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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
Series Four: Sources from Record Offices in the United Kingdom

Part 2: Papers of Harvey & Co of Hayle from Cornwall Record Office

This fourth series of Industrial Revolution: A Documentary History brings together significant records relating to the industrial revolution from record offices all over Britain.  We commence with three sets of papers from Cornwall Record Office in Truro: the papers of Boulton & Watt, Wedgwood and Harvey & Co of Hayle.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Cornwall was the world’s leading hard rock mining centre. Tin mines and clay pits disfigured the landscape and Cornwall was an industrial focus of the steam revolution.

The first set of papers describe the relationship between Boulton & Watt in Birmingham, their agent, Thomas Wilson, in the West country, and local entrepreneurs such as Hornblower, Williams, Vivian and others. This complements the correspondence held in Birmingham Central libraries. In fact, 90% of the Matthew Boulton letters to Wilson are not replicated in the Birmingham Archives.

With steam engines required to drive machinery, haul materials and drain mines, Cornwall became Boulton & Watt’s biggest customer base. It was also the centre of attempts to subvert Watt’s patent and there were many legal battles fought to prevent competition.

There is much local colour and detail. For instance, in a letter of 6 March 1784, James Watt writes to Wilson expressing regret at the failing of the mines at Towan and suggests giving a payment of two guineas to a woman whose husband was badly scalded in an industrial accident. A letter from Gregory Watt to Wilson dated 21 April 1800, discusses the effectiveness of a harness for miners and the activities of new adventurers at Hallamanning who are consulting with Hornblower.

The second item is a transcript of Josiah Wedgwood’s diary of 1775, describing his visit to Devon and Cornwall. The timing is significant for the patent of Cornish entrepreneur William Cookworthy controlling the use of China Clay for porcelain manufacture was about to expire.

Wedgwood gives a fresh and immediate view of the local landscape. On 5 June 1775 he wrote: “The streets of Truro seemed at this time to be paved with tin, from the immense number of blocks which were strewed in the streets through the whole town.The sight was new and striking to us, but we soon learnt the occasion of it, being told that the quarter sale for tin was to be next day…….” 

 

On 3 June 1775 he tells of a visit to the clay mines near St Austell: “As we were now in the midst of the mines, and hillocks thrown up from them, being within 2 miles of St Austle we were extremely eager to examine their contents.The first we saw where the men were actually at work was a shaft from which a great quantity of indurated clay, as we should have though it, were thrown up. It was a whitish colour, felt rather smooth to the touch, and upon eagerly asking the miners what they called it, they told us, as we understood them,…killas.”

 

The third set of papers is by far the most voluminous and comprises the incoming letters of Harvey & Co of Hayle, who were located on an estuary on the north coast of Cornwall.  A total of 49 bundles, each containing c250 items, cover the period from 1829 to 1850 and tell a story of the growth and development of one of Cornwall’s most important industrial concerns. The correspondence covers mining (Cornish and foreign), shipping (deep-sea and coastal), and engineering.

The company was founded in 1779 by John Harvey, a village blacksmith who set up a foundry to supply water pipes for the tin mines. To ensure a regular supply of pig iron he bought his own ship. To fill the ship up on its outward voyages he started to trade agricultural produce. Because this demanded more voyages he also started to import Welsh coal and timber for the mines. And so the company grew -- by 1847  Williams’ Commercial Directory described the Company as “Millers, Engineers, iron founders, iron and coal merchants, Ship-builders, ship-owners Ironmongers ,Wholesale grocers, Tea-dealers, and General merchants and Rope-makers.”

 

Henry Harvey (1775-1850) took over the business in 1802 when his father died. He was assisted by his brothers-in-law: William West, a skilled mechanical engineer, and Richard Trevithick, an inventor who made considerable improvements to Watt’s steam engine. When Watt’s patent expired in 1800 Harvey & Co were well positioned to become a key player in the provision of engines for mines.

1829 marked the 50th anniversary of the company and in the twenty years that followed they grew from strength to strength.They acquired a major share in a steam-ship in 1831 – increasing their fleet to four vessels. They manufactured plunger-pole steam engines, window weights, fire grates, kitchen ranges, ship’s cabooses, and gas lighting. They imported timber from America and had contracts to supply engines for mines in Mexico.  From 1843 to 1849 they built the largest steam engine in the world for the Dutch Government, to drain the polders at Haarlem.

The in-letters provide a remarkable picture of the business and all those related businesses that intersected with it.There are letters from customers and employees at collieries, mines, smelting works, farms, ships at sea, and country houses. There are discussions of the price of wheat and potatoes and bricks and tallow, of breakdowns of engines and problems with payments. There is legal correspondence and accounts of duplicity in trade, such as one company that tried to sell a barrel of bilge water as oil.

The letters are full of detail.  For instance, Duncan of Worcester writes on 3 October 1840:

“Gentleman,

Your favour of the 2tht ultimo to Cardiff is sent to us here to determine upon, and in reply we beg to say that we will gladly contract to supply you with a thousand tons of our best coals at the present price and terms, and we conceive that there will be no delay unloading your vessels as we are increasing our quantity to Cardiff as much as the accumulated business on the canal will admit, and our agents at Cardiff have always had instructions to forward any of your vessels as much as lies in their power.”

James Young writes on 6 December 1829:

“Sir, I am obliged again to write to you respecting Mr Halse’s window weights, and to request the favour for your informing me whether they are ready, as the Houses are perishing for want of air - Mr Wickens also desires me to say that he is very much in want of the remainder of his cast iron bars, 12 in number, he cannot commence his building until he has them…”

 

Mr Jones writes on 5 January 1835:

Gentleman,

Annexed I send you a sketch of the pumping and crushing apparatus to be attached to the Engine ordered for the Isle of Man Mining Co corresponding as nearly as possible with the one sent by you. If it would suit you better to put the boiler immediately behind the engine, instead of the place marked for it in the annexed sketch, it would make no difference to us & perhaps be more out of the way. We do not intend to erect winding apparatus to the engine at present…”

Such correspondence serves to build up a complex and nuanced picture of businesses thriving and failing during the industrial revolution -- making connections between the price of wheat and the shortage of tin, the growth of canals and the advents of steam ships, and the meshing of skills of inventors, entrepreneurs and artisans.



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