1861-East Wheal Jane formed from five smaller mines. Arsenic and sulphur were important products as well as tungsten, zinc, silver, iron and ochre; not forgetting tin & Copper. All these minerals have been exploited at different mines in the area.
1884-Mining in the Wheal Jane area ceased: the mines with more than a century of work behind them were to antiquated and too poor to survive. Wheal Jane did however out last most mines in this area by a decade, no doubt because of the revenue from arsenic.
1906-Wheal Jane and its adjoining mines were re-opened and operated as Falmouth Consolidated Mines, in an attempt to reduce costs by using electricity for pumping. As with other Cornish mines that tried to modernise, the fundamental economic drawbacks still existed and, again, caused closure.
For decades, the only significant activity was a desultory and unsuccessful attempt to re-open Mount Wellington Mine, the eastern portion of the old Consuls (see Peoples and History of Metal Mining and their Connections with Cornwall, Metal Mining in Cornwall). Underground exploration and development occurred between 1935 and 1941, while a small mill was used to reprocess old mine dumps up to about 1946.
In the Mid. 1960's intensive investigation and exploration commenced. Consolidated Gold Fields considered that up to date (at that time) metallurgical methods (which included in particular the acceptance of smelters of low grade tin concentrates) and by modern mining techniques, these problems could be overcome.
1969- It was decided to re-open the property, at an estimated capital cost of £6 million.
Initial work included the sinking of a new shaft (No. 2) to 366 metres; the deepening and widening of the existing Clemows shaft to 234 metres with the subsequent construction of an underground crusher station; and the installation of full surfice support services. Following extensive pilot tests, a concentrator was designed incorporating froth flotation for the recovery of tin, which was then tried on a commercial scale (it has now been introduced into a number of plants around the world).
Underground , horizontal tunnels were developed from the shaft every 30 metres vertically in depth and connected up-dip in lode. Ore was extracted from 10 metres wide panels (separated by 2.5 metres support pillars) by drilling, blasting, scraping down-dip, and loading into trains for transportation to the shaft system and crusher.
In the concentrator, two separate ton concentrates, plus a combined copper/zinc concentrate, were produced with an initial milling rate of 600tonnes a day. High grade and low grade tin concentrates were sent to Capper Pass Smelters in East Yorkshire, and copper/zinc concentrates to Sweden via Truro Harbour.
At this time it was the first for 100 years. Initial production alone supplied 10% of the UK's tin consumption, saving £4 million a year in imports.
Waste materials from the concentrator were mixed with water and flow to a dam where the solids settle out.
From the re-opening by Gold Fields the work force became 440, and to assist employee accommodation 98 houses had to be built in Truro.
In the 1970's Gold Field's were to find this project uneconomical and with the threat of closure, the government paid to keep the pumps going to prevent flooding. The mine was to be taken over by RTZ.
RTZ used Thyssens to redevelop the mine and William Press the mill.
RTZ passed its commitment to a management consortium.
1991-The Mine was found to be unviable, the pumps switched off, and once again Wheal Jane gave in to the flood waters.
Drainage of the Wheal Jane area was always a problem, east of the Carnon River, was by Jane's Adit, only 20 meteres above sea level, which drained into the Carnon River. Old mine plans show the few mines worked significantly below adit level, with the notable exception of Nangiles mine. It can be deduced that installation of pumping engines to raise the water to adit level was too expensive for the small mines and thus the water problems contributed greatly to closure.