Mining Settlements
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Miners
generally lived in two- or three-roomed houses built of granite or
‘cob’, a mixture of straw and mud. Their families were often large
and they frequently took in lodgers to supplement their incomes.
Keeping a big family in a damp over-crowded cottage without
adequate sanitation meant a daily struggle to maintain respectable
standards. In 1861, well over 60 per cent of the lodgers employed
in the mining industry in
Camborne and
Redruth were accommodated in the houses of fellow miners. Some
occupied cottages on smallholdings and had access to a few acres
of land. Some lived in terraces or rows of cottages which might
have gardens where food could be grown. The majority lived in
towns, however, where gardens were small or replaced by courtyards
offering little opportunity of supplementing their diet with
garden produce. Mining radically changed the population
distribution within Cornwall.
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The industry and its ancillaries were employers of
vast amounts of labour. Around 25 per cent of the population were
employed in the mines alone. Throughout the eighteenth century
nearly all Cornish copper - more than one-third of the world’s
production at the time - came from the region between
Truro and
Hayle, and much of it in rural areas remote from established
settlements. So until the 1840s, every parish west of Truro
experienced rapid population growth. Numbers rose dramatically as
‘sojourners’ followed the fortunes of the mines. There was a
constant movement of miners across the County as the fortunes of
mines and mining districts waxed and waned. In 1801, the great
mining parish of Gwennap had a population of 4,594. By 1841 it had
mushroomed to 10,794. Copper was discovered and mined in the St
Austell district on a large scale after 1812. The Caradon mines
north of
Liskeard were opened up around 1835 and became among the
richest in Cornwall some fifteen years later. The Tamar Valley,
already an old producer, saw renewed activity in the 1840s
especially with the discovery of the richest copper mine of them
all - Devon Great Consols. Between 1845 and 1866 the Duke of
Bedford built 268 model industrial workers cottages in the
Tavistock area. Lead mining districts such as
St Newlyn East, Menheniot and Herodsfoot joined these
‘magnets’ of the 1840s. |
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As the mining industry gathered pace in mid- and east Cornwall,
there was a marked movement from
St Austell to Liskeard and
St Cleer and longer distance movements of miners and their
families from west to east, for example, from Gwennap to
Calstock and Breage to Menheniot.
Villages such as
Pendeen, Lanner, Four Lanes, Menheniot and Mary Tavy grew up
haphazardly around new mines, while older towns close to the mines
like Redruth,
St Just and Tavistock grew rapidly to accommodate an influx in
population. Redruth’s population grew from 4,924 to 11,504 between
1801 and 1861. In the Tavistock District, the population rocketed
from 6,272 to 8,147 between the 1841 and 1851 censuses, an
increase of 30 percent. Camborne grew from a small village to one
of the largest towns in west Cornwall, witnessing significant
inward migration from eight other districts. Such rapid
industrialisation created social problems similar to those
encountered in other industrial areas of Britain. |
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