Phillip,
The person to talk to is Lynette Costello <[log in to unmask]>,
senior lecturer in Law at Guildhall and a post grad. researcher at Exeter,
specialising in mining law.
There are parallels between mining law in England and Wales and that in the
USA. Prior to the nationalisation of coal, gas and oil resources in the UK -
as early as 1937 in the case of coal - as a rule minerals were the property
of the owner of the land with leases drawn up between the owner and the
miner or mining company. Until the Mines Royal Acts of 1689 and 1693 the
position regarding metalliferous ores was complicated by the rights of the
Crown to ores bearing precious metals and copper but after those Acts only
free gold was regarded as Crown property. In a number of mining fields
custom dictated the method in which leases were granted but the minerals
were never the less private property.
It would be interesting to know which aspects of English regarding mineral
ownership were adopted by the USA after independence in the late 18th
century and how they were adapted to serve a frontier society.
Peter
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Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen,
Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 0831 427599
University of Exeter - Department of History
School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/
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