The Lead Mine Workings at Tyndrum: New Evidence on Late Eighteenth Century Earnings

The Lead Mine Workings at Tyndrum: New Evidence on Late Eighteenth Century Earnings

Tim Barmby (University of Aberdeen)

January 2015 (Preliminary and Incomplete Draft)

I Introduction

Lead mining in Scotland was never one of Scotland’s leading industries, as was noted by Smout (1967) in one of the few papers devoted to this. Possible interest in it can maybe based on two aspects; firstly that it saw some very rich mines in the 18th and 19th centuries, at Wanlockhead and Leadhills in particular, and secondly they way in which the exploitation of the resource drew on business organisation from England.

II Tyndrum

The Scotch Mines Company held the lease of the lead mine at Tyndrum between 1768 and 1792, again see Smout (1967). Astonishingly, the records of these workings have survived for almost the entire period, from 1771 to 1787. The Scotch Mines Company was essentially an English Company, with its business offices in London. It is perhaps this small detail which has ensured the survival of the records. The Scotch Mine Company also held the lease at Wanlockhead and Tyndrum was taken on in an expansionary phase at the end of the 18th century. Tyndrum is further north and east from Wanlockhead and it is likely that those concerned with mine management would want to keep some eye on how things were progressing at Tyndrum, without actually going there, so copies were made and seemingly held at the offices at Wanlockhead, presumably for consultation by those who had travelled from the south.

The records are in the form of a mine journal detailing the day to day workings of the mining concern, so we see when contracts (bargains) for work were set and then finished. As in the following example

Figure 1: Excerpt of Tyndrum Mine Journal

Figure 2: Mid year payments in Tyndrum Mine Journal

III Earnings

As has been mentioned the Scotch Mines Company took the lease at Tyndrum in 1768, the extant records run from 1771, but as can be seen the mid-year payments in 1771 also record those made in previous years back to 1768. So we can see that John McCallum took two bargains in 1768 on the 23rd of Sept and the 1st of November, and it is recorded that he and his gang (almost certainly 4) raised 7½ tun at £4/10/- per tun generating a payment of £33/15/-, following this there are three bargains recorded for the following year the 2nd of January, 1st of March and 11th of April. The first of these bargains was at £4/4/- generating a payment of £14/14/- and the subsequent two bargains were at a higher price of £4/10/- generating £24/15/-. If we take £35/9/- as being yearly earnings from these bargains for 4 men, almost £9 each. Even higher earnings are seen, John Sinclair and his gang in 1770 take two bargains one at the start of the year on the 8th of January and another mid-year on the 12th of July, from the timing it is very likely that this was all the work they did that year generating £104/10/- just over £26 per man.

However at this stage of the mines development most of the work would have been digging of levels what would have been termed fathom work. These would also have been let as a piece rate as figure 1 shows. In 1771 95 fathom contracts were let between 10 gangs each of 4 men each.

Figure 3 Daily earnings at Tyndrum 1771

Giving a mean of 15½ pence per day, with a minimum of 12½ and a maximum of nearly 20.

IV Rate Setting

There was significant variation in the rate of pay per fathom, from below £2 to more that £9. From the journal it is clear that some of the higher prices are for digging sumps; that is a shaft down from a level (or adit) within the mine. In all of these documents relating to the contracts of work within mines there is a very similar language to describe the extant and type of work, so you will read things like “to dig westward from Williams’ sump” a raise is a shaft upwards from a level, a cross cut is a passage between two levels etc.

Figure 4 Rate of Pay per Fathom Tyndrum 1771

The data in the journal can be used to examine the extent to which the rate set reflects the difficulty of working. If the fathomrate was set to equalise daily earnings, then the following equation would hold

and the coefficient on the second term on the RHS would be -1. Estimating this from the 1771 data gives

The estimation suggests that the coefficient is significantly less negative.

V Regional Earnings Differences

As has already been noted the records for Tyndrum are very detailed for this period of time so comparisons to establish regional differnces are going to present some difficulties. Reasonably detailed records do exist for parts of the Northern Pennines and it to there that we will look to make a comparison.

The Killhope mine in Weardale was operated by the Beaumont/Blackett family in the 18th century. It appears to have been more developed than the Tyndrum mine as evidenced by the higher proportion of contracts relating to extraction of ore rather than developmental digging of levels. The contracts, or bargains, for ore extraction were termed “bingtale” contracts. A bing was a North Eastern term for 8 cwt, (possibly of Scandinavian origin). These were piece rate contracts where groups of workers would agree a bargain price per bing of ore on a quarterly basis. For 17 such contracts observed in the first two quarters of 1771 the implied mean daily rate was 21½ pence, but quite variable the minimum being 2 pence, the maximum 39 pence. There were only 6 fathomtale bargains for digging of levels etc in the second quarter of 1771, which imply a mean daily rate of 12 pence with a mean of 4 pence and a maximum of 16½ pence. If anything a little less than Tyndrum but on such a small sample nothing very definite may be drawn from this.

VI Preliminary Concluding Remarks

The fortuitous survival of a Journal of the mine workings at Tyndrum presents an opportunity to analyse in some detail the pay for this group of workers towards the end of the 18th century. This short note gives some details of this and further work is in progress

References

Smout T C (1967) “Lead-Mining in Scotland, 1650-1850” in Studies in Scottish Business History edited by Peter L Payne published by Frank Cass and Co Ltd.

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