The CCMM provided Penair School with reference material on the role of Cornish mines and miners in WW1, including a copy of our annual report from 1918 which contains records of outputs from working mines and notes the challenges of producing metals for the war effort when so many miners were at the frontline.
Students from Penair School are researching how Cornish miners drove tunnels beneath ‘No Mans Land’ in WW1 in a project they have called ‘Beneath the Battlefields.’ As well as published records, the students have spent time at Kresen Kernow looking at the surviving diaries of WW1 tunnellers, which provide very personal perspectives.
Tina Turuelo, a teacher at Penair School, recalls how the diaries fascinated the students with extracts containing deeply moving poems, accounts of how mice were used underground to warn men of toxic gas and even some rather inappropriate trench humour!
The project will also be looking at connections between the Western Front tunnellers and the 1919 Levant Mining Disaster. Students will also learn about the controversial Exemption Tribunals, which determined which men were conscripted and which were “reserved” to remain in the mines to supply essential materials.
If you’d like to know more about the project or have family records connected to Cornish miners in WW1, please get in touch with Tina at tturuelo@penair.cornwall.sch.uk
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