Labour contract auctions in 19th-century Cornish tin mining

"This paper considers the organisation of labour in the Cornish Tin mining industry in the 19 uses primary records of labour bargains made at Wheal Hearle mine near St Just in the early 1860s. One of the main points of interest is that these bargains were allocated by auction on a monthly basis. The work was of two types, “tutwork” and “tribute”, tutwork was work involved in digging levels, shafts etc within the mine whereas tribute was the payment for the raising of ore. Tutwork would usually be a rate per fathom dug, Tribute a sort of revenue share, were the group of miners would get so many shillings in the pound (value) of the tin ore. The paper will examine the relative variability of pay for the two types of work and the extent to which miners would switch between the two types of work. The paper will also consider further implications of these arrangements, using data to examine the extent to which miners were able to use knowledge (of geology) to make good decisions on which bargains to bid for. It will do this by examining the structure of the distribution of earnings, and the extent to which groups of miners were able to earn persistently above the mean."