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Foundries and ancillary industries
Growth in Cornwall and West
Devon mining created a demand for ancillary industries to supply
both the mines and its workforce, and to process its output.
Amongst these industries (many newly imported to Cornwall) were:
foundries; copper, tin and silver-lead smelters; rope-walks;
ochre-works; arsenic works; chemical works; charcoal
manufactories; candle factories; crucible works; brickworks;
clothing factories; scientific instrument manufactories; gunpowder
mills and explosives factories.
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Engineering and foundries
The Engineer makes Engines for Raising of Water by
Fire, either for supplying Reservoirs or draining Mines. An
engineer, who operated and maintained steam engines, had become a
specialist on Cornish mines as early as 1740. Parts for steam
engines were made in foundries and forges. Initially Cornwall did
not possess any foundries capable of casting and boring cylinders.
The Darby firm of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire (established 1709)
was one of the principal founders of iron cylinders and, together
with others in the Midlands, supplied almost all the early engines
in Cornwall.
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It was not until the end of the eighteenth century
that Cornwall began making her own engines. The expiry of the Watt
Patent in 1800 heralded a period of experimentation in Cornwall by
engineers such as Sims, Woolf, Trevithick and Hornblower. From about 1820 virtually all the local mines
bought ‘Cornish’ and by 1840 Cornish engines and engineers were
the most distinguished in the world. Globally, as new mineral
discoveries were made, so mine engines were despatched to South
America, Australia, Ireland and South Africa; in fact wherever
deep mining was to be found.
Three of the largest foundries were Harvey’s
Foundry (Hayle), Perran Foundry (Perran-ar-Worthal) and the
Copperhouse Foundry (Hayle). Together they were responsible for
the employment of upwards of 3,000 people during the nineteenth
century:
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Harvey’s Foundry,
Hayle (1779-1903)
Harvey’s was indisputably the greatest of the
Cornish foundries. It was established in 1779 by John Harvey and
greatly expanded by his son Henry in collaboration with Arthur
Woolf. It became the foremost engine foundry in the world, with an
international market served through their own port at
Foundry
town, Hayle.
Perran
Foundry, Perran-ar-Worthal (1791-1879)
Perran Foundry was the second largest iron foundry
in Cornwall. It stood on a tidal inlet of the Fal estuary at
Perran-ar-Worthal (near Falmouth) and was set up by seven members
of the Fox family in 1791. A year later, the same partners leased
Neath Abbey Ironworks in South Wales and acquired nearby
collieries, iron mines and blast furnaces to produce their own
pig-iron. They were formulating a production chain of considerable
commercial scale; an aim shared by their friends and co-partners
in many mines and other ventures, the Williams family of Scorrier.
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Copperhouse Foundry
(1820-1869)
The Cornish Copper Company started a foundry in
their former copper smelting complex when smelting ceased there in
the 1820s. This traded as Sandys, Carne and Vivian and was one of
the three great Cornish engine foundries.
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Other foundries
Cornwall and West Devon foundries and engineering
works also specialised in the manufacture and supply of a wide
range of mining equipment. There were foundries in
Tavistock,
Charlestown,
St Just,
Tuckingmill,
Redruth, St Blazey and other
mining districts. Holmans of Camborne was established as a boiler
works at Pool in 1801. It developed into the principal employer in
the district (over 3,000 employees) and expansion had a
significant impact upon the urban development of
Camborne. Holmans
became synonymous world-wide with excellence in rock-drills and
compressors.
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Rock
drills
A high-pressure steam rock-boring engine, which
also lifted and loaded the stone for transport, was designed by
Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) and built by Henry Harvey at his
foundry in Hayle. Mining rock drills however were not adopted in
the region until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, well
after Joseph Fowle of Boston, USA, invented them in 1851. Rock
drills increased the rate of sinking shot holes dramatically.
Their operation by compressed air also greatly improved
ventilation and reduced working temperatures. But they did have a
sinister downside.
Deadly sharp dust caused thousands of miners to
die a painful death from silicosis; drills became known as
‘widow-makers’. Cornish manufacturers subsequently pioneered
dust suppression by delivering a water spray to the drill bit.
Whilst the decline in Cornish mining closed much of the home
market, trade in the Camborne engineering heartland soared with
the opening up of huge markets overseas. One of the major
exporters was Holman Brothers which, with James McCulloch,
developed The Cornish Rock Drill. It was in use in South
Wheal Crofty, Dolcoath, Tincroft, East Pool, Kit Hill, and in
Wales by 1882.
In the late 1880s rock drills were sent to
Australia, New Zealand and Spain. In 1889 Holmans began trading
with South Africa and interests were concentrated on the Rand
Goldfields in what became their greatest market for over half a
century. By 1896 there were more than 1,000 Cornish rock drills in
use on the Rand gold mines. Their impact upon the development of
these deep mines was crucial and by the turn of the century their
number had doubled. Both Holmans and Climax had experimental drill
test sites (near Camborne and Carn Marth Quarry respectively). |
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