Chapter 10.

THE WATER DISPUTE.

Mischiefs on the Moors.

The water dispute at Leadhills began with mischiefs on the moors in the 1830s and ended in appeals in the House of Lords in 1859. Much of it was therefore contemporary with the events in the two previous chapters. But it was a complex affair, so is best considered on its own and first requires a backward glance to an earlier period.

When the Scots Mines Company celebrated its centenary in 1829, it had become the largest and most successful concern at Leadhills. From the start it seems to have been ambitious and expansionist. In 1740 it sent James Stirling to the Highlands to report on Strontian, in 1753 it made an unsuccessful attempt to secure a lease at Wanlockhead, and in 1768 the Company did succeed in leasing mines at Tyndrum. These had been discovered in the 1740s and the Scots Mines Company built the workforce up to around 50 miners. In 1772 the Company considered taking a lease at Strontian, but the Highland mines were perhaps too remote to manage successfully at that time and the Company pulled out in 1791.

The prospects of continuing development had to be at Leadhills where, at first, the company had less than half the ore field. In 1751 it extended its works at Susanna to take in part of Glendorch, and in 1772 it obtained a new lease for 99 years which included Shiel Gar Rig, a knoll on the flank of Minehill. This not only gave access to the veins there but, what was perhaps more important, it also gave the Company a foothold on the Shortcleuch, the source for the leats which carried water to its engines and mills.

In the years that followed a series of disputes arising from the right to take water from the Shortcleuch, challenged not just the management of the mines but also the Scots Mines Company's power at Leadhills. At first the disputes provided the opportunity for the agent William Borron to further tighten his autocratic rule, but eventually the protracted lawsuits brought the Company's long reign to an end.

The topography of the moors around Leadhills meant there was no constant source of water adjacent to the mines, and to overcome this situation leats, also referred to as lades or water courses, were dug around the hillsides from the distant Shortcleuch. There was a similar situation at Wanlockhead. But there a bold solution had been to drive a water-tunnel under the Mennock Hass, and this provided an unequivocal supply.

The provision and management of the leats and drainage adits was part of an infrastructure which was much the concern of the landowners and featured in their leases. To understand the back-ground to the water dispute it is necessary to look at the way these leats and adits were arranged.

By the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there were four major leats from the Shortcleuch to the mines. The highest, known as No 1 Water Course, was taken along Mine Hill to a pond at its south end, having started at the head of the Shortcleuch at 550 M. It was superseded by No 2, which carried water to the "Earl's Dam", and from there to Anthony Tessington's works on Minehill. No.3 was taken around the head of Glengonnar and had once powered the Meadowhead pumping engine, but by 1770 it had been continued to the Deal shaft on Susanna mine to power the wheels there. The fourth leat followed the contours of Shiel Gar Rig to a pond at the Thieves Slack Hass, and at one time continued along the side of Broad Law to Big Wool Gill where it powered an engine in Messrs Sherriff and Guthrie's mine. All not only connected with the Shortcleuch Water, but were begun back along the other side of the valley to tap more of the streams flowing off the Lowthers.

The other major elements in the infra structure were the adits which drained the mines. Those which served the early operations were superseded by lower, and longer, tunnels as the mining developed, and by the 1830s there were two main adits. The oldest was the Poutshiel level which had been driven to the Susanna and adjacent veins in the early eighteenth century, and was then extended east and south to drain Meadowhead, Carse, and the Brown vein. Gripps level was about 50 metres lower so its portal was 1.5 Km down the glen. It was to become the major drainage adit but by the 1840s it had not yet overtaken the distant reaches of Poutshiel.

The peculiar significance of the whole infra structure at Leadhills was that the northern works were dependent on leats brought across the southern mines from the Shortcleuch, and the southern mines drained northwards through other levels to the Glengonnar burn. The possibility that this might create problems was foreseen and in the 1772 lease it was agreed that any dispute would go to arbitration

In 1782 a partnership of London interests, headed by Alexander Popham and trading as the Leadhills Mining Company, took over both Tessington's operations on Minehill and the mines on Broadfloors. Popham bought the first steam engine to work at Leadhills, but his company was unable to sustain a profitable level of mining, and in 1805 it suspended operations with some years of the lease still to run. The Scots Mines Company took this opportunity to include Broadfloors in its lease, for this ground ad- joined their mines on Shiel Gar Rig.

Three years later two Yorkshire men, Henry Hirst and John Horner, were joined by others from around Northallerton, and took the remainder of the Leadhills Mining Company's lease. Horner had lead mines on Greenhow in Yorkshire, and collieries near Thirsk, and was described as a "gentleman with extensive landed property who can command sufficient money for large works". Hirst pulled out but Horner went on to make a large investment at Leadhills with engines, a washing floor and smelt mill, and is still remembered in local place names.

His was also a company which seems to have faced labour disputes. By 1812 the workings in the Brow vein were over 100 fathoms deep and it was said the difficulties in it were such that the men "looked for higher wages". However, instead of confrontation the company "turned to other parts".

* * *

The relationship between the Leadhills Mining Company and the Scots Mines Company was harmonious at first, with each displaying that "mutual co-operation" necessary with a shared infrastructure. Horner allowed Borron to use an old drainage adit at Katy Stak Linn as a subterranean leat to take water from the Shortcleuch to drive a pumping engine in the Raik vein, and from where it flowed on through Poutshiel to be used in Susanna mine. Such an arrangement had the great advantage that the leat escaped the effects of frost and snow. In return Horner got the use of water from the No 2 leat for his smelt mill, but he needed a steam engine underground to pump his works in the Brow vein. This was working in 1817, the same year as the Scots Mines Company had its pump working in the Raik vein.

But in that year Horner died and the mines passed to his son the Reverend John Horner of Louth. He died in September 1818 and his sons inherited his estate. But they lacked their grandfather's drive. Indeed one of them, was accused of his "long neglect of all duty". Another, Thomas Horner, a solicitor in Darlington, attempted to keep the Company going, retaining his grandfather's agent at Leadhills, John Hedley, as manager.

As already mentioned, the way the underground steam engine was arranged led to seven deaths from suffocation. This had a lasting effect for the miners became so alarmed it was said that "the working never went on with spirit". In 1817 the Company had employed around one hundred men and produced 300 tons of lead, but ten years after old Horner's death the workforce was down to 16.

Many got no "settlement" of the wages owed to them, and it was admitted by the Horners that some "suffered greatly". In 1828 machinery was sold by a public roup to meet debts which included £743 in arrears of tack duty, and in 1830 some of the brothers pulled out. "Rejoicing," as one remarked "in being liberated from a ruinous connection".

The Scots Mines Company had erected two wheels to drive pumps in Susanna, and looked for additional water for them. But Borron was not prepared to maintain what were works in another's ground, so the Katy Stak Linn water level was abandoned. The Company then pulled out of the Broadfloors mines; the workings were allowed to flood and the adjacent part of the Poutshiel level fell into disrepair.

Borron now decided to take over the No.2 leat on the grounds that the Horners had "deserted their work", and James Stewart sought to take the leat round Mine Hill and into the Wanlockhead dam. This was blocked by the Earl's Baillie, but the audacious notion perhaps says much for Stewart's character.

In 1831 the Scots Mines Company negotiated what proved to be a controversial Agreement on extensions to their works. This specifically catered for cross cuts to Laverockhall and the adjacent veins, and there was also to be sliding scale for the tack duty paid to the Earl. But as part of the Agreement the Company claimed all the Shortcleuch water. Leases had referred to the use of the water as a privilege, now it was being claimed as a right; effectively preventing any other company mounting a long term operation at Leadhills. As the Baillie later remarked, the Scots Mines Company was now making "every effort" to secure the whole ore field.

What was left of Thomas Horner's Company seems to have tried to get going again by using water from an old curling pond. But as had been found long before, the amount of surface water was not enough to sustain any on-going operation, and efforts were again frustrated.

This led to retaliations and soon James Stewart was complaining to the Earl's factor that the "Leadhills Mining Company's men are breaking our water courses and threatening our levels". At the same time, Hedley, Horner's agent, was complaining that the Scots Mines Company's men were "trespassing" into the Brow workings and "trying to secure our ground".

* * *

Another company was now to appear on the scene and was to play a major role. In 1832 a local innkeeper, James Hunter of Abington, had formed the Snarhead Company to work lead veins in the Snar valley to the north west of Leadhills. His partners included James Broom and Robert Wilson, two Glasgow merchants in the muslin trade, and John Wyld, a banker in Biggar; and by 1834 their miners had raised 8 tons of ore. To smelt into saleable bars, Hunter obtained the use of John Horner's mill. Water was needed to power its bellows wheel and Borron agreed Hunter could have the use of water from the No 2 leat.

In consenting to this Borron probably assumed operations at Snarhead posed no real threat, and prospects there indeed seem to have been limited. Indeed one of Hunter's men, David Templeton, had so little work he had to find employment as a joiner and labourer to make ends meet. Porteous writes that development of the mine was hampered for "want of machinery to remove the water" and also hints at problems with the local landowners over injury to their stock.

By 1836 Hunter seems to have given up, but the Snar mine gave him a taste for bigger things, and he applied to take over Horner's lease at Leadhills. A regular supply of water was essential, and in 1836, Hunter approached the Earl of Hopetoun to obtain title to the No 2 lade. The Earl was not only agreeable but he took an action to remove Thomas Horner; claiming the latter had forfeited his title in allowing the mines to decline and by failing to employ 30 pickmen. Horner contested the case by "denying the averrments in the assumption" and stood his ground.

Borron was prepared to fight off action from any quarter which threatened the leats, and in February, 1837, a Bill of Suspension and Interdict was raised, in the Sheriff Court at Lanark, against the Snarhead Company . This case was to continue for years, but seems to have had little effect for in March 1838, the overseer, William Russell, wrote in his journal that

The account gives the episode a childish quality, but the mischiefs continued. In April the Snarhead men "turned the water from its regular course", in May they were "diverting it into old shafts", and in December the leat was found "blocked with gravel"

Such activities had a nuisance value rather than causing any lasting damage, but the result was that Borron was back in Court with actions for "contempt".

The lawsuits meant territories had to be established and, in the years which followed, the overseers journals have numerous references to "dialling the boundaries" often with "Mr Eddy", and "Mr Gill". The former was a Stephen Eddy of Grassington, who acting as a consultant, and Gill was agent for the Earl. He must have had some skill as a surveyor for he produced "Mr Gill's Plan", one of a number used as evidence.

* * *

Legal actions continued and only ended in Appeals in the House of Lords. The mining industry is no stranger to litigation, indeed textbooks have been devoted to the legalities involved. The disputes at Leadhills were therefore not unusual, but although the villagers were perhaps unaware of the legal nuances. they were terribly affected by the consequences. As previously discussed, the rundown in operations at Leadhills pre-dated the beginnings of the water dispute, but the dispute undoubtedly aggravated the situation, and became a convenient scapegoat for the decline in the community. This is reflected by figures of the population. In 1831 this amounted to 1188; a decade later it was down to 880, and in 1851 when the dispute was having most effect, the numbers had fallen to 853.

The leases allowed any disputes to go to arbitration, and sometime towards the end of 1846 a Deed of Submission agreed to the appointment of Thomas Sopwith as the assessor. He was manager of the Beaumont Mines at Allenheads but was also sought after as a consultant. He commissioned preliminary reports from Stephen Eddy, and visited Leadhills himself in April 1847. In his report a year later he upheld the claims of the Scots Mines Company to all the Shortcleuch leats, but added the Company must make good those of its levels which had been allowed to become unsafe.

James Hunter was not deterred by the report. He had been joined by two Leith merchants, Eagle Henderson and William Muir, and they formed a partnership which included merchants and manufacturers from Glasgow, and bought out Horner's lease, keeping the old title: the Leadhills Mining Company. The Snarhead Company had been a small affair, there was now a formidable concern with the potential for a large investment in Leadhills.

Believing perhaps that bold action might best succeed, the partners began to sink Horner's mine below Katy Stak Linn and to the line of the Poutshiel level. By then Borron had re-opened the mine at Broadfloors, so once into Poutshiel the Leadhills Mining Company had drainage through Broadfloors to the Glengonnar burn.

Although the parties had agreed to arbitration, they disagreed over Sopwith's findings. So in July the following year another report was prepared by the celebrated mining engineer, John Taylor. He too affirmed the Scots Mines Company's claim, and went on to recommend a total of £3900 in damages against the Leadhills Mining Company.

The latter ignored the findings, and on the 28th May, 1849, Thomas Weir found some of its miners re-opening the Poutshiel level under Broadfloors. Borron was informed, and he countered by ordering the level should be blocked with a barricade. This was to be arranged to allow water to pass, since that was a condition of the lease, but it prevented any human access. Such an extraordinary obstruction was later criticised by a consultant, John Geddes, as being "outwith the rules of good mining", and "imperilling the lives of the (Leadhills) Company's miners". Even Weir himself must have been unhappy about such a drastic step, for in his Journal he only noted it was "work Mr Borron is desirous of doing".

In July 1849 the Leadhills Mining Company's men began clearing the old No.1 leat on the south east side of Mine hill. This was perhaps a shrewd move for the leat was about 3 Km. long and must have collected as much water which ran off the moors as it took from the Shortcleuch. However, Borron instructed Weir to break the banks of the leat and fill it with sods, and went back to the Sheriff seeking yet another injunction.

* * *

By the beginning of 1849 about fifty men were still working for the Scots Mines Company, but in July Borron came down from his house in Glasgow and announced he was suspending all but 11 of them. He claimed this was forced upon him because the Leadhills Mining Company would not abide by the arbitrators, but the lead market was depressed by the abolition of all duties on imported lead, and Borron may well have seen the dispute as offering an opportunity to further reduce his costs by drastic cuts in the labour force. It may also be significant that his father died about this time. Although he had passed the management at Leadhills to his son, the elder Borron may have maintained an interest in the mines, and an influence on his son's activities.

The lease required he employed not less than 50 pickmen, but this could be waived by reason of a "dislocating calamity", and the dispute provided just such a circumstance. It probably also provided Borron with the opportunity to get rid of any men who were old, lazy, or who might question his administration; and to enforce his rule on the rest. Revolutions had swept through Europe and in Scotland 1848 was the "Chartist year". Did it find support in Leadhills ? If so Borron now swept away any miners who were sympathetic to demands for reform.

Who were the favoured few who were kept at work ? An examination of the bargain records show that in fact twelve miners were still employed in August, working in the Backraik vein by Mine Hill and George Roust vein on Wanlock Dod. William Gibson was not among them but they included two Highlanders: Alexander McPherson and John Cameron, both of whom had married local girls and had stayed on in the village. There was also a William Scott who may have been the same who was appointed Clerk to the Reading Society after the shake up of January, 1842, and three miners named Weir, a name long prominent in village affairs. Details in the Census of 1851 shows that all were married men and all relatively young.

Borron had been enraged by the Earl's refusing him as a sub-tenant, and he seems to have seen the latter's court actions as further personal attacks. In September 1849, he responded by advising the Earl's agent that he was going to refuse to give him the tack of one bar in six. However, this was patently illegal, and in a later directive the smelters were advised they should not give the bars, but should offer no resistance to the "taking of them". It was perhaps no more than a gesture, but was a measure of the way Borron's relationship with his landlord had broken down, and when he re-counted the events in his old age, it was the Earl of Hopetoun who was seen as the prime source of all the troubles.

The Earl must have been dismayed by the escalating dispute between his tenants, and now the interference with the infrastructure; the leats and drainage adits. In October 1849 he began an action to have the obstruction in Poutshiel cleared, and this was later pursued into the Court of Session. He also raised one to overturn Taylor's findings, by claiming the latter's report lacked the "solemnities essential to its validity according to the laws of Scotland". The case, which criticised the presentation of the report rather than its content, was heard in the 1st Division of the Court of Session, the highest civil court in Scotland, in 1856. There Lord Cowan finally decreed that, whatever its defects in presentation, it was "entitled to receive effect".

Actions in the Courts were now piling up and making much work for the lawyers on each side. An old inventory lists 844 items relating to processes on the Earl's behalf and, as is the way with such affairs, the amount of work involved meant cases continued for years.

* * *

Output fell to 200 tons of lead bars, but since the tack duty was still being paid some way had to be found to reduce this drain on profit. The exigencies of the situation meant miners were lucky to have work at all so, on the 1st October 1849, Borron set out new conditions "to be agreed and subscribed by those entering into bargains". These stipulated that the men had not only to do their own labouring, but also sort the ore from the rubbish and load the carts. In addition the rates would be

payable only on the lead remaining after deduction of 1/6 part for the tack duty and 1/2 the

value of the timber used.

and all bargains could be ended at "Mr Borron's pleasure".

Bargains for what was called "duty free lead" were not uncommon at British mines, but to penalise the miners for the timber they used was an extraordinary oppression. It struck at the heart of safe working and it may be remarked that it was a similar im-position, the reduction of the rate for a tub of coal to pay for timber, which triggered the terrible events described in Germinal, Emile Zola's novel about the French colliers.

Borron had cut his total workforce to under a score and the Leadhills Mining Company probably employed even less. The total in work in the village was therefore reduced from about 300 to perhaps little more than 30 and the men had to accept whatever came.

* * *

In 1848 the Caledonian Railway brought their northern line over Beattock to Glasgow and there was a station at Abington. Two years later the Glasgow and Southwest Railway had a goods siding at Mennock, so both the Leadhills and the Wanlockhead mines could now send their lead off by train instead of carting it to Leith, and the long monopoly of the Forth merchants was broken. Borron too could conveniently travel from his town house and be taken to Leadhills. His father had once asked for a "cart with the old horse" to be sent from Wanlockhead to meet the Dumfries coach at the Mennock Toll, now his son kept a gig and had a phaeton and a coachman "in livery".

Borron had his home in Glasgow and his house in Leadhills had become a country residence. Another tier of administration was needed so as to have someone in authority always in the village, and in July 1852 Borron engaged a mine manager, Richard Bray. Bray came from North Wales so was probably seen as unaffected by personality clashes and village tensions, and he provided Borron with an agent between himself and the daily vexations of the mines. And the fact that he now employed a manager would have enhanced his own social standing.

The railway also meant that visitors could easily get to Leadhills and in July Bray "waited on Miss Martineau" and spent a day showing her around the mines. In her subsequent article for Household Words, she wrote that many of the cottages in the village were "ruinous or roofless, evidence of the protracted litigation which has half ruined this remote place".

She was also moved by the sight of a girl of nine "but so small as to look younger", sewing for twelve hours to earn "two-pence halfpenny"(1.0p). On asking if the child might get a penny to put by for herself, she was brusquely told by its mother that such a "thing was never thought of". It was, she remarked, a life devoted to toil. In fact the employment of young children was commonplace and, as already remarked, girls as young as eight worked long hours in English villages.

"ABG", the correspondent to the Gentleman's Magazine, disagreed with many of Miss Martineau"s remarks when he visited Leadhills the following year . He claimed that the flowering, what he called "Ayrshire needlework", was a skill "easily acquired" and was no more than casual work which could be "taken up or laid aside".

He agreed that the miners average wage amounted to 9/-(45p) a week and this was "a low remuneration for skilled labour". But he pointed out this was augmented by milk from the village cows, and potatoes from the small holdings, as well as the money earned by flowering so, in fact, the "Leadhills miners (were) not worse off than other labourers".

The average wage of 9/- may be contrasted with the 12/- promised by the Scots Mines Company, and again emphasises the wide variation in earnings in the mining communities. As the investigator for the 1844 Children's Commission had noted at Wanlockhead, the flowering and the produce from their small holdings meant that some families might live in "comfort", but for others it was such "casual" work which enabled them to get by. The dispute also seems to have led some miners to pan for gold. In 1810 it was said that this was no more than a "leisure occupation", but in 1853 a visitor noted "workman busy in a search for gold", probably in an attempt to earn some money from that source.

* * *

Miss Martineau gave the impression that mining was virtually at a stand-still but both Companies had embarked on new developments. By 1854 the Scots Mines Company was producing over 1000 bars of lead and employing 102 men, and the Leadhills Mining Company had perhaps half that number. The whole compares with the 188 at work in 1841. Those working for the Scots Mines Company were made up as follows

Miners working 'ventures. 23

Miners raising ore. 6

Miners driving levels etc. 38

Daywage men, washers boys etc. 35

Total . 102

These figures show the number working 'ventures had fallen from a half to about a third of the bargain men, so Borron must have begun to put more effort into development. Circumstances no doubt influenced by the fact that the price of lead had risen to £23.

Borron's men were now working in a new mine on the Glasgow vein, near the lower end of the village. As was so often the case there were problems with water, and the miners complained that showers from the roof put out the candles. This was dismissed as a "frivolous excuse to cover negligence", but work in the shaft was later reported as being delayed because the water falling on the men was "so forceful".

There was too much water underground but the effect of the dispute was to interfere with the supply for the pumping engines needed to remove it. One expedient seems to have been to fix a dam in an old crosscut and use the head behind it to force water up to the mine. Another was to reopen the old line of the No 4 leat and take its waters along the hillside above the present golf course, and into the Roan Burn which was dammed to make a reservoir. The supply was not dependent on the Shortcleuch Water, for the leat collected water in its course around Shiel Gar Rig, and the dam held enough water to power a pressure pumping engine which was working by 1853.

James Stewart had introduced water-pressure engines at Wanlockhead in 1831, and the first at Leadhills, also built by Deans of Hexham, was erected in 1837. One of those at Wanlockhead was said to have been the first which Deans had devised to work horizontally, and another at Leadhills was "of an improved construction intended to give rotary motion as a drawing machine".

The 1853 engine proved a success and the Scots Mines Company seems to have been so hopeful of utilising these machines to continue its operations that Bray was sent to Mostyn in Wales to buy two more.

The Leadhills Mining Company also believed it could keep going and by October 1852 its miners were busy in the shaft under Katy Stak Linn, which increased the amount of water flowing under the barricade and into the Poutshiel level. This was seen as jeopardising work in the northern mines, and Weir recorded the flow was "10 inches above the tram rails".

What might be called guerrilla action continued and on one occasion Bray wrote how "some persons had let go the water in the dam", stopping the pumping engine. But there is no record of physical violence between the miners. All were part of one com-munity and where miners fought over leats, as in Wales in the 1870s, it seems it was men from different mining villages who came to blows.

There had been little or no maintenance, and in his report Sopwith had advised the drainage adits should be "put into a proper state of repair" by the Scots Mines Company. But it was Muir's workings which drained across the ore field, so Borron was not going to spend money on levels to another's benefit. In 1853 it was arranged that an engineer for Carron Company, William Johnson, would inspect the works on behalf of the Leadhills Mining Company. He reported that parts of the Gripps level were "quite unsafe", and the "wilful" closing of Poutshiel could put the "whole of the Leadhills Mining Company's liberty under water". But nothing was done and in 1855 an inspection by a David Langdale and others found "bursts .. frail timber .. (and) levels filled with rubbish".

* * *

The Leadhills Mining Company had made the first move into the Court of Session with an action in 1849 declaring it had a right to water from the Shortcleuch. This had been countered by the Scots Mines Company, but the basis of it's case was questioned and matters swung back and forth without either side gaining a final judgement. In 1855 an Interdict which ordered the Leadhills Company to cease operations was recalled in their favour, but days before the judgement was announced, what was seen as a very unusual action was moved on behalf of it's rivals..

This case was pursued by George Vere Irving, the son of Lord Newton sometime agent for the Scots Mines Company, who owned land on the lower Shortcleuch. He complained that the water being discharged into Poutshiel, and which flowed to the Glengonnar burn, had previously drained into the Shortcleuch, and the actions of the Leadhills Mining Company were to deprive him of a feeder which he regarded as rightfully his. The Poutshiel level was not essential to the operation, for the Company could have installed a pump to lift the water to Katy Stak Linn.

The case was seen as "singular and novel", and now seems a strange one in so much as it could be said that the diversion to Poutshiel was what the Scots Mines Company had done when it took water through the Katy Stak Linn level years before. Also, a somewhat similar case had failed in the English Courts in 1839, when the owners of the Cromford Mill in Derbyshire complained that mining operations had deprived them of water they had used to power their wheels. In March 1856, the Lord Justice-Clerk held that Irving had no ground for complaint arising from the diversion of an "artificial stream". The case was dismissed, and Irving was ordered to meet the costs.

Efforts to keep going and force the others out proved less than successful, and, conscious of its past success and with its very future now at stake, the Scots Mines Company decided to appeal to the House of Lords. Much time and expense was spent collecting evidence, - this eventually amounted to 519 items plus 6 plans, and two appeals were heard in June, 1859. On the 4th July the Lords pronounced judgement to the effect that the appeals had failed, the case was dismissed, and the Scots Mines Company were held liable for all expenses.

Some further action in the Court of Session seems to have been considered. But the Company had already lost the fight. It "sacrificed" its entire property, as was later asserted, and the Leadhills Mining Company bought it out for £15,000. After 130 years of mining at Leadhills, the Scots Mines Company abandoned its operations and was wound up in 1861.

The legal battles were over but the scars remained. In his book, God's Treasure House, the Rev. Moir Porteous wrote that Leadhills was "doleful and desolate"; Harriet Martineau was moved by the sight of empty cottages and remarked on the "curse of litigation. Another visitor referred to the lawsuit as "long and baffling". Attitudes which seem to have been much in keeping with the Dickensian view that litigation led to prolonged and incomprehensible controversy from which the innocent suffered.

The village suffered more than the loss of jobs and houses for in that the dispute made rivals of two groups of miners, it set neighbour against neighbour through no fault of either. The leats which Thomas Weir instructed his men to break on Minehill, had been opened by their fellows working on the directions of John Hedley; and the miners under Katy Stak Linn must have looked fearfully at the barricade that blocked any escape to the north.

The rival miners may not have come to blows but no doubt all were reminded of old quarrels and divisions. Those whose kinsfolk had suffered after the strike of 1836 would have remembered those others who had advocated the affair. Those who supported the Parish Kirk looked again at those who had left it for the Free Church. Eventually men were to return to the village and there was to be work for all. But memories of the bitterness of the divisions and disputes must have lingered long and discouraged ideas of combination.

Borron nursed bitter feelings against the Earl of Hopetoun, claiming it was he who had "instigated the interference with the rights of the Scots Mines Company". When the dispute ended Borron was presented with a an honorarium of 300 guineas (£315) for his part in winding up its affairs, and he got a silver candelabra from the miners. By then he had taken up residence at Seafield Tower, Ardrossan, living as a country gentleman, with his large family, his greyhounds and his horses. He moved to London in 1890 and died at Maida Vale in 1896.

William Geddes Borron was described as handsome and proud, and, whatever his faults, was perhaps a man of his time. He remains a colourful character who for good or ill made his mark at Leadhills.