| Description | "Recusant mines" was Boulton & Watt’s term for a group of Cornish mines who witheld or disputed premium payments in the 1790s, and against whom they began legal proceedings. Some of the mines were withholding premiums on Boulton & Watt engines, while others were refusing premiums due on "pirate" engines made by Jonathan Hornblower and Edward Bull.
This bundle consists of papers and memoranda about the premiums due and agreements reached with various mines, and some legal bills of 1800. The material was used for the legal proceedings and some of it may have been used by Matthew Robinson Boulton during his visits to Cornwall to settle with the recusant mines in 1799 and 1800.
The original title of this bundle is not known – the current title is how Henry Hazleton described the bundle in the 1890s. |