The Tamar Valley Mining Heritage Project are trying to consolidate the research that they have carried out and they have a gap they would love to fill. Myfanwy Cook asks if any Diary readers have any information - or even have ancestors who might have taken the opportunity to go and work in either Peru or Chile – that could help the Project in their quest.
Tavistock’s Earliest Employment Agency Offering Opportunities World-Wide
Ferrum Hill House as it is today
The Tamar Valley Mining Heritage project* has unearthed many exciting stories about the lives of miners and their families, which will be used to underpin education modules, and to provide information that will be available to visitors and for those who live locally. Stories of transhumance and migration will be used to illustrate the ebb and flow of all those involved in mining from carpenters, overseers and shipping agents to those who worked underground. Today the scarcity of work in certain areas forces people to move in order to obtain jobs in their sector. In the past the same was true of mining in the Tamar Valley. The peaks and troughs often caused by the demand for copper, lead or tin and the rise and fall of the value of the metals resulted in miners having to seek work abroad. It also meant that those who invested in mining turned their attention to joint-ventures with foreign companies, or acted as agents recruiting skilled miners to work in such countries as Chile and Peru. It’s now hard to imagine that J & J. H. Gill of Tavistock, whom we associate with the Upper Market Street Bank of Gill & Rundle, the
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foundry and the elegant Ferrum Hill house in Parkwood Road and as lessees of the Tavistock canal with premises both at the Tavistock Basin, Mill Hill and Morwellham Quay, acted as an ‘employment’ agency. They recruited miners, and this is where the project has a gap that we wonder if any of the West Devon Diary readers can fill. The Napoleonic war had just
finished, unemployment had increased and the demand for metal had decreased and so both miners and investors were looking for new opportunities. In January 1825 J & JH Gill of Tavistock were recruiting miners for the Chilian (sic) and Peruvian Mining Company. However, so far we haven’t been able to track down anyone from the West Devon area (for example the mining hub of Mary Tavy), Tavistock or the Tamar Valley who went to work in either Chile or Peru. If anyone has any information that could help us make the link between our area and these fields we’d be
delighted to hear from you. Please leave a message on 01822 615610 or
email
myfanwyc@btinternet.com and we will get back to you. We are also always keen to receive
This Portrait of John Hornbrook Gill (1787-1874) hangs in Tavistock Town Hall
Upper Market Street former Bank Building today
information about miners who migrated to Moonta in South Australia and theOkiep Mining District in Namaqualand.
www.tamarvalley.org.uk/projects/ miningheritage
Photos by Myfanwy Cook
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