Polgooth
Polgooth
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 Polgooth
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| Polgooth shown within Cornwall | |
| OS grid reference | SW996506 |
| Civil parish | |
| Unitary authority | |
| Ceremonial county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | St Austell |
| Postcode district | PL26 |
| Dialling code | 01726 |
| Police | Devon and Cornwall |
| Fire | Cornwall |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Polgooth (Cornish: Pollgoodh) is a former mining village in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It lies mainly in the parish of St Mewan and partly in the parish of St Ewe. The nearest town is St Austell two miles (3.5 km) to the north-east.
Antiquarians once claimed that the mines of Polgooth had supplied Phoenician traders with tin 3000 years ago, but in fact the earliest historical record is a list compiled in 1593, in which several well-established Polgooth workings were named. At that time and subsequently, the mines were owned by the Edgcumbe family.
By the eighteenth century, Polgooth was celebrated as the "greatest tin mine in the world" and the richest mine in the United Kingdom. To pump water from the workings an early 50-inch Newcomen steam engine was erected in 1727 by Joseph Hornblower, superseded in 1784 by a 58-inch Boulton & Watt steam engine and in 1823 (when John Taylor was manager) by an 80-inch William Sims engine. In 1822, Polgooth was the birthplace of geologist John Arthur Phillips.
In the late eighteenth century shareholders or 'adventurers' in the mines included the engineers James Watt (who may have lived in Polgooth for a time) and Matthew Boulton, the industrialist John Wilkinson, local entrepreneur Charles Rashleigh (who built the port of Charlestown, from which much of the tin was shipped), landowner Lord Henry Arundell, and the potters Josiah and John Wedgwood. By 1800, over 1000 people were employed at Polgooth though, judging by a contemporary visitor, not in the most cheerful of conditions: "The shafts...are scattered over a considerable extent of sterile ground, whose dreary appearance, and the sallow countenances of the miners, concur to excite ideas of gloom, apprehension, and melancholy."
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