| Description | The exact original divisions of the contents of this file are unclear, but much of the material corresponds to the following four files which appear in William D. Brown’s Catalogue of 1791, under the following titles:
Cornish Mines
Cornish Metal Compy.
Copper Smelting
Copper Trade
In addition, there is also material from a bundle whose wrapper has survived. It is marked as follows:
Foreign Copper Markets & Mines – information relative thereto.
Cornish Contest
Copper Trade
Judging by the dates of most of the foreign copper papers, this file had not been started in 1791 when the Rough Catalogue was drawn up. The "Cornish Contest" papers were transferred by Matthew Robinson Boulton to a portfolio which he titled "Copper Trade, Vol. 2: Cornish Miners’ Contest." This was numbered H2 in his scheme, the first copper trade volume H being documents relating to the business and dispute with Hurd. The "Rough Catalogue" of circa 1820 notes the following files in box HIII, "Trade & Manufactures commerical & technical":
Copper Smelting Work
Copper Trade – 3 vols.
Tables for Calculating the ticketing of Copper
The contents of Box HIII are not listed in detail in either the list of the contents of the safe of 1841 or the Assay Office inventories of June 1921, so exactly how this material was originally divided, and when it was brought together is unclear.
The documents are now arranged in five chronological sequences, as follows:
Cornish Mines (1-25)
Copper Trade (26-32)
Cornish Metal Co. (33-67)
Copper Smelting (68-77)
Foreign Copper Markets & Mines (78-117)
The documents were all gathered together because they all relate to the copper trade in which Boulton, and Boulton & Watt, were closely involved. |