The History of Wheal Call

The geology of Cornwall and Devon has resulted in the area being rich in metallic mineral deposits and Cornwall is one of the few places where tin and copper are found together. About 4000 years ago, people found out, probably by accident, that tin and copper could be combined to form a hard alloy called bronze.  The Stone Age was over! The first tin was found as gravels and sand in the beds of streams where the water would have washed away many of the unwanted elements such as sulphides.  The tin concentrate was smelted (heated and melted) using charcoal.

By the 16th century, miners here had begun to follow the concentrated veins or ‘lodes’  underground in pits or trenches called ‘coffens’ which you can see on the valley sides or cliff sides nearby.  But soon miners needed to find solutions to solve the problems posed by the hardness of the rock, bad air and water in the mines.

One answer was an ‘adit’ or tunnel driven at an angle from the mine to a valley or to the bottom of a cliff to allow water to drain naturally. The local lodes were narrow and ran almost vertically through the rock (visit Wheal Mexico at Geevor Mine Musuem).  By the 17th century, miners used a process called ‘stoping’ to extract the ore.  They drilled and blasted the lode above their heads to bring down the ore.  The ore was carried to the surface along an adit or ‘level’ (a horizontal tunnel) or to a shaft where it was hoisted to the surface.  Before steam engines, a horse driven hoist called a ‘whim’ was used.

One of the most significant developments was the invention of the Cornish high pressure steam engine, developed by Cornishman Richard Trevithick and a refinement of the Watt steam engine.  This new, more efficient engine was used to pump water out of the mines, hoist ore to the surface, and also to crush the rock to start the processing of the valuable ore.  The remains of the distinctive Cornish beam engine houses are some of the most iconic features of the historic, Cornish industrial landscape.

   Until about 1870, Cornwall was the world’s leading producer of tin which was used to make tin plate on which the food canning industry was built.  It was also alloyed (mixed) with copper to create bronze, which was used for machine bearings and ships’ propellers.

Copper mining developed in the 18th century and in the 1830’s Cornwall dominated world copper production too. The ore was sent to Swansea in south Wales, the global centre for copper smelting in C19th.  Copper was used to make coins, to protect ships’ hulls, for telegraph cables and also alloyed with zinc to form brass.

Arsenic is a by-product of tin and copper mining.  It also had many uses such as an insecticide, for pigments and dyes used in printing and for use in medicines.

The Bristol and Birmingham brass industries, the largest producers in the world, were founded on on Cornish copper ore. Brass was used for a wide range of items including fittings for steam engines and ships, and the manufacture of gun cartridges.

The metal mining industry here made a vital contribution to the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and worldwide and from 1700 until the First World War Cornish mining led the way in technological developments that shaped today’s society.

The steam driven beam engine, housed in the famous Cornish engine houses, allowed groundwater that could flood the mines, to be removed and, at the height of the mining industry, there were more than 600 steam engines working in Cornwall. Around 3,000 engine houses were built, with 200 still surviving.

Levant Mine

Wheal Call

Wheal Call cottage was a Count House for the local Boswedden group of mines and is about 160 years old. Most of the lodes for this group ran North West. As in many of the mines in this location, working took place under the sea.  If you visit Geevor Tin Mine museum you can see a model showing the mines workings running up to 2 miles under the sea.

At Wheal Call, a diagonal shaft was used, similar to Boscawen Shaft at Botallack. It is believed that workings here started in the early 19th century, but tin bounds agreements dating from 1787 have survived.

A Count House is the mine office from which the mine operations were run and where the workforce would go to collect their pay.  In 1841, 100 men, 2 women and 26 boys were employed, but later developments were hampered by the erratic quality of the lode and apparent lack of investment.

Apparently, a pony, probably used by the Mine Captain rather than down the mine, used to trot across the wooden “bridge” at Wheal Call and into its stabling (now the bathroom)!

Boswedden Mine in the Kenidjack Valley

In common with the rest of the St. Just mining area the lodes here, although quite high grade, were very narrow. Boswedden was a tin and copper mine and mining dates from at least the end of the 16th century according to the historian John Norden. But it was never very profitable, although, at its height, it employed around 150 people.

It was formed by the amalgamation of Wheal Call, Great Weeth and Wheal Castle in 1782, being formally named ‘Boswedden and Wheal Castle’ in 1836. This group was consolidated into a larger group including Boscean and Wheal Cunning and named Wheal Cunning United in 1872. The main shafts were: Wheal Call Engine, Diagonal and Praze Shafts. Prior to the development of steam power, the pumping took place by waterwheel and you can see the remains of the waterwheel housing in the Kenidjack valley today.

Cape Cornwall Mine

Cape Cornwall Mine was a tin mine. Small and relatively unremarkable, the mine opened in 1838 during the Cornish mining boom. It operated intermittently between 1838 and 1883, being reopened under the ownership of St Just Consolidated Mines in 1864, when an engine house and associated boiler house were built near the foot of the hill. The engine house was connected to an elaborate chimney, built near the peak of the cape, by a long stone flue. The chimney served the boiler of the mine’s whim (a machine for raising ore to the surface).

With surrounding steep cliffs limiting the space for ore dressing, “spalling braces” (platforms attached to the shaft) were fitted to house spalling (breaking the ore into chunks for sorting) operations. In 1869 St Just Consolidated Mines abandoned the Cape Cornwall Mine. The Cornish mining industry was in sharp decline now, as the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act 1872 and the Factory and Workshop Act 1878 drastically limited the use of the cheap female and child labour on which the industry depended. In 1883 the mine was permanently abandoned, and shortly afterwards the engine house was demolished. However, the chimney stack was retained as an aid to navigation. In the early 20th century the former ore dressing floors were, for a time, converted into greenhouses and wineries.

In 1987 the site was donated to the nation by the H J Heinz Company to commemorate a century of the company’s operations in the UK. The remains of Cape Cornwall Mine now form part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.Francis Oats

Francis Oats

In the 1840’s, Wheal Call became part of the Oats Estate. Francis Oats (1848-1918) was a Cornish miner who became chairman of De Beers diamond company. His father was a farmer and the family moved to the St Just area in about 1854. Like most young men in the district Oats became a miner when he left school, but every week he would walk to Penzance, seven miles away, to attend evening classes so he could become a mining engineer.

At the age of 17, Oats placed second in the mineralogy examination for the British Isles, and obtained a high grade in mining, a subject in which he had not been instructed. He was offered free tuition at the London School of Mines, but would have to pay his expenses, and no scholarship was available.

Francis Oats was first appointed Mine Agent in 1871. He was mining captain at Botallack and he also gave science classes in the district.

On 9 December 1874, Oats was appointed Cape Colony Government Mining Engineer at Kimberley, South Africa, at the age of 26. Oats left for South Africa on a 20-month mission in January 1875. In 1883, he joined the Victoria Mine company, which was taken over by De Beers Mining, headed by Cecil Rhodes, in 1887. Oats eventually became a director of De Beers in 1908.

There were many Cornish miners at Kimberley, particularly as the mines became deeper and their skills in mining hard rock became more important. Oats did his best for these miners. He insisted that De Beers give each miner a yearly paid holiday in Cornwall. He also forced adoption of water hydrants to lay the dust created by mining drills, the main cause of silicosis. He became president of the Cornish Association at Kimberley. The Kimberley diamond mines were shut down on 8 August 1914, soon after the start of Word War One in 1914. Francis Oats said the 1,000 men employed at the mines would be given half pay until the end of January 1915, when the company would decide what to do next.

Francis Oats died on 1 September 1918, in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa. He was survived by his widow, daughter and three sons. The Francis Oats House, a hostel for pupils at the Kimberley Boys’ High School, was built in 1920 and was still in use in 2016.

Porthledden House

On a visit back to Cornwall, Oats bought shares in the Levant Mine. He also took shareholdings in the Cape Cornwall and Kenidjack mines. He tried to modernise the tin mine at St Just by sinking a new vertical shaft so that ore could be raised direct from the lower levels to the surface, a project that seemed even then to be uneconomical. His large investments in mining in Cornwall were misguided since the industry would collapse after his death.

Oats arranged for construction of Porthledden, a 21-bedroom mansion at Cape Cornwall designed as a gentleman’s residence and modelled on Groote Schuur. It was completed in 1909. He does not seem to have spent much time there, perhaps due to the length of the journey from South Africa. The terraces of the garden are above the north side of Priest’s Cove at Cape Cornwall. On the south side of the cove there are adits cut into the cliff for the St Just Mine. His son made Porthledden into a hotel, but it did not succeed. It was sold in the 1950s to pay off family debts, and later fell into disrepair. Since then it has been renovated and is now a substantial private house.

Photos used with kind permission from Robert Powley.