| Administrative History | The lead industry in Derbyshire was regulated by barmasters. The Duke of Rutland appointed a single barmaster to hold jurisdiction over his manors and liberties, including Youlgreave and Gratton, Bakewell, Hazelbadge, Nether Haddon, and Hartle. The barmaster was reponsible for arbitrating disputes among lead miners, and for two separate forms of duty. The first of these is "lot", a tax on the extraction of lead ore, whereby every thirteenth dish (a standard measurement) of lead ore was held to be the property of the king. The second is "cope", a tax on the purchase of processed lead. Tithes were also paid on lead, although this was a heavily contested area.
Although these records were originally passed to the Whitworth Institute by a 20th-century barmaster (see "Custodial history"), it is not clear that they derive directly from the office of barmaster. This is because some of the areas mentioned were outside the domain of the Duke of Rutland's barmaster (such as Winster, part of the King's Field). It is possible that the accounts were maintained for the benefit of lead ore purchasers, smelters and lead merchants. |
| Custodial History | These records were donated to the Trustees of the Whitworth Institute by barmaster George Eagle in 1931. (See The Times, 13 Mar 1931.) They were deposited in Derbyshire Record Office by the Trustees alongside records of the Whitworth Institute between 1963 and 1973. After being repaired thanks to a grant from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust, they were re-accessioned in February 2016, to reflect the separate provenance of the records. |