John Ennor arrived at Trenouth, near the hamlet of Crow’s Nest about the year 1850 when he was aged 14. John, his father and an older brother had relocated from St Agnes and found work as copper miners at South Caradon Mine, only half a mile from their home. Nine years later John married Susannah Hill Hoskin and settled at Jaysland, still less than a mile from work, where two children were born: Eliza Jane in 1860 and John Henry in 1862.

John, Susannah, Eliza Jane and John Henry joined the great Cornish emigration and settled in the booming gold mining district of Eaglehawk, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Another five children were born at Eaglehawk, but only three survived to adulthood. John himself met with an early death, at the age of 44; at his inquest on November 26, 1881 the cause of death was given as ‘Timber falling down the shaft on him’. His employer, the Collman and Tacchi Freehold Tribute, paid for his funeral expenses and gave £100 compensation to Susannah.

John Henry Ennor was 19 when his father died and was already an experienced gold miner. In the years that followed, he managed mines with the interesting names of ‘Confidence’, ‘Tribute’, ‘Hercules and Energetic’ and ‘Confidence Extended’, all in the Bendigo district of Victoria. On August 6, 1901 an application to register a new mine was heard before Justice of the Peace Thomas. S. Gibson. The mine was named ‘Tasman Reef Gold Mining Company’, operating at Whipstick, Bendigo. The company’s property was valued at £750, and all the 1,000 shares of 10 shillings each were held by John Henry Ennor.

From a teenage copper miner in Caradon, John Henry Ennor became owner and manager of his own gold mine in Bendigo. He had married Jane Ann Geake on Christmas Day 1886, they had four daughters and three sons and lived on Bailey Street, California Gully, Bendigo

By Brian Oldham, Liskeard Museum volunteer and Bard of the Gorsedh Kernow