Zinc and other minerals were also worked, often mines dug for one material also produced other useful products, for example silver and zinc were often produced at lead mines. Copper was mined in Anglesey, Devon Cornwall and Ireland, tin was mined in Devon and Cornwall whilst lead was mined in the Peak District (on the border of Yorkshire and Derbyshire), in Wales, Ireland and the Isle of Man. In the 1840's Britain was producing seventy five percent of the worlds copper, sixty percent of the worlds tin and over fifty percent of the worlds lead.
The earliest known mine in the UK is a flint mine at Church Hill, Findon, West Sussex, dating to around 3390BC. Britain was known in the ancient world as the 'Cassiterides' or 'tin islands'. The dominance of the coal industry was a product of the industrial revolution and the development of steam power for the mills, factories and railways. By the early twentieth century (I am told) there were about five hundred people employed in the mining and quarrying industries across the country, indeed referring to it as an industry is perhaps something of an over statement. Those parts of the industries involved that had been nationalised were sold off and a programme of large scale closures was instituted, although there were numerous strikes by the workers protesting this policy. In the 1980s the government decided that the established 'heavy industries' (mining, iron and steel production, shipbuilding and shipping, all of which required skilled people who had received expensive training) should be wound up. Mining provided one of the primary drives for the development of the railways and mined materials remained an important cargo for the railways into the 1990s. Coal was the main material mined, providing fuel for homes and power stations and producing gas at the gas works and the Cambourne school of mines in Cornwall was the recognised world leader in training. GANSG - Mines - Introduction Return to index pageįor several thousand years Britain's wealth was built on mining, up to the early 1980s there were many thousands of people employed in mining and quarrying across the country.
0 kommentar(er)
