Stannary law (derived from the Latin : stannum for tin) is the body of English law that governs tin mining in Cornwall and Devon; although no longer of much practical relevance, the stannary law remains part of the law of the United Kingdom and is arguably the oldest law incorporated into the English legal system. [1]
The stannary law's complexity and comprehensive reach into the lives of tin miners necessitated the existence of the legislative Stannary Convocations of Devon and Cornwall, the judicial Courts of the Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, and the executive Lord Warden of the Stannaries. The separate and powerful government institutions available to the tin miners reflected the enormous importance of the tin industry to the English economy during the Middle Ages. Special laws for tin miners pre-date written legal codes in Britain, and ancient traditions exempted everyone connected with tin mining in Cornwall and Devon from any jurisdiction other than the stannary courts in all but the most exceptional circumstances.
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Edward I's 1305 Stannary Charter established Tavistock, Ashburton and Chagford as Devon's stannaries, with a monopoly on all tin mining in Devon, a right to representation in the Stannary Parliament and a right to the jurisdiction of the stannary courts. Plympton became the fourth Devon stannary town in 1307.
The parliament consisted of ninety-six jurates, with twenty-four being chosen by each of the four Devon stannaries. The jurates were chosen at special courts held in each stannary by "tinners": a term broad enough to include not just miners and tin work owners, but others concerned with the tin industry. [2] The Parliament usually met in an open air forum at Crockern Tor. The last convocation of the Devon Parliament was in 1786, [3] but as late as the 1980s, an honorary stannator would be named whenever a new tin mine was opened. [4]
A charter of King John had given the tin miners of Cornwall certain legal rights which were confirmed by King Edward I in 1305. They had the rights of "bounding" (prospecting for and working tin ore deposits), of trial before their own stannary court, and of exemption from ordinary taxation. The stannaries were: Foweymore (district of Bodmin Moor), Blackmore (district of St Austell); Tywarnhayle (district of St Agnes and Carn Brea); and Kerrier and Penwith (district between Godolphin and Land's End). The courts were normally held every three weeks and presided over by the steward who had been appointed by the warden of the stannaries. As there are no extant records before the 16th century the court procedure is unknown; if tinners were compelled to appear before another court they could insist that half the jury be tinners. [5]
The privileges of the stannaries of Cornwall were confirmed by Edward III on the creation of the Duchy of Cornwall in 1337. This confirmed that the tin miners were exempt from all civil jurisdiction other than that of the Stannary Courts, except in cases affecting land, life or limb. There was at this period no definition of the districts of each stannary. [6]
The Cornish stannaries were suspended in 1496, the year before the Cornish Rebellion of 1497. [7] Henry VII restored them in return for a payment from the tin miners of the sum, enormous at the time, of £1,000, to support his war on Scotland. In addition to restoring the stannaries and pardoning the people who participated in the rebellion, Henry's Charter of Pardon, 1508 provided that no new laws affecting miners should be enacted without the consent of 24 stannators, six being chosen from each of the four stannaries:
The stannators were described in 1831 as being "some of the principal gentlemen of the mining district". On assembly the stannators elected a speaker, the meeting being termed a Stannary Parliament. The parliaments were convened occasionally by the Lord Warden of the Stannaries when it was felt that laws concerning the miner's rights needed to be made or revised.
The Cornish Stannary Parliament last assembled at Truro in 1752, and continued until 11 September 1753. [9] In 1977, responding by letter to a written question in the House of Commons from Plaid Cymru MP Dafydd Wigley to the Attorney-General for England and Wales, Lord Chancellor Lord Elwyn-Jones said he could find no record of the charter having been formally amended or withdrawn but also noted academic opinion that "no doubt has ever been expressed about Parliament's power to enact legislation for the stannaries without the need to obtain the consent of Convocation". [10]
In March 2007, Bridget Prentice, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice, stated in a Commons written answer that "there are no valid Cornish stannary organisations in existence" and that there "are no treaties today that apply to Cornwall only". [11]
The Devon stannary courts met in Lydford and operated a prison there, while the Cornish stannary courts met primarily in Truro. The Devon and Cornwall stannary courts were merged into a single Stannaries Court following the Stannaries Act 1855, but their powers were later transferred to county authorities by the Stannaries Court (Abolition) Act 1896. [12]
The relations between the stannaries and Westminster were discussed in Strode's Case (1512).
While the stannaries of Cornwall and Devon had the most developed legal systems, a number of other mining communities had similar privileges. The customs of the community were usually confirmed by charter, with the miners having the right to seek for minerals in all areas other than tilled fields, subject to paying taxes to the Crown.
Examples included:
Some Cornish political activists claim to have revived the Stannary Parliament since 1974, along with the right to veto British legislation. Indeed, it purports to have actually vetoed acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, although it has been unable to enforce this.[ citation needed ]
On 12 December 1974 the Home Office replied to letters from the members of this revived parliament, saying that the Home Office could only accept elections by the stannary towns as constitutive of a valid stannary parliament. However, the stannaries were not abolished, and the Home Office has made no effort to hold these elections. The Revived Cornish Stannary Parliament is driven primarily by Cornish nationalism and demands for greater local autonomy, along with arguments about the constitutional status of Cornwall.
Cornwall is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised by Cornish and Celtic political groups as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, Devon to the east, and the English Channel to the south. The largest urban area in the county is a conurbation that includes the former mining towns of Redruth and Camborne, and the county town is the city of Truro.
The Duchy of Cornwall is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch obtains possession of the duchy and the title of Duke of Cornwall at birth or when his parent succeeds to the throne, but may not sell assets for personal benefit and has limited rights and income while a minor.
The history of Cornwall goes back to the Paleolithic, but in this period Cornwall only had sporadic visits by groups of humans. Continuous occupation started around 10,000 years ago after the end of the last ice age. When recorded history started in the first century BCE, the spoken language was Common Brittonic, and that would develop into Southwestern Brittonic and then the Cornish language. Cornwall was part of the territory of the tribe of the Dumnonii that included modern-day Devon and parts of Somerset. After a period of Roman rule, Cornwall reverted to rule by independent Romano-British leaders and continued to have a close relationship with Brittany and Wales as well as southern Ireland, which neighboured across the Celtic Sea. After the collapse of Dumnonia, the remaining territory of Cornwall came into conflict with neighbouring Wessex.
The constitutional status of Cornwall has been a matter of debate and dispute. Cornwall is an administrative county of England.
A stannary was an administrative division established under stannary law in the English counties of Cornwall and Devon to manage the collection of tin coinage, which was the duty payable on the metal tin smelted from the ore cassiterite mined in the region. In Cornwall, the duty was passed to the Duchy of Cornwall; in Devon to the Crown.
The Cornish Stannary Parliament was the representative body of the Cornish stannaries, which were chartered in 1201 by King John. In spite of the name, the Parliament was not a Cornish national assembly, instead representing the interests of the tin industry; however, due to the significant proportion of Cornwall's population involved in the tin trade, it wielded considerable power.
The Lord Warden of the Stannaries used to exercise judicial and military functions in Cornwall, England, UK, and is still the official who, upon the commission of the monarch or Duke of Cornwall for the time being, has the function of calling a stannary parliament of tinners. The last such parliament sat in 1753.
In Devon and Cornwall, tin coinage was a tax on refined tin, payable to the Duchy of Cornwall and administered in the Stannary Towns. The oldest surviving records of coinage show that it was collected in 1156. It was abolished by the Tin Duties Act 1838.
Mining in Cornwall and Devon, in the southwest of Britain, is thought to have begun in the early-middle Bronze Age with the exploitation of cassiterite. Tin, and later copper, were the most commonly extracted metals. Some tin mining continued long after the mining of other metals had become unprofitable, but ended in the late 20th century. In 2021, it was announced that a new mine was extracting battery-grade lithium carbonate, more than 20 years after the closure of the last South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall in 1998.
The Tin Duties Act 1838 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which abolished the tin coinage taxation system of the tin mines in Cornwall and Devon, and authorized instead an annual payment to the Duke of Cornwall to compensate for this loss of revenue. The act also compensated the officers who collected the tax. Until that time Cornwall paid 4 shillings per hundredweight of coined tin, Devon 1 shilling 6+1⁄2d.
Prideaux Castle is a multivallate Iron Age hillfort situated atop a 133 m (435 ft) high conical hill near the southern boundary of the parish of Luxulyan, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is also sometimes referred to as Prideaux Warren, Prideaux War-Ring, or Prideaux Hillfort. The site is a scheduled monument and so protected from unauthorised works by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
Cornwall is administered as a county of South West England whose politics are influenced by a number of issues that make it distinct from the general political scene in the wider United Kingdom, and the political trends of neighbouring counties. Its position on the geographical periphery of the island of Great Britain is also a factor.
The Revived Cornish Stannary Parliament, was a pressure group which claimed to be a revival of the historic Cornish Stannary Parliament last held in 1753. It was established in 1974 and campaigned, up until 2008, against the government of the United Kingdom's position on the constitutional status of Cornwall.
The Stannary Palace, also known as the Duchy Palace, was a complex of buildings operated by the Dukes of Cornwall as the centre of their administration. The surviving exchequer hall is a Grade I listed building.
This timeline summarizes significant events in the History of Cornwall
Scorrier is a village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in the civil parish of St Day, about 2 miles (3 km) northeast of the centre of Redruth and 3 miles (5 km) southeast of the coast at Porthtowan, on the A30 road at the junction of the A3047 road that leads west to Camborne and the B3298 road south to Carharrack. The Plymouth to Penzance railway line passes through the village and between 1852 and 1964 it had its own station. A. E. Rodda & Son, the principal maker of clotted cream is based here.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Cornwall: Cornwall – ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. Cornwall is a peninsula bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall is also a royal duchy of the United Kingdom. It has an estimated population of half a million and it has its own distinctive history and culture.
Presented below is an alphabetical index of articles related to Cornwall:
The Stannary Convocation of Devon, also known as the Great Parliament of the Tinners or as the Devon Stannary Parliament, was an assembly in the English county of Devon, with the power to amend and expand the stannary law in the county. Initially assembled in the Middle Ages by the Lord Warden of the Stannaries, the Stannary Convocation developed out of the predecessor to the judicial Courts of the Vice-Warden of the Stannaries but was established as an institution in its own right by the sixteenth century, with the power to both proclaim the existing customs as English law and to legislate regarding the laws by which tinners, who were exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary English courts until 1896, conducted their business.
The courts of the Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, commonly known as the stannary courts, were English courts in Cornwall and Devon that enforced the stannary law between the High Middle Ages and their abolition by the Stannaries Court (Abolition) Act 1896. From 1201, tin miners in Devon and Cornwall were exempt from the jurisdiction of all English courts other than that of the Vice-Warden of the Stannaries. The jurisdiction of the Cornwall stannary institutions covered the whole of the duchy, while the stannary courts of Devon had a reputation for harsh justice, and once jailed a Westminster MP.
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