History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 199

Chapter XI
Low Dutch Miners in England
11. 1.
THE German miners were for many centuries the most skilled in Europe, and from the
end of the 13th century on we find them called in to take part in English mining
enterprises. It is often difficult, in some cases impossible, to decide whether the
Germans in question were from High or Low Germany, and the title of German or
Almaine was frequently given even to Flemings and other Netherlanders.
The most extensive English mining industry in the Middle Ages was for lead and silver.
As early as 1314 Herman de Alemannia and other adventurers were mining at
Brushford near Dulverton. An interesting instance of the greater skill of the Germans is
the case of Thomas de Alemaigne, a silver finer, who petitioned the king to grant him
the slag from the Devon mines out of which the native refiners had extracted all the
metal they could; this same Thomas was employed by the king in 1324 to dig,
cleanse, and examine his mines in Cumberland and Westmorland. In 1359 Tilman de
Cologne was working the Alston mines in Cumberland.
In 1475 a company, consisting of the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Northumberland,
William Goderswyk, and John Marchall, obtained a grant for fifteen years of the mines
of Blaunchlond in Northumberland, Fletchers-in-Alston, and Keswick, and also of the
copper mines near Richmond. The company could not have lasted long, for only three
years later William Goderswyk, Henry Van Orel, Arnold Van Anne, Albert Millyng of
Cologne, and Dederic Van Riswyk of England received a grant for ten years of all
mines of gold, silver, copper, and lead in Northumberland, Cumberland, and
Westmorland, and for this they had to pay one-fifteenth of their profits.
In 1528 Joachim Hochstetter, probably a High German, was appointed chief surveyor
and master of the mines of England and Ireland. He brought over six German experts
and advised that a foundry should be erected at Combe Martin in North Devon. It was
not until the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, however, that mining with English
money and German skill was undertaken on a large scale.
The alien miner was active in Scotland also. In 1511 a Dutchman was employed as
smelter in the mine on Crawford Muir. In 1562 James V of Scotland gave mining
concessions to some Germans. A series of mining rights in Scotland were granted to
Flemings in the 16th century: to Cornelius de Vos in 1567, to Gray Petierson in 1575,
to Arnold Bronckhurst in 1580, and to Eustatius Roche in 1583; this last also had a
patent granted him for the manufacture of salt. The Keswick Company, too, entered
into negotiations for the mining of gold on Crawford Muir. Soon after the Restoration
men were introduced from Holland to work in the Keswick mines. It is said that the use
of gunpowder for blasting in mines was first introduced by German miners brought
over by Prince Rupert to work in the mines at Ecton in Staffordshire.
The mining of tin and copper was confined mainly to Cornwall and Devon. At the end
of the 13th century Richard of Cornwall brought in Germans to work in his Cornish
mines. In the reign of Queen Mary a melting-house for refining tin was built by Burcord
Crangs, a German. In the reign of Elizabeth one Humphrey, a paymaster of the Mint,
seems to have interested himself in mining speculations; he had as his partner a

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