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Management Costs Salaries From October 1855 until October 1858 Daniel Lanksbury was the senior Agent or Captain with a salary of £5 per month. He was assisted by James Champion who received £3 and William Roberts a consulting Captain at £1. Also in the Account House were George Swan, Clerk, who received £3 and Richard Lyle, Pay Clerk, who received £1. From November 1858 James Champion's salary was increased to £7 per month, and Daniel Lanksbury's name did not appear again after December. William Roberts became Managing Agent at £2. George Swan continued with the same salary but he was called Clerk and Storekeeper, while Richard Lyle was renamed Accountant and Pay Clerk and received £2. Another salary paid each month was £1 to Caroline Carpenter for 'Attending Acct.house' (sic). Every second month she received an extra 1/- (£0.05) for 'laid out for sand' (sic). This usually was the month that there were ticketing expenses as well, and if anyone can advise me the meaning of 'laid out for sand' I would be grateful!
During the 50 months the Account House was supplied with groceries and meat from fifteen different suppliers amounting to £102. There were also three suppliers of stationery amounting to £18.
Ticketing Ticketing was the name given to the method of selling the parcels of ore to the buyers for smelting. There are differing accounts of how the system operated, the frequency and the locations. I understand it as a form of silent auction in which the prospective buyers from different smelting companies would have been informed beforehand of the assay of each parcel of ore and the mine from which it came. Having this knowledge they would know the characteristics of the ore, and would make their bids accordingly. These would then be entered on the ticketing sheet, and when all the bids had been collected the highest bid for each parcel of ore would be announced. (If I am wrong please inform me). The Cost Book only tells us the carriage expenses incurred to attend the ticketing (in Redruth?) every second month, and these amounted to £24 for 25 trips, and paid to Thomas Tabb. Rents, Rates, Taxes & Bank Commission The following is a tabulation of various charges incurred by Wheal Agar:
Stannary Fees Stannary fees were paid by all producers of mineral in Cornwall and Devon. The origin of the Stannary Parliaments goes back more than 800 years, and in the 1800's the mine owners were still paying dues or fees to the Stannary Parliament on the value of mineral sold. The following table shows the entries in the Cost Book concerning the fees paid and it will be noted that the rate was one farthing (one quarter of a penny) per £1 of ore sold. It is a minimal cost, but it gives us an indication of the value of the ore sold between October 1855 to November 1859 as £3,358. Because the farthing is such a small value, the amounts are shown as entered in the cost book and not as decimal pounds.
Summary If one assumes that the Stannary fees as entered in the book are correct, and then compare the total income from the mine with the total costs, then it is obvious that the mine made a huge loss to a degree that I do not feel is possible. It is unfortunate that we do not know the tribute rates for copper ore, as this would help us considerably. Also the Stannary fee rates are so small that perhaps some payments could well have been omitted in the Cost Book, which would have made a big difference in the actual income of the mine. There was certainly a loss for the adventurers in the working of the mine, but from a social point of view it provided a livelihood for many families in the area, as well as a living for the Cornish suppliers of materials. I hope I have shown that a mine Cost Book contains a wealth of information other than accountancy statistics. Wheal Agar was only one mine out of so many working in Cornwall at that time, and perhaps my study will encourage others to find cost books hidden away on dusty shelves or forgotten in trunks, and to demonstrate that there was certainly no romance in mining, but rather a dangerous and tough way to make some kind of living. |
