Company of Mineral and Battery Works

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The Company of Mineral and Battery Works was (with the Society of Mines Royal) one of two mining monopolies created by Queen Elizabeth I in the mid 1560s. The Company's rights were based on a patent granted to William Humfrey on 17 September 1565. This was replaced on 28 May 1568 by a patent of incorporation, making it an early joint stock company. The Society of Mines Royal was incorporated on the same day. Company of Mineral and Battery Works had the monopoly right:

• to make battery wares (items of beaten metal), cast work, and wire of latten, iron and steel.
• to mine calamine stone and use it to make 'latten' and other mixed metals
• to mine 'royal metals' in various English counties, most of which in fact contained little of those minerals. (Most of the metal used by the Company of Mineral and Battery works was mined by the Society of Mines Royal, with which the Mineral and Battery Works maintained a close relationship).

Determined to make England less dependent on foreign goods, Elizabeth I in 1568 granted a patent of incorporation to William Humfrey (a former Assay master of the Royal Mint), who had worked closely with William Cecil in setting up the first British wireworks at Tintern in 1567-8. Humfrey hired and brought to England a German copper maker, Christopher Schultz, along with his entire workshop. Initial goals included the production of brass in addition to the iron wire which was necessary for producing the cards (combs) required by the British wool industry, which had previously been imported. Due in part to difficulties with local materials however, the production of brass at the wireworks went poorly, and the more profitable production of iron wire became paramount.

The works were eventually let to 'farmers,' the first being Sir Richard Martyn, Richard Hanbery, and a Mr. Palmer, in 1571. Later farmers included Richard Hanbury, Thomas Hackett (from 1613), Sir Basil Brooke of Madeley (from 1627) and Thomas Foley of Great Witley (from 1648).

The farmers were sometimes accused of poor management, and although the import of foreign cards was affirmed to be illegal in 1597, wire was at that time permitted to be imported from abroad, perhaps affirming the complaints of manufacturers of wire goods, who maintained that English wire was often of poor quality and in insufficient supply.

The Company built a further wireworks at Whitebrook (north of Tintern) in 1607. Due to competition from the import of foreign cards (which was supposed to be illegal), his son (another Thomas Foley) reduced the rent that he was prepared to pay to the Company in the 1680s. The Tintern wireworks operated successfully until about 1895.

The company licensed its right to use calamine to make brass in 1587 to a group of company members led by John Brode. They set up brass works at Isleworth, but a decade later the company obstructed them from mining calamine.

The company also engaged in litigation over lead mining in Derbyshire, which it alleged to be infringing its monopoly.

In the 17th century the company was not particularly active, but periodically granted licences for mining or industrial activities that would infringe its rights. It amalgamated with the Society of Mines Royal. Ultimately in 1689, the passing of the Mines Royal Act effectively removed the monopoly rights of both companies, and joint company became moribund.

The charter passed into the hands of Moses Stringer, and the subsequent history of the company is obscure. It may have been used as cover for an insurance scheme, and in connection with William Wood's probably fraudulent scheme for smelting iron with coal. The company may have had a copper battery work at (or near) Rogerstone near Newport. A company called Mines Royal, which may (or may not) have been the same had a copper works at Neath Abbey in Glamorgan from 1757.

[edit] See also

• Case of Mines - 1568 court case also known as R v. Earl of Northumberland

[edit] References

• M. B. Donald, Elizabethan Monopolies (1961).
• H. Hamilton, The English Brass and Copper Industries (1926).
• H. W. Paar and D. G. Tucker, 'The old wireworks and ironworks of the Angidy valley at Tintern, Gwent' Historical Metallurgy 9(1) (1975), 1-14.
• D. G. Tucker, 'The Seventeenth Century Wireworks at Whitebrook Monmouthshire' Historical Metallurgy 7(1), (1973), 28-35.
• W. Rees, Industry before the Industrial Revolution II (1968).
• H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry from c.450 to 1775 (1957).
• L. Ince, Neath Abbey and the Industrial Revolution (2001).