Supplies

Suppliers to Wheal Agar

The main suppliers of materials to the mine are listed in the Cost Book under a heading called Bills for Stores.  The total under Bills for Stores for the 50 months of the Cost Book amounted to £5,500 and in addition there were other miscellaneous items listed separately.

The following table gives the main items and the leading supplier of each:-

Product	No. of  Suppliers	Total Cost       £	Leading Supplier	Sales Value           £
Timber	6	1340	Perran & Co	1055
Candles	4	690	James Gatley	365
Coals & Lime	1	506	Portreath Co.	506
Gunpowder	2	490	Kennall Mills & Co	488
Castings, bearings, brass, steel etc	7	360	William Vivian	255
Pitwork	3	337	Edward Burgess	220
Supplies to Account House	15	102	M.A. Lucas	25
Cordage, hemp	1	85	Thomas Davey	85
Hilts	3	75	John Holman	40
Safety Fuse	2	73	Bickford & Co.	71
Drapery	1	50	George Treglown	50
Miscellaneous, nails, tallow, oil, brass, kibbles, shovels, skips, iron, boiler plates, batterns, engine shag.	4	810	Richard Cornish & Co.	670
Slates	1	15	Camborne Trading Co.	15
Glazing	1	10	Edward Stoneman	10
Hilts	5	10	Edwin Cock	2

Other Suppliers
Perran Foundry supplied a steam whim for £470 as well as castings and a crab winch for £205.  A full list of all suppliers is given in my book.

Prices of Materials
Unfortunately there is very little information in the Cost Book on the unit prices of materials.  There are scraps of information in only a few entries and which are of little importance, such as clay for tamping was sold to the mine at 7/- (£0.35) per ton, three Captain's underground hats for 12/- (£0.60), 39 West Briton newspapers for 14/6 (£0.725).

I am fortunate in having an original copy of 'Cornwall: its Mines and Miners', by a person who signs himself as R.N.L in 1855.  In this book he quotes some figures from Fowey Consols in 1849 as follows:-

There did not appear to be any inflation in the 1850's, and therefore if we assume the same prices  during the time of the Cost Book the quantities used at Wheal Agar were as follows:-

Safety fuse would have been bought probably in coils of 24 feet being the standard length. From the bills paid it would seem that the price was 10d per coil and the purchases remained fairly constant over the 50 months, giving a total cost of £73, which is roughly equivalent to 1750 coils.  The safety fuse burnt at a rate of 30 seconds per foot, and the length of fuse required was calculated by the time needed for the miner to reach a point of safety after the first fuse was lit.

Back to top