This note has two parts, based on a research article and a response to it.
Original Article
The following excerpts are from "When Cornsih Miners Went to Wales" by Lynne Mayers in the Cornwall Family History Society Journal 160 (June 2016), pp. 28-30.
"However the major discovery of two bodies of accessible copper ore was made [at Amwlch, Anglesey, Wales] by Welsh miners in 1768. Initially, they were mined separately as Ceririg y BBleddia (later Mona) and Parys Mines. By about 1880 they had become the most successful copper mines in Europe, and in their heyday more than a thousand men, women and children were employed."
...
"From 1819 James TREWEEK employed Thomas TIDDY (b. Gwennap 1803) as night captain at Mona. ..."
"When copper prices slumped during 1860 he [TIDDY] tried to reduce wages, which provoked a strike, during which he fled ..."
...
"After Thomas TIDDY left hastily in 1860 he was replaced by George Thomas TREWREN (b. St Blazey 1821), a mine agent from the St Blazey area. Initially he loadged at Bodgadfa Farm (leaving his family in St Austell) but they subsequently joined him.
"Once in post he expanded the smelting industry at Amwlch by importing copper from elsewhere. In 1862, the mine board noted their disapproval of his low bargains, leaving many miners in serious debt to the company. In 1863 he favoured two Cornish miners, brothers William and George BUZZA, generating a second strike. In his words:
"'a great number of miners gathered around these partners (the BUZZA borthers) that took the bargain and they were completely then by force to leave the mine - several of them having their hands in the men's collars and different parts of the men's clothes. I went amongst them and took the men out of their hands by force. They were prvented from reaching their bargain, and threats to kill them if they came to the mine.'
"In 1864 TREWREN was still demanding the freedom to employ 'experienced and skilful workmen from other mining districts accustomed to the exploration of irregular veins and small deposits of ore.' Subsequently he, like TIDDY, was forced to leave.
"Although it is believed he left Anglesey, his wife Mary died in childbirth in Amwlch in 1867, and three of their cornish-born children, Joseph, Mary and Elizabeth, were lodging in Methusala Street, Amwlch in 1871. George died in Liverpool in 1876."
[Wesley Johnston note, 29 Oct 2016: George Thomas TREWREN's wife was Jane TREGAY. They married at St Blazey 14 Sep 1848. And Jane was the mother of all of his children. I have no record of him marrying with a woman named Mary.]
Response to Original Article
The next issue of the Cornwall Family History Society Journal had a responding article "From St Blazey to the Welsh Mines" by Margaret Elizabeth McCarthy, grand-daughter of George Thomas TREWREN's son Charles James TREWREN.
"Jane [TREGAY] TREWREN died in childbirth at Railway Villa, Amlwch. Her death was reported on 12 February 1867 by her son who was present at the time and who described his mother as the wife of George Thomas TREWREN, steward in the Mona Mine. At this time George was in Liverpool on a visit to another of his sons and daughter-in-law.
"John TREWREN, a younger brother of George Thomas TREWREN, arranged for his brother, George Thomas TREWREN, to move to the Mona Mine Company in Anglesey as mine captain in 1861 with the promise that a house would be provided and his wife and younger children would follow him to Amlwch. Jane and the three youngest children remained in St Blazey at this time.
"George Thomas TREWREN struggled to persuade the mine company to honour this promise to provide a suitable house for his family, and it was some time before Jane and her children were able to move to Amlwch."
...
"George Thomas TREWREN never had a second wife called Mary, but his son Charles James married Mary Ellen Catherine OWEN on 23 December 1889 in Liverpool parish church. Mary Ellen Catherine and her family were from Amlwch Port.
"Charles James TREWREN and Mary Ellen Catherine his wife had four children who survived to adulthood and four who died young. The eldest was my son was my father, George Rowland TREWREN, born 23 March 1891 in Liverpool.
"My sources include a family bible, church registers, copies of birth, death and marriage certificates, census returns from 1841 to the latest available, Bangor University records of the Parys and Mona Mines, St Blazey church records and the Parys Mountain Copper Mines in the Island of Algesey by E COCKSHUTT. We have looked at all the gravestones we could find as well as a number of wills of family members."