified the depression, while rising prices added to the hardships of employed and unemployed alike, for there was little advance in wages.
A year after their Grandmother Bridget’s death her eldest two grandsons John and Robert Stickland were married, and that within a month of each other, and both to girls called Mary. John was married on the 22nd of February 1789 to Mary Gilbert in Gwinear church and Robert on the 14th March 1789 to Mary Penhale, also in Gwinear church. Nine months after their respective marriages both their wives gave birth to a baby girl, John’s daughter was named Bridget after his grandmother and Robert’s Mary after his wife and his mother.
A few years before Bridget’s death an Indenture was made in connection with the land which John Stickland had leased in 1772, it seems that it was still in possession of the family and was still being used to mine and search for tin and copper.
On the 8th of March 1792 another Indenture was made this time in regards to the tenement and premisses of Drannack Vean and Herland. An interesting fact from the Indenture is that as well as the Stickland brothers both John Harvey of Harvey’s Foundry in Hayle and John Edwards, manager of the Cornish Copper Company are parties in this contract. These two men and their companies were ardent rivals in the port of Hayle.
As the fortunes of the Herland mines seems to be so closely connected to the fortunes of the Stickland family, I think that it would be interesting to enclose a section about the mine from a book by A.K. Hamilton Jenkin, “Mines and Miners of Cornwall”. This excerpt describes the workings of this and the surrounding mines so well that it gives us an idea of how easily fortunes were gained or lost in mining ventures.
“After a period of idleness, North Herland was at work again by 1790. Output was then stated to be about 80 tons of copper ore per month, a quantity which could have been doubled if the mine had possessed a “Fire Engine”(steam pump). The terms of the lease, however were such as to discourage the adventurers from laying out the £2,000 to £3,000 which the latter would have cost, and the water was being drawn solely by horse-whims at an expense of from £150 to £200 per month.
In the following year a proposal was made to add Wheal Fancy and Wheal Pleasure to the North Herland sett, in return for which the North Herland adventurers stated their willingness to erect a Fire Engine of sufficient size to draw the water of all three mines........About this time the western part of Herland, viz. Wheal Fancy and Pleasure, was stated to be much improved. The lode when cut under the elvan was found to answer much better than it did above, and as this part of the mine was shallower by 30 fathoms than the bottom of Old Herland, it made the discovery all the more valuable. Prince George Mine also was looking up, a lode having been discovered at the adit level 100 fathoms west of the Engine Shaft which gave indications of making that mine as productive as it had been in its former working. Encouraged by this, the adventurers resolved to increase the power of the Old Herland Engine by adding a side-cylinder of 40 inch to the existing one. This, it was estimated, would enable the mine to be worked 40 fathoms deeper than its then bottom.
By May 1795, however, trouble was brewing in more than one quarter. “I was at Herland yesterday” wrote William Jenkin
“and from the report of Ned Bull and the Captains we were satisfied that the old fractured cylinder must be taken out, as the engine cannot keep the water in fork.  ........ By the earlier months of 1796, prospects appeared less favourable and William Jenkin was writing:
“It will be a terrible stroke on that parish (Gwinear) whenever Herland goes down as I believe there are not less than 700 men, women and children employed in that, and Prince George Mine adjoining, which both mines must inevitably fall together. The sacrifice made by the Lords will (I am induced to hope) keep her up till Peace is made, when we should find a great reduction in the price of powder, candles, coals, timber, boards etc - and I think an advance in the price of Copper and Tin. But if she goes down now I fear ‘t will be for ever”.
In 1798 an event occurred which not only gave a fillip to the
mine but focussed upon it the attention of the scientific world of the day. This was the discovery of a rich deposit of silver at and near the junction of the Manor E-W copper lode with a N-S vein known as the Convocation Cross-Course. The earliest mention of this find occurs in a letter from William Jenkin to George Hunt, dated 25th August 1798.
“There has been some silver ore lately found in Herland Mine at 100 fathoms deep. I have seen some of it and can discern the fine threads of silver that run through the stone. I have also seen a large lump of silver extracted from the ore......”
A few days later, William Jenkin wrote to his friend Capt. Sam Grose:
“A rich cross-course in Herland Mine in Gwinear, where Jo. Davy is chief captain, abounds with Silver and some valuable semi-metals such as Bismuth and, I much believe, Cobalt......”
During November 1798 Herland was stated to be not only
paying its monthly cost, but the expenses of erecting a fourth pumping engine, together with a second small Fire Engine for hoisting the ore. Altogether the adventurers had laid out nearly £16,000, and the value of the materials on the mine was estimated to be between £8,000 to £9,000. “If we could have a Peace the price of materials would be £ 200 a month less”.
A year later the outlook had changed:
"There are great apprehensions entertained for the fate of Herland and Prince George Mines, which are both much impoverished lately. As the monthly expense of working these two mines is about £3,000 on an average, the setting so many Labourers idle at once, and the want of circulation of such a sum in the neighbourhood is likely to be felt as a very serious evil. The adventurers in Herland are out about £15,000 and are apprehensive of being still more, as the ores do not defray the rising cost. All the little mines in the neighbourhood are dependent on Herland, and whenever that mine sinks, it will immediately carry them all down in its vortex. "
As you can see it was quite a gamble to invest in a mining adventure and Britain’s involvement at this time in the Napoleonic wars didn’t make matters any easier as many materials were difficult to come by and therefore more expensive.
 The draining of the mines was a costly but necessary part of a mining adventure so it is interesting to read in another Indenture which was made between John Harvey, and the brothers John, Robert and David Stickland and John Edwards with the mine agent Alexander Paull that an agreement was made to pay a compensation to the adventurers of Herland mine, here follows an excerpt:
“And whereas the adventurers in a certain mine or Adventure commonly called Herland adjoining or near to the said mine called Wheal Royal have lately erected at a considerable expense a fire engine for the draining of the said mine called Herland and it is expected and believed that the said Alexander Paull ... will receive considerable benefit from the working of the said engine and that large quantities of water will be drawn by such engine out of the bottoms of Wheal Royal mine. Now it is hereby covenanted, concluded and agreed and the said Alexander Paull doth hereby for the consideration aforesaid for himself ....covenant, promise and agree unto and with the said John Harvey, John Stickland, Robert Stickland and David Stickland and to and with the said John Edwards that he the said Alexander Paull shall and will make to the adventurers of and in Herland mine aforesaid a compensation and satisfaction for the benefit and advantage which may accrue to the said Alexander Paull from the draining of the water from Wheal Royal......”
The last years of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century were difficult times but also a time of great change and innovation, Cornwall became the centre of technological advance as inventors and engineers took up residence around the mines. Copper effectively made Cornwall the powerhouse of the English Industrial Revolution. Vast wealth was created by copper, merchants and bankers made fortunes, intelligent and able miners became mine captains and mine managers and everywhere the Cornish displayed enterprise and ingenuity unsurpassed anywhere in industrial history.
My Stickland ancestors were a part of this history, they witnessed the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays the village of Gwinear is so rural it is hard to imagine that so many mines were in operation and that thousands of people lived and worked in the area. Fortunes were made but they were also lost and in the following generation the Stickland men were no longer mining Adventures but miners and engineers themselves.

Gwinear Church

Gravestone of John Stickland 

Coswinsawsin, home of the Stickland family