Leadhills Mines and Miners

I

                         A brief history of the Leadhills mines

 

                   From an article by W.G.Harvey 1991

 

 

 

We do not know when lead was first extracted in the Lowther Hills. The Romans may have found the bright ore when their legions came up Clydesdale, but the first firm record is of the monks of Newbattle working the mines in 1239. Interest then turned to gold and enough was found to make coins for the realm and crowns for King James V and his Queen.

By 1615 Robert Foulis of Edinburgh controlled all the Glengonner mines and on his death they passed to his daughter. She married James Hope and it was he who founded Leadhills and developed the lead mines so that they were “the onlie of that nature within the Kingdom of Scotland”. James’s grandson, Charles, was created Earl of Hopetoun, but by 1719 operations had declined and Charles granted leases to other concerns, usually at a rental of one bar of lead from every six produced.

One of the lessees was the Scots Mines Company and in 1734 it appointed James Stirling, sometimes Jacobite and confidant of Sir Isaac Newton, as agent at Leadhills. He proved to be a manager of exceptional ability, and by the end of the century the company was the largest operator. William Symington had built a big steam engine to pump water from the mines and the company employed around 200 including 164 pickmen.

At first the Company’s ore was smelted in mills at the lower end of the village, but sometime in the early nineteenth century a smelter was built by Waterhead. This was about 2km down the glen, and the site was chosen to use the water from the Gripps drainage level to drive the machinery, not just to take the fumes away from the village.

In 1808 a Yorkshireman, John Horner, took over a lease on Minehill. Operations to the south were particularly hampered by the lack of water to turn the wheels that drove the pumps. In 1759 one company tried a windmill, another bought a second-hand engine from James Watt. In 1786 Horner had a steam engine underground and close to the pumps. But in 1817, seven men were suffocated from its fumes, and after this “work never went on with spirit”.

In1834 a merchant, James Hunter, opened a small mine on Snar Water and later joined with others to work the Minehill veins. By then the agent for the Scots Mines Company was William Borron, a young man with an aggressive nature. To thwart Hunters ambitions, he obtained an interdict denying the use of water via leats from the Shortcleugh: thus beginning a dispute that was to drag through the courts for twenty years.

It also led to an open conflict between the rival managers. Hunter’s men broke down the others leats, and in 1849 Borron took the drastic step of having the Poutshiel level blocked with a barricade so that there was no escape along it. This measure, described as “contrary to every practice of mining”, brought the Earl of Hopetoun into the fray.

Hearings in the Sheriff Court and the Court of Session went against the Scots Mines Company, so it took its case to the House of Lords. Two appeals were heard in June 1859. Both were rejected: the Company made a settlement and gave up the lease.

The Leadhills Mining Company now had all the minesand, under the direction of its engineer, John Niven, it invested £208000, a huge sum at that time, indevelopments which included the reservoir on Shortcleuch.

But the impetus was not sustained and in 1876 an English syndicate paid £60000 for the mining rights and floated the Leadhills Silver-lead Mining and Smelting Company with 20000 shares of £6. The new company was headed by a financier, Peter Watson, and as well as working the Brown vein from Wilsons Shaft, he set his miners to seek a vein of gold bearing quartz, the first large scale gold mining for nearly three centuries.

No gold was found, and water continued to hamper operations. But money was not put into better pumps; the administration lacked any spirit of enterprise; and by the end of the nineteenth century some of the miners were on strike. An attempt to raise capital via Preference shares failed and in 1903 the company chose to go into voluntary liquidation.

In its place came the Leadhills Company with a capital of £20000 in £1 shares. Raising the money proved difficult and Peter Watson, who was still chairman, encouraged his associates with the cry of “Don’t funk it”.

Acting on the advice of W.H.Borlais of Cumbria, the Glengonner shaft was sunk 230 fathoms to work the brow vein. At the minehead, steam engines wound the cages, and generated electric power at 500 volts AC to drive the pumps and machinery in the mine. Following cases of sheep being poisoned by pollution, the Waterhead smelter was closed. By 1901 a railway had reached Leadhills so the dressed ore was taken out by rail. Output rose to 3000 tons, about 15 tons per man, and the company paid a dividend of 70%.

The manager was Baden Skewis. He had previously worked in India and his handling of affairs in Leadhills was later said to have “failed to obtain that cordial cooperation that is the necessary relation with employees”. To a climate of labour disputes were added the problems created by the 1914-18 war and, it was claimed, “little attention was paid to development”. In 1926 the Borlaise, or Wembley mine was begun. It was sunk in an attempt to find ore in veins worked long before, and in 1929 a consultant gloomily reported, “so far payable ore has not been found”. By the 1930’s the company’s operations were virtually at a stand still, and in 1940 all the machinery was sold off.