Society of Mines Royal

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The Society of Mines Royal was one of two mining monopoly companies incorporated by royal charter in 1568, the other being the Company of Mineral and Battery Works. This may have been the result of queen Elizabeth's success in the Case of Mines. It had a mining monopoly for base metals in several English and Welsh counties, including several where there were recoverable mines. It worked mines in Cumberland and had a smelting plant near Keswick.

It also a smelting plant near Neath.

The company formed an amalgamation with the Company of Mineral and Battery Works in the 1670s, perhaps only an informal one. The company's monopoly disappeared under the Mines Royal Act 1690. Certain of its mines were apparently leased to another mining syndicate, known as Mines Royal Copper in the 1690s; that enterprise subsequently became the London Lead Company.

For the later history of the company, as amalgamated with Company of Mineral and Battery Works see that article.

[edit] Further Reading

M. B. Donald, Elizabethan Copper.

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