©2011 The Token Corresponding Society & Gary Oddie

The Knockmahon Copper Mines

Submitted 21st Feb 2010

Gary Oddie

The mining and exploitation of metal ores in the British Isles dates back at least three thousand years. With the six main metals known to antiquity; gold, silver, copper, lead, tin and iron often available alongside supplies of wood (charcoal) and peat, small scale local operations could produce metals with varying degrees of quality¹.

The departure of the Romans resulted in a loss of skills, especially those for extracting the more difficult metals such as copper and brass. For the whole of the Middle Ages and up to the late seventeenth century, essentially all of the brass and copper used in the British Isles was either imported from the continent (mainly Scandinavia and Germany) or recycled².

Exploration for indigenous copper ores restarted in the reign of Henry VIII, and German craftsmen were imported by Elizabeth I to look at copper ores in the areas around Keswick³, Bristol⁴ and Cornwall⁵. Licences and patents were granted for the exploitation of the ore and metal, but the Mines Royal rarely produced a profit³. At this time, the extraction of copper from its (often contaminated) ore took more than twenty stages each taking days and totalling months.

The initial demand for copper and brass was for ordnance. However this requirement disappeared with improvements in iron and steel manufacture in the seventeenth century. Thus when the Germans finally left in around 1600, the exploitation of copper ores ceased, their skills having been kept secret. However, other demands for copper and brass were on the increase; wire for wool-combs, metal for bells, pans and buckets, and alloy for coinage, all being met by imports of metallic copper and brass from the continent.

Home production was encouraged in 1625 when the government placed a large tax on imported copper and brass. However the Royal Licences were seen as restricting exploitation of indigenous ores and were released in 1689 and 1693 and home produced copper started to appear.

However, the presence of ore, even of high quality, does not guarantee that it can be profitably exploited. As the eighteenth century progressed, several other factors accelerated British copper production. Firstly water and then steam power was applied to the ore preparation, bellows for smelting and the final rolling and battery works. Secondly, steam power was applied to lifting water and ore from ever deeper mines.

Figure 1 shows a map of the location of copper ores in the Bristish Isles¹.

Fig. 1. Location of some of the larger 18th and 19th century copper ore deposits and shipping centres in the British Isles¹.

In the middle of the century an improved reverberatory furnace was developed that allowed impure fuels such as lower grade coal to be used directly without contaminating the resulting metal. As the tin reserves were depleted in Cornwall, some of the miners went deeper and found copper, but many migrated with their skills to other British and Irish mines.

Thus when the copper deposits were discovered in Wicklow in 1751⁶ and Anglesey 1761^{7, 8} the components for a huge industry were falling into place. The easy access by boat to the smelters in South Wales and Bristol meant that in just twenty five years Britain went from being a net importer to a dominant position as a copper exporter.

As with all non-renewable resources, the richest veins were mined out first and the quality of the ore declined. As profits decline there are three choices for the mine owners; invest heavily in exploration and efficient equipment to raise production of less good ore and hope for a bonus of extra rich finds, keep going with the existing business plan and follow the inevitable decline or just close down the mine when significant losses are first made. The first big dip in production and profits at Anglesey occurred in the decade after 1800 and though market prices allowed production of lower grade ores to be increased for another twenty years, the end was inevitable.

However worldwide demands for copper and its alloys had been created by the industrial revolution, not least of which were; metal for large scale base metal coinage^{9, 10}, industrial application for vessels and sheeting and conductors for the newly invented electricity¹¹. The next big find of copper ore was made at Knockmahon, County Waterford on the south coast of Ireland (Figure 2).

Fig. 2. Bunmahon and Knockmahon in 1845¹².

Whilst attempts to mine copper had been made throughout the eighteenth century by digging into the cliffs, it was not until 1824 that a detailed exploration of the deposits were made. The ore was found to be rich (up to 12% copper) and the lode reached nearly a mile inland from the cliffs.
 
The next few years saw significant investement in infrastructure whilst the surface ore was dug out. A jetty was constructed to take the ore to Swansea, leats and water wheels (30 and 40 ft diameter) were built for raising and crushing the ore, and miners and their families started to arrive from the Avoca and Cornish copper mines.

By 1835 it was realised the water supplies were nowhere near sufficient to exploit the ore and that the veins were extending below sea level. Over the next seven years, the whole operation was turned over to steam with the construction of five full scale stream engines, of the Cornish design, for pumping, winding and crushing. The population of Bunmahon grew from 350 in 1821 to almost 2000 in 1841 when ore production peaked at just below 10000 tons per year and the annual profit was £20000. The village boasted 20 public houses, 1 agricultural provider, 2 hotels and a pawn shop. Figure 3 shows a sketch of the area in the 1840's.

Fig. 3. Bunmahon and Knockmahon in the 1840's^{12, 13, 14}.

The picture clearly shows the winding Mahon River with Bunmahon in the foreground. The church and managers' houses (Osbourne Terrace) are half way up the hill in Knockmahon and the row of steam engines are in the distance towards Tankardstown.

The figure below shows the extent of the underground activities in 1860.

Fig. 4. The Knockmahon mines in 1860¹².

The sudden influx of people, into an area that had been based on subsistence agriculture for centuries started to cause problems. Hard work, hard drinking, poverty and very diverse social and religious backgrounds of the miners started to lead to friction.  Poor diets, poor hygiene and poor housing, with an average of two mining families sharing a crude mud bothan, resulted in the highest mortality rate in Ireland. Then came An Gorta Mor the great famine.

The potato crop started to fail in 1845, by February 1846 the food was running out and the first cases of fever were seen. Of a mining population of 3000, many were destitute and too weak to work. By this time the deepest veins were 1200 feet below ground and this was reached by ladders at the beginning and the end of the shift. In August the company distributed Indian meal for free. In January 1847 the Mining company was supplying employees' families with food below cost. By February the whole hinterland of Bunmahon was considered one of the most distressed parts of Ireland. A few weeks later 2000 miners marched to Annestown and were given bread. In the Summer of 1847, 3500 miners applied for relief and the food ran out after 1400 had been fed. In July 1849 there was a Cholera outbreak. By 1851 the population was less than 1000 and those that could afford to emigrate left for the new mining opportunities in Canada, America and Australia. Irish and Cornish surnames from this migration are still traceable in Ontario, Michigan and Ballarat.

In 1847 a new Methodist minister arrived at Bunmahon, David Doudney (1811-1894). On seeing the poverty and lack of facilities for the children, he quickly founded a school, an industrial printing school for the boys and an embroidery school for unemployed girls. In 1851 he also founded the Bunmahon Press, from which came "The Gospel Magazine" and several small booklets titled "A pictorial outline of the rise and progress of the Bonmahon industrial infant and agricultural schools."¹³ This contains several sketches of the locality, including the mine workings. The minister returned to England in 1858.

The population never fully recovered from the famine and though the workings were extended, productivity stayed constant at about 4000 tons per year. The miners worked in small teams and were essentially self employed contractors to the mine owners. The team would bid for an ore face and contracted to raise a certain amount of ore of a certain quality in a certain time. This "cant" system has not been confirmed for Knockmahon, but was commonplace in other Irish and Cornish copper mines.

In 1860, there was a dispute between the miners and the mine owners. The exact cause is not known, but within days, the owners shut the mines down. With most of the miners working from week to week and often in debt, the hardship was felt immediately.

The following is a letter written by J.H. Blackam to the Constabulary Office at Dublin Castle regarding these events^{12, 15}. It is included complete as it paints a powerful picture of the state of the workforce and the attitudes of the mine owners. The letter also details the problems of cash flow, shortages of currency and importantly that the mine owners had opened a shop and were paying on account. These are exactly the circumstances that lead to the issue of tokens that might be used for general circulation, or more likely in this case as part of a truck system.

Waterford 20th July 1860 Having in my report of yesterday stated a circumstance in connection with the Bunmahon strike which the Directors denied, I feel it right to explain what I think cannot be contradicted. The Agents of the Company have hitherto permitted and paid for a speculation class of mining which sometimes opened up profitable Veins for the Company, at other times was unproductive, the Directors disapproving of this reduced the rate of payment for it, & so for I was strictly correct in stating "they had reduced the rate of wages" and that this was the first step towards dissatisfaction. The next was as follows; The directors built and let a house for an extensive retail establishment evidently to save their workforce from the extortion and demoralization of the other houses in the Village in which Whiskey was sold more freely than necessarious; orders in advance of their wages were given to the men on this monster shop (if I may so term it) and it is only human weakness for people to believe they would get better dealing going into any shop they wished with ready money than into a particular shop with an order, & this, tho kindly intended produced great dissatisfaction. I may be told 1000 men cannot be paid weekly, I believe the whole British army is paid daily, of this at least I am certain there could be no difficulty in making classes to be paid on separate days, and at 200 a day 1200 men could receive ready money payments for their previous weekly work & do away with advances, orders or complicated accounts. Having so far in my own defence explained my former and present opinion that the Directors are not entirely blameless, I must add that I consider they were still more heartlessly culpable in coming to the hasty conclusion yesterday of suspending the works without notifying some probable period for their resumption or leaving a door open to the numerous peaceable well-disposed heads of families who may have been coerced into this strike and who would gladly, if protected, return to it, the generosity and good senses of the Directors prevailed at a late hour yesterday & induced then partially to modify this order so far as to receive proposals for returning to work and unless the support of the Government by the reinforcements thrown into Bunmahon shall tempt them to fall back on their original strict task literally, starving the people into submission. I have a hope that before many days the mines may again be what they have been hitherto a source of employment and consequently a blessing to hundreds of quick, industrious, hardworking labourers and a valuable source of profits to the Company. J.H. Blackam The Inspector General

Figure 5 illustrates the known tokens from the Knockmahon copper mines^16-20.

Fig. 5. Knockmahon Copper Mines tokens^16-20.

The designs are all very similar with;

Obv:	MINING COMPANY OF IRELAND / KNOCKMAHON MINES around the denomination 2/6 and 1861. There is a black number overprinted.
Rev:	HALF CROWN TOKEN / KNOCKMAHON MINES around 1861 Large red ink initials appear across the centre KM or RH?

The half crown is 41mm diameter and printed in black on green card, the shilling is 37mm and printed in black on dark green card and the sixpence is 33mm and printed in black on pink card. The shilling appears to have been varnished or lacquered after the overprinting. A further half crown has been noted as existing in 1913 (overprinted number 910), but, as with the sixpence its whereabouts are now not known¹⁸.

The alignment of the serial numbers and the inked signatures relative to the underlying design suggests these have been added by machine. The choice of colour for the card is also a reminder of the colours of copper carbonate (green) and the pure metal (pink). Whilst the designs are simple, they do include a very finely engraved security design on both obverse and reverse. In all aspects, these tokens are very reminiscent of the card truck tickets issued by the Malcolmson Brothers at their cotton mills in Portlaw, County Waterford, in 1854. Portlaw is just 10 miles North of Bunmahon.

The disputes were resolved, and production continued steadily up to 1868. The following figures show how the mines slowly closed down over the next decade^8,12. Firstly the quantity and then the quality of extracted ore started to decline.

Fig. 6. Total copper ore production through the life of the Knockmahon mines¹².

Fig. 7. Quality of the copper ore shipped to Swansea^8,12.

Then the huge copper mines in America started to produce ore and the market price for copper started to drop.

Fig. 8. Average annual price for copper^8,12.

These three effects combined to have a catastrophic effect on the profitability of the Knockmahon copper mines.

Fig. 9. Profit and loss for the Knockmahon copper mines¹².

More telling, than the above business details, are the effects that this decline had on the inhabitants of Knockmahon and Bunmahon. The following chart shows the local population as taken from the census data, the 1851 value being an estimate¹².

Fig. 10. Population of Bunmahon¹².

The number of children being born to miners families in the villages and starting school shows the same decline from 1860 to 1880¹².

Fig. 11. Declining birth rates and school starters in the mining community¹².

These last two charts are typical of a community that has relied on a single industry for its existence. Once the peak production is passed, the young and fit will leave to find better employment and there is no incentive for new people to arrive. The closure of the mines in 1878 was inevitable and brought to an end 54 years of mining. The report of the annual general meeting of the Mining company of Ireland describes the final slow death of the mines^{12, 21}.

MINING COMPANY OF IRELAND The half-yearly meeting of shareholders was held at the company's offices, Ormond Quay, Dublin, on Jan 18. Mr. P.B. D'ARCY in the chair. Mr. HAROLD (the secretary) read the notice convening the meeting and the directors' report, which stated the net profit on the half-year ended Nov. 30 was £1194 19s 10d, after providing for an expenditure of £766 12s 8d at the several establishments of the company. Adding this net profit to the balance brought forward from the previous half-year, the available balance is increased to £2993 15s 2d, out of which the directors recommended a dividend of £2500 (2s 6d per share), leaving a balance of £493 15s 2d to carry forward. The report regrets that since the previous report there have not been any symptoms of improvement in any of the great branches of industry, but, on the contrary, the depression has become deeper and more widespread in all quarters, and especially in mining enterprise. Under these circumstances it is gratifying to observe that the result of the operations of this company in the past six months, as compared with the previous half-year, exhibits improvement affording evidence of vitality and soundness in its transactions. The CHAIRMAN regretted that almost everyone present could corroborate the report as to the continued depression of trade, and that as far as general trade went the look-out was a bad one - it was to be feared they had not come to the worst point. The market value of lead and copper had decreased during the half-year. Everything that could be done had been done to close up the Knockmahon mine, but some of the men still raised ore on their own account, for which the company paid them so much in £1. An expense of £900 had been incurred in bringing to the surface their pumps and railway iron before the mines would be filled with water. Those mines, where once 1200 or 1300 people had been working, were now almost deserted, and the misery and wretchedness of the people that remained was beyond description. He had seen this himself; and the manager in his report recommended that the people should be allowed on their own account to work the mine, the company paying them so much in £1 for the raisings, because "they are in such a state of destitution as to amount almost to starvation." He would himself prefer making a contribution towards alleviating the misery of those people than to allow any further explorations. However, they might be allowed to raise ore during the winter months. The Slievardagh Collieries could raise thrice as much as they had done, but they have no facilities for transport; the cartage to Thurles costs 5s, and the carriage thence to Dublin 7s 6d. The Luganure lead mines are prosperous, but the decline in the price of lead has been felt, and the profits on the Ballycorus work had, by the same cause been reduced to one-half. Mr. FLAVELLE enquired whether they had had any bid for the Knockmahon mine, and whether it was in the power of the company to turn the buildings and plant to account of the mine were closed? The CHAIRMAN said they had had no bid, and that the other question was a very delicate one; it was impossible for him, in the interest of all parties, to go into details. It was intended to cease working the Knockmahon mines, but the landlord of Duhallow collieries having reduced the small rent to one-half, they advised giving it another six months trial. The CHAIRMAN then moved the following resolution, which he said would enable the company to surrender lease that were of no advantage:- "That subsection 6 section 61, of the articles of association be repealed, and that the following new regulation shall be adopted in lieu thereof, that is to say, the selling, assigning, or surrendering of any lease or leases, or of any property held under any lease or leases, and the directors may also sell, lease, or otherwise dispose of any mines, property, house or tenement held by or belonging to the company." Mr. FOTTRELL seconded the resolution, which he regarded as a most important one. The motion was adopted. Thanks were voted to the chairman, and the meeting separated.

Whilst the output had been on a scale comparable to the famous Parys mines on Anglesey, the Knockmahon mines were quickly forgotten as these quantities were now just a small part of the world copper market. Just twenty five years later there was no local memory of the activities at the mines.

Even after the closure, there was still sufficient copper ore visible in the mines to tempt investors to try and reopen the mines in the 1900's and 1930's. The area was also surveyed in the 1970's, but these all came to nothing due to the poor quality of the ore and lack of reserves to justify the start-up costs.

More recently the whole area, now known as "The Copper Coast," has been designated a European Geopark. This has provided funding for research and restoration of some of the surviving buildings. It has also raised the profile of this once great mining venture, for which the only surviving artefacts are a few cardboard tokens and skeletons of the engine houses on a bleak cliff top.

Fig. 12. Partly restored engine house at Knockmahon looking west towards Bunmahon²².

Thanks are due to Des Cowman and Matthew Parkes of the MHTI (Mining Heritage Trust for Ireland); Bernie Metcalfe at the National Library of Ireland; and Jonathan Callaway, Pam West, Peter Preston-Morley and Michael O'Grady for help in tracking down the illustrations of the tokens.

©2011 The Token Corresponding Society & Gary Oddie