This collection comprises the records of five companies with whom G.F. Wynne was associated - as secretary of the Minera Mining Company and United Minera Mining Company, and as manager of the Record Vanner and Slimer Company, the Minera Mines Gravel and Concrete Company and the Infallible Exposure Meter Company. In addition there are some personal papers.
George Frederick Wynne (1852-1933), born in Stafford, worked in Chester as a teacher and Manchester in engineering work before coming to Minera in 1878 as Assistant Secretary (soon after, Secretary) to the Minera Mining Company. Always fond of machinery and mechanics of all kinds, he soon became involved in designing automatic ore-dressing machinery to replace the almost obsolete existing plant. This work was a forerunner to his setting up the Record Vanner and Slimer Company, probably about 1915 (following the winding-up of the United Minera Mining Company). These vanners proved very successful with large sales to Cornwall and South Africa.
G.F. Wynne, as largest shareholder, acted as liquidator to the Minera Mining Company when it closed in 1897, and played a principal role in the formation of the United Minera Mining Company (formed out of the Minera Mining· Company and the New Minera Mining Company, which was still working lead and blende at the east end of the Minera Mines). This company operated up to the final closure of the mines in 1914. G. F. Wynne again acted as liquidator. The waste heaps at the mine, the old smelting works buildings and all the rights still possessed by the mining company were sold to G.F. Wynne. As a result of this Wynne was able to start his Minera Mines Gravel and Concrete Company.
The records from the Minera mining companies include registers of shareholders, accounts of royalties on lead ore and blende, and accounts of lead ore dressed and sampled, and explosives used. There are a number of patents in the Record Vanner and Slimer Company records and a large series of plans recording the design and development of G.F. Wynne's Record Vanner. The Minera Mines Gravel and Concrete Company records consist mainly of sales accounts together with leases granting rights to work the gravel deposits. An interesting group of specimen photographs (demonstrating the efficient use of Wynne' s meter) appear in the Infallible Exposure Meter Company's papers, together with patents taken between 1897 and 1903.
Among G.F. Wynne's personal papers are farm accounts and sale plans relating to his estate at Plas Gwyn, including a plan of his bungalow, 'Kingsley', so named as a result of his boyhood acquaintance with Canon Charles Kingsley, author of 'Westward Ho!' and 'The Water Babies'.