The High Rake Mining Company Derbyshire, a letter from Daniel Bowdin to William Wyatt 1837

 

Between 1834 and 1852 the promoters of The High Rake Mining Company sought to regenerate and expand the lead mining which had an ancient history in the Peak District of Derbyshire. They thought that using modern steam technologies deeper and previously inaccessible veins of lead ore could be accessed, and profitably. In 1837 the enterprise was being led by William Wyatt of Eyam, a son of Benjamin Wyatt of the adjacent parish of Foolow who traded in lead for decades until his death in 1836. I have only this undated scrap of business correspondence addressed to him; the other side is also covered with daunting calculations; clearly, trading in lead was not an uncomplicated business.

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For the new High Rake project William Wyatt employed local labour under the direction of an experienced miner, Daniel Bowdin. It didn’t work out and when the company was wound up in 1852 and its machinery sold off the shareholders took a net loss of about £13000 (over £1 million today).The remains of the numerous lead mines in the Peak District have been very extensively explored, mapped and researched, allowing me to read that within a three-mile radius of Eyam four hundred and thirty-nine mines have been identified. Every “dish” of lead ore was subject to a church tithe of one penny, enough in Eyam’s heyday to provide a comfortable parish living.

The letter below is unusual as a direct and detailed report from Bowdin to Wyatt on early work in progress and problems encountered; at the end of the letter Wyatt has noted the main points of the reply he has sent. At this early 1837 date steam powered pumps and winding equipment had not yet been introduced nor the buildings constructed which would house them and which survived into the twentieth century. Only a few fathoms more depth have so far been added to existing shafts; by the end of the adventure they went down to a total of 120 fathoms. A fathom is equivalent to two yards or 1.8 meters. One does not have to fully understand the technical matters to realise that Daniel Bowdin holds in his head a remarkably detailed and dynamic map of what is happening underground as he directs his labourers to keep digging - day and night if William Wyatt’s instructions are being followed.

There is one other thing: Eyam is famous. It was the village which in 1665 quarantined itself for over a year to prevent the spread of the bubonic plague which arrived with fleas infesting a bale of cloth sent from London. The contemporary parish church records identify 273 victims of plague out of a population of 800.

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Transcription

Addressed to Mr William Wyatt    Eyam    Nr, Bakewill     Derbyshire

Datelined: Hebden March 24^th 1837.

Dear Sir

I hope you had a pleasent journey home from us. I think that we are likely to be beat with opening the old shaft proposed when you was here. We got down about 3 fms [fathoms] with that shaft, and the water was then so brisk upon us that we could not sink any. We have opened another old shaft a few yards to the West of the other which if you recollect we thought was the shaft the old workman had to get his water up, which we proved to be the case as he has left his pumps, rods, &c, in it. We are now got down about 5 fms with both shafts but are not yet at the bottom of what I must call the water shaft which I believe will be down to a plate bed about a fathom below where we now are. if we can catch the water at this plate bed and put hand pumps down the shaft the old workman has had them in, we perhaps then may be able to open the other shaft, and if we could push it down into the bearing Gritstone I have little doubt but the water will go as the water has gone in every place we have tried in that Gritstone, if we had the deep Level under us we should be more releived from water as the work which is gone down into the shafts will hold water like a dish nor could we begin to Bore to let the water down unless we could get to the bottom of the old shaft, I think if we had begun a new shaft on the sun side of the Vein [of lead ore] we should have been able to get down as we have proved by the sinking of our other shafts that the sun side of the Vein is not so heavily water’d as the North side moreover we have the dead water upon us which is standing in the old works westerly from us with what accumulates in those works. In the Top Grit up to the Gravil we have a slender rib of ore and we have found some better peices in the old work than any I have seen before at New Rake. – the Dukes [Dukes Level mine] people still get badly away with the 58 fm Level towards the Glory [a mine]

We have no lead sold at our Cupola [a mine] lately. I suppose that it is worth 21 £ pr. Ton

I am Dear Sir Your Obd. Hum ^e Srvant

Daniel Bowdin

Facing page accounts and note in William Wyatt’s hand:

The Township of Foolaw in a/c with Da. Bowdin for money paid to Mary David of Grassington

From 3^rd   Augt. 1836 to 5^th April 1837 being 35 weeks @ 3/= pr     £5   5   0

Let her have over when unwell                                                                        2    6                                                                                          _______                                                                                                                        5    7     6

Cash Recd, from Mr Willnⁿ Wyatt                                                        £5   -    -                                                                                                                     _________

Bal^e                                                                                                                £0   7    6

Answered this letter April 4^th 1837 Wm Wyatt

Desire they …. work day & night & keep the water constantly out of the shaft until they get down into the bearing Grit

Reference

Nellie Kirkham, Derbyshire Lead Mining Through the Centuries (1968)