A HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 COAL MINING IN GEEAT BEITAIN 
 
c 
 
A -HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 COAL MINING -IN GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 BY 
 
 A. 
 
 . 
 
 ROBERT L. GALLOWAY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE STEAM ENGINE AND ITS INVENTORS" 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1882 
 
 The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved. 
 
T 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 R. CLAV, SONS, AND TAYLOR, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILt. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN the following pages an endeavour is made to 
 delineate the principal features in the growth of 
 the great coal industry, with special reference to 
 improvements in engineering, by means of which it 
 has become possible for the miners to open out 
 their deep "subterranean cities" and to procure and 
 bring to the surface the vast quantities of coal 
 which are now annually drawn from the mines of 
 this country. 
 
 Apart from the value of coal as the mainspring of 
 the great industrial pre-eminence of the kingdom, it 
 is hoped that the narrative may not be without 
 interest of another kind, inasmuch as it furnishes 
 an account of the origin of some of the most 
 
vi PREFACE, 
 
 useful inventions of modern times as, for example, 
 railways, the steam-engine, and the locomotive 
 which were almost called into existence by mining 
 requirements, and were long employed by the mining 
 community before they came to be adopted, in a 
 more improved form, by the public in general. 
 
 At no time were more vigorous efforts being- 
 made to promote the safety of the miners in their 
 dangerous occupation than at present. Should the 
 account here given of what has been accomplished 
 in this direction tend to throw any light upon 
 the matter, the circumstance would afford the 
 writer the greatest satisfaction. 
 
 RYTON-ON-TYNE, 
 
 9th May, 1882, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COAL LATE OF COMING INTO COMMON USE. FIRST EMPLOYED 
 BY ARTISANS. ITS USE IN LONDON PROHIBITED BY ROYAL 
 PROCLAMATION . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 COAL COMES INTO USE FOR DOMESTIC PURPOSES IN THE COAL 
 DISTRICTS. NUMBERS OF COLLIERIES OPENED OUT IN THE 
 NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE COAL-FIELD. KING EDWARD III. PATRO- 
 NIZES AND REGULATES THE COAL TRADE. EARLY COAL 
 MINING , 11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE INCREASING SCARCITY OF WOOD CAUSES COAL TO COME 
 INTO GENERAL USE FOR DOMESTIC PURPOSES. FIRST DIFFI- 
 CULTIES IN THE MINES . 19 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COMBINATION AMONG THE COAL-OWNERS AT NEWCASTLE. TAXES 
 IMPOSED ON COAL. THE HEARTH-MONEY OR CHIMNEY TAX. 
 THE COAL FLEET . 28 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES EXPERIENCED IN SUBSTITUTING COAL FOR WOOD 
 AND CHARCOAL IN MANUFACTURING PROCESSES, MORE ESPE- 
 CIALLY IN THE SMELTING OF IRON . 36 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INCREASE OF MINING DIFFICULTIES. IMPROVEMENTS IN MINING 
 
 APPLIANCES. INVENTION OF RAILWAYS 52 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NOXIOUS GASES PREVALENT IN THE MINES. ACCIDENTS OCCA- 
 SIONED THEREBY. SMALL EXPLOSIONS OF FIRE-DAMP BECOME 
 FREQUENT 68 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 INADEQUACY OF THE WATER-RAISING MACHINERY. INVENTION 
 
 OF THE STEAM-ENGINE . 76 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 STATE OF MINING AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 CENTUEY. FIRST GREAT EXPLOSIONS IN THE NORTH OF 
 ENGLAND COLLIERIES. , 83 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE COAL TRADE OF THE WEST COAST. WHITEHAYEN MINES. 
 CARLISLE AND JAMES SPEDDING. INVENTION OF THE STEEL 
 MILL, AND COURSING THE AIR 91 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 REVIVAL OF THE IRON TRADE. GREAT BUILDING OF STEAM- 
 ENGINES IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. INCREASING DEPTH 
 OF THE PITS. VARIOUS APPLIANCES FOR VENTILATING THE 
 MINES. EXPLOSIONS OF FREQUENT OCCURRENCE . 101 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FIRST EMPLOYMENT OF IRON IN RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION. THE 
 STEAM-ENGINE INDIRECTLY APPLIED TO DRAW THE COAL 
 OUT OF THE PITS THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF WATER-WHEELS. 
 CURR'S IMPROVEMENTS IN SHAFT FITTINGS AND UNDER- 
 GROUND CONVEYANCE . .109 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 GREAT DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN OPENING OUT THE 
 FAMOUS WALLSEND COLLIERY. JOHN BUDDLE, SEN. CAST- 
 IRON TUBBING ... .121 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 VARIOUS METHODS OF DEALING WITH INFLAMMABLE GAS. THE 
 DILUTING SYSTEM, THE NEUTRALIZING SYSTEM, THE FIRING 
 SYSTEM, THE DRAINING SYSTEM ..131 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF COURSING THE AIR BECOMES INADEQUATE. 
 CREEPS. MR. BUDDLE INTRODUCES COMPOUND OR DOUBLE 
 VENTILATION, AND PANEL- WORKING 142 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 INVENTION OF THE SAFETY-LAMP 153 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 EXTENDED USE OF THE STEAM-ENGINE J THE LOCOMOTIVE ; STEAM- 
 BOATS. INTRODUCTION OF GAS LIGHTING 182 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 DEEPER AND MORE DIFFICULT WINNINGS . . 203 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 INVENTION OF CAGES, AND IRON-WIRE ROPES 211 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 INTERVENTION OF THE LEGISLATURE IN MINING OPERATIONS . 220 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 GREAT IMPROVEMENT IN THE VENTILATION OF COLLIERIES. THE 
 STEAM JET TRIED AND ABANDONED. MECHANICAL VENTILA- 
 TORS COME INTO EXTENSIVE USE 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RECENT INVENTIONS, EXPERIMENTS, AND IMPROVEMENTS . . 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MODERN MINING. MEASURES OF SAFETY AGAINST EXPLOSION . 265 
 
A HISTOEY OF COAL MINING 
 
 IN 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 COAL LATE OF COMING INTO COMMON USE. FIRST 
 EMPLOYED BY ARTISANS. ITS USE IN LONDON 
 PROHIBITED BY ROYAL PROCLAMATION. 
 
 ovre vrjrrovs oiSa Ka(r<rirepias eoutras 1 , K T>V 6 KacrcriTcpos "fj^iv 
 </>oira -HERODOTUS. 
 
 IN the early dawn of history Britain was already 
 celebrated for its mineral productions. Centuries be- 
 fore the commencement of the Christian era Phoeni- 
 cian traders sailed hither for supplies of tin a metal 
 then as now a peculiar product of the Land's End 
 district. It was in connection with the traffic in this 
 metal that our country made its. first appearance on 
 the page of history, and received from ancient writers 
 the name of Cassiterides, or Tin Islands. 
 
 B 
 
2 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. i. 
 
 But though we possess records relative to the work- 
 ing of tin and other metals in Britain at a remote 
 period, we know little regarding the ancient history of 
 our coal ; indeed, it is evident that the employment of 
 coal fuel to any extent is of comparatively very modern 
 date. It seems clear that the Romans were not wholly 
 unacquainted with it during their occupation of the 
 country, from the fact of small quantities of coal and 
 coal ashes having been found among the ruins of many 
 of their stations. 1 It is not, however, until a period 
 long subsequent to their departure that this mineral 
 begins to appear among other commodities as an article 
 of merchandise, and to be referred to in terms which 
 are clear and unmistakable. 
 
 The venerable Bede, who nourished at Jarrow on the 
 southern bank of the river Tyne in the early part of 
 the eighth century, gives us no hint of the use of coal 
 fuel in the north at the time when he wrote. It is true 
 that in speaking of the mineral products of the country 
 he mentions the stone gagates (jet) as existing in great 
 abundance ; and under this term may perhaps be 
 included the coal so plentifully found in the district 
 where he lived. But to the use of this mineral for 
 
 1 The "many beds of cinders" heaped up in the fields in the 
 neighbourhood of North Brierly, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 
 mentioned by Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, is not a case in 
 point, as they were not composed of the ashes of coal, as he erroneously 
 supposes, but of the s^orice, or slag, of Roman ironworks. 
 
CHAP. L] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 3 
 
 fuel he makes no allusion, though he notes that when 
 kindled it had the property of driving off serpents. 1 
 
 The abundant records of the twelfth century which 
 have come down to us seem to show that even at this 
 period wood, charcoal, and peat, continued to be the 
 fuel universally employed for all purposes; and this 
 century was far advanced, if not quite ended, before we 
 meet with any reliable indications of a commencement 
 having been made to bring mineral coal into use. 
 
 In the early Norman era the internal arrangements of 
 common dwelling-houses precluded the use of coal for 
 domestic purposes. Chimneys are mentioned as a new 
 feature which had been introduced into the Norman 
 castles and houses, the massive walls of which admitted 
 of flues being carried up in their thickness. But they 
 were unknown in the houses of the common people. 
 The walls of these were of wood. The fire-place con- 
 sisted of a cavity in the centre of the floor, which was 
 covered over when the fire was out ; and at this time 
 it was enacted by law that all fires should be extin- 
 guished at a certain hour in the evening, notified by 
 the ringing of a bell, termed from this circumstance the 
 curfew (couvre feu). The smoke from fires so situated 
 pervaded the whole apartment, and made its escape by 
 
 1 The oft-quoted passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in which 
 coal is supposed to be referred to under the name grcefan is at best 
 equivocal, inasmuch as peat is graven, or dug, as well as coal. It 
 seems more probable that the former is alluded to. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. i. 
 
 a hole in the roof, or by the doorway a primitive 
 arrangement to be met with even at the present day in 
 some parts of the Highlands of Scotland and west of 
 Ireland, where peat fuel is still employed. Under such 
 conditions it is obvious that the use of coal in the 
 interior of dwellings was altogether inadmissible. 
 
 The obscurity which prevails regarding the employ- 
 ment of coal fuel in early times begins to vanish about 
 the end of the twelfth century, and from this epoch we 
 may date the commencement of the great modern coal 
 trade. 
 
 Both in England and Scotland coal appears first to 
 have received attention, at points where the carbo- 
 niferous strata were exposed on the sea shore : a 
 circumstance which seems the most probable origin of 
 the name sea coal, by which the mineral was so long 
 and so widely known, in contradistinction to charcoal, 
 to which the name coal was originally applied. 
 
 Conditions peculiarly favourable to the early working 
 of coal existed on the sea coast of Northumberland, 
 and on the shores of the Frith of Forth. : In both cases 
 it could be alike easily got (as the coal seams came out 
 to the surface) and easily conveyed to market : a state 
 of things well calculated to promote the growth of a 
 trade in the mineral on its first coming into use. His- 
 torical records point to these localities as the cradles of 
 the coal trade. 
 
 Before the close of the reign of William the Lion 
 
CHAP, i.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 5 
 
 (which terminated 1214 A.D.), we find coal beginning 
 to receive attention on the south shore of the Frith of 
 Forth. Thus among the grants made to the monks of 
 Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, during this reign, one 
 consists of the tithe of the colliery of Carriden, near 
 Blackness, given along with the tithe of the proceeds 
 of the harbour at the same place. This grant was 
 confirmed by King William, and is supposed to have 
 been made before the end of the twelfth century. In 
 the same reign (between 121014 A.D.) the monks of 
 Newbottle Abbey received the grant of a colliery and 
 quarry on the sea shore at Preston, in the lands of 
 Tranent, a district which from this early period 
 downwards continued to be famed for its production 
 of coal. 
 
 There appear to be no certain allusions to the 
 existence of a coal trade in England previous to the 
 termination of the conflict between King John and the 
 barons, when by the granting of the Magna Charta 
 (1215 A.D.) a greatly increased security was given to 
 subjects in the possession of their lands and rights. 
 Soon after this period, and without any special conces- 
 sion on the part of the Crown, we have evidence of a 
 commencement having been made to work coal, and to 
 carry it from the north to London. As early as the 
 year 1228 a lane in a suburb of the metropolis is 
 mentioned under the name of " Sacoles Lane " (i.e. 
 Sea Coals Lane), clearly showing that some trade in coal 
 
A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. i. 
 
 was now going on there. This lane was also called 
 Lime-burner's Lane, and it is well known that the 
 burning of lime was one of the earliest uses to which 
 mineral coal was applied. 
 
 At almost exactly the same date, at all events as 
 early as the year 1236, we find the monks of New- 
 minster Abbey, near. Morpeth in Northumberland, 
 receiving a grant of some land on the sea shore near 
 Blyth, with a right of way to the shore to obtain sea 
 weed for tillage and sea coal wherever it might be 
 found. 
 
 The purpose for which the coal was intended is not 
 specified in the above grant, but a few years later 
 (about 1240 A.D.) the same monks received another 
 charter in which sea coal formed the special subject; 
 and in this case the coal is stated to be conceded for 
 the use of the forge at one of their granges. 
 
 From this time forward references to the" working 
 and use of coal become sufficiently numerous. To the 
 town of Newcastle-on-Tyne in particular the new 
 trade soon became productive of considerable benefit. 
 Newcastle had been a place of some importance 
 during the Roman occupation of the country, under 
 the name of Pons ^Elii ^Elius being the family name 
 of the Emperor Hadrian, who built the great wall from 
 the Tyne to the Solway Frith, about 120 A.D. In the 
 Dark Ages it became the seat of a colony of monks, 
 and took the name of Monkchester. The modern town 
 
CHAP, i.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 7 
 
 grew up under the protection of the Norman Castle 
 built to guard the approach to the bridge across the 
 Tyne. This was termed the new castle, in contradis- 
 tinction to the ancient fortifications on the site of 
 which it was placed, and the town of which it formed 
 the nucleus received its name from it. 
 
 Newcastle was at first under the jurisdiction of the 
 sheriff of Northumberland, who paid an annual rent of 
 50/. for it to the Crown, recouping himself out of the 
 tolls and customs arising from its trade; but in the 
 year 1213 the burgesses succeeded in obtaining the 
 management of the town into their own hands, holding 
 it direct from the Crown at an annual rent of 100/., 
 though at the time it was hardly worth so much. As 
 yet there appears to have been no coal trade on -the 
 Tyne. 
 
 Being a community of traders the burgesses of New- 
 castle looked with no favourable eye on the trading 
 proclivities of their neighbours, the Bishop of Durham 
 and the Prior of Tynemouth, and were incessantly 
 engaged in disputes with one or the other regarding 
 the navigation of the Tyne. Not infrequently in the 
 solution of disputed points the burgesses took the 
 law into their own hands. The establishment of 
 villages on the lands of the above prelates at North 
 and South Shields, near the mouth of the Tyne, 
 where it was alleged "no towns ought to be," was 
 specially objectionable to the burgesses and the 
 
8 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. i. 
 
 cause of frequent complaint. In connection with a 
 skirmish which occurred at the former village we 
 meet with one of the earliest allusions to the Tyne 
 coal trade. At Newcastle in 1268-9 a number of 
 persons were brought before the justices to answer to 
 the Prior of Tynemouth, " wherefore they had come 
 vi et armis to the Prior's mills at Shields, had burned 
 down the mills, threatened and maltreated some of the 
 Prior's monks whom they found there, and had seized 
 and taken away a ship of the Prior's lying there laden 
 with sea coal/' besides committing further damages, 
 for all which satisfaction was demanded by the Prior. 
 
 The increase in the revenue of the town of New- 
 castle, which took place during the course of the 
 thirteenth century, owing to the rise of the coal 
 trade, is evidenced by the return to an inquiry made 
 in the year 1281, by order of King Edward I., from 
 which we learn that the town was then at times 
 worth 200/. per annum to the burgesses, the advance 
 in its value being ascribed to the new trade in coal. 
 
 When the working of coal had once been com- 
 menced the opening out of collieries soon became 
 general throughout the kingdom, and before the close 
 of the reign of Edward I. (1307 A.D.) the mineral 
 was being dug, though doubtless only on a small 
 scale, in most of the coalfields of England, Wales, 
 and Scotland. 
 
 In the early period of its history coal was employed 
 
CHAP. L] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 9 
 
 for few purposes. The only patrons of the new fuel 
 at first were humble artisans, such as smiths and lime- 
 burners, to whose requirements it was peculiarly well 
 suited. From these it gradually spread to other 
 classes of artificers who used furnaces in their 
 trades. 
 
 By the bulk of the community coal fuel was regarded 
 with much aversion on account of the disagreeable 
 smoke to which it gave rise. Coal smoke was con- 
 sidered to be very detrimental to health. It began 
 to be considered a source of annoyance while the coal 
 trade was still in its infancy. Thus we learn from the 
 annals of Dunstable that in the year 1257 Eleanor, 
 Queen of Henry III., was obliged to leave the town of 
 Nottingham, where she had been sent to stay during 
 the absence of the King on an expedition into Wales, 
 and removed to Tutbury Castle instead, being quite 
 unable to remain in Nottingham on account of the 
 smoke of the sea coals. 
 
 Half a century later great efforts were made to 
 check the spread of the use of coal in London on 
 the plea that it was an innovation on established 
 custom and an intolerable nuisance on account of 
 the smoke to which it gave rise. It appears that 
 towards the end of the reign of Edward I. a great 
 increase took place in the quantity of coal consumed 
 in the metropolis ; brewers, dyers, and others who 
 required much fuel, having commenced to use it 
 
10 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. i. 
 
 largely instead of wood and charcoal. But the con- 
 sequence of the change told injuriously on the atmo- 
 sphere of the city. The nobles, prelates, and others 
 repairing to London to attend Parliament and for 
 other purposes, were specially annoyed by the in- 
 creasing smoke, and took the lead in getting up 
 demonstrations against the obnoxious fuel, but the 
 great body of the populace joined in the movement. 
 In consequence of the agitation a Royal proclamation 
 was issued in the year 1306 prohibiting artificers 
 from using sea coal in their furnaces, and command- 
 ing them to return to the fuel which they had been 
 accustomed to use. The proclamation, however, ap- 
 pears to have been little attended to by the brewers, 
 dyers, &c., who had already formed a strong attach- 
 ment to the new fuel. Complaints continuing to 
 be made, it was determined to have recourse to 
 stronger measures to put an end to the use of coal. 
 In 1307 a commission of Oyer and Terminer was 
 appointed, with instructions " to inquire of all such 
 who burnt sea coal in the city, or parts adjoining, 
 and to punish them for the first offence with great 
 fines and ransoms, and upon the second offence to de- 
 molish their furnaces," and to see the proclamation 
 strictly observed for the time to come. 
 
CHAP. IL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 COAL COMES INTO USE FOR DOMESTIC PURPOSES IN 
 THE COAL DISTRICTS. NUMBERS OF COLLIERIES 
 OPENED OUT IN THE NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE COAL- 
 FIELD. KING EDWARD III. PATRONIZES AND REGU- 
 LATES THE COAL TRADE. EARLY COAL MINING. 
 
 " By the leading of coals of this kind to all places within our 
 kingdom the greatest benefit will result to us and our people." 
 Letters patent of King Edward III. 
 
 IN the beginning of the fourteenth century the coal 
 trade continued to thrive and grow, particularly on the 
 Tyne and the Frith of Forth, and to a smaller extent 
 on the estuaries of the Dee and the Severn ; while small 
 workings at many points in the interior supplied the 
 coal required in their own immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 Purchases of coal figure very commonly in the 
 accounts of nurnerous castles in the course of erection 
 at this period (e.g. Dunstanborough, Caernarvon, Beau- 
 maris, &c.), being used by the smiths and lime-burners 
 in connection with the building operations. 
 
12 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. n. 
 
 Evou in the vicinity of the metropolis we find these 
 classes continuing to employ coal without hindrance. 
 Tims in the year 1316 a sum of money was paid out of 
 the lloyal Exchequer to one John de Norton, surveyor 
 of works at Westminster Palace, to purchase iron, steel, 
 and sea coal to make divers heads for the king's lances. 
 A little later (1329 A.D.), proceedings were taken before 
 the Lord Mayor of London against Hugh de Hecham, 
 " lymbrennere," for entering into a conspiracy with his 
 fellows to force up the price of lime in the London 
 market ; the evidence of his extortionate charges being 
 that whereas formerly a sack of lime was sold for a 
 penny, when sea coal was at 4Qd. the quarter, now he 
 refused to sell any sack for less than lid. or 2d., though 
 the price of sea coal had fallen to 1GJ. 
 
 As early as the reign of Edward II., a commencement 
 was made to export coal from the Tyne to France. 
 Mention occurs of a vessel belonging to the town of 
 Pontoise as bringing a cargo of corn to Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne in 1325, and returning freighted with sea coal. 
 
 But the most interesting matter connected with the 
 coal trade during the first half of the fourteenth century 
 is the fact that mineral fuel then began to be partially 
 employed for domestic purposes in the coal districts- 
 As the monks were among the first to open out 
 collieries, so they appear to have taken the lead in 
 admitting the new fuel into their dwellings. We find 
 the monks of Jarrow Monastery using coal in the year 
 
. 
 
 CHAP. IT.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 13 
 
 1313, and soon after this date a mixture of wood and 
 coal became the fuel commonly employed in localities 
 where a cheap and plentiful supply of the latter could 
 be obtained. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of using coal for domestic 
 purposes appear to have been overcome by improve- 
 ments in the arrangements of the fire-hearth, and 
 perhaps more immediately by the employment of iron 
 fire-grates or " chimneys " as they were termed. The 
 building of fire-places of stone in the case of wooden 
 houses, or in that of houses not provided with flues in 
 the walls, could obviously not have been accomplished 
 without considerable difficulty and expense. The " iron 
 chimney," on the other hand, could be employed in any 
 house, or even in any part of the house. It was not a 
 fixture attached to the wall like the modern grate, but 
 loose and movable from room to room. These iron 
 chimneys soon came much into use. We are told that 
 they were considered a very important piece of furni- 
 ture, and were frequently entailed by will upon son 
 after son in succession. Associated with them we find 
 mention of the familiar poker and tongs ; these imple- 
 ments of the smith's craft having accompanied mineral 
 fuel in its passage from the forge into a wider sphere in 
 ordinary house fires. 
 
 The coal trade was now becoming established on a 
 broader basis, and the steady increase in the demand 
 for coal which ensued gave rise to the opening out of 
 
14 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAR n. 
 
 numerous additional collieries. In the Great Northern 
 coalfield (of Northumberland and Durham), many mines 
 were brought into operation during the course of the 
 fourteenth century, particularly on the banks of the 
 Tyne, where peculiar natural facilities existed for carry- 
 ing on a coal trade. 
 
 On the north side of the Tyne in the lands of 
 Elswick, which lay immediately to the west of the town- 
 lands of Newcastle-on-Tyne, we find the monks of 
 Tynemouth, the owners of the royalty, letting various 
 collieries on lease in 1330 and subsequent years. 
 Shortly afterwards (1351), the burgesses of Newcastle 
 obtained a licence from King Edward III. to work the 
 coal in two portions of the town-lands, named the 
 Castle-field and the Frith, 1 in order to aid them in the 
 payment of their annual rent, the town having suffered 
 severely in common with other parts of the kingdom 
 from the pestilence which ravaged England in the 
 middle of this century. A few years later (1358), the 
 king likewise granted the burgesses the coal in the 
 Town Moor for the same object. 
 
 In addition to the collieries on the north side of .the 
 Tyne, a considerable number of mines on its southern 
 bank poured supplies of coal into the market at New- 
 castle. In 1356, the Bishop of Durham had five mines 
 
 1 This grant is usually stated to have been made by Henry III. 
 more than a century earlier. The error originated with Gardner in 
 1656, and has ever since passed current. 
 
CHAP, ii.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 15 
 
 let on lease in the Manor of Whickham, and others at 
 Gateshead ; and in the surrounding district the work- 
 ing of coal was actively going on at Birtley, Fugerhous, 
 and Winlaton. 
 
 Edward III. was the first king to interest himself in 
 the Tyne coal trade, his attention being frequently 
 drawn to the subject in various ways, more especially 
 in connection with disputes regarding the shipment of 
 coal. He issued several writs for the regulation of the 
 trade, and granted letters of protection to the owners of 
 collieries on the south side of the Tyne by which they 
 were allowed to carry their coal across the river to 
 Newcastle, and after paying the customs of the port, 
 to take them to any part of the kingdom or to Calais, 
 which was at this period the only place on the Continent 
 to which the staple commodities of England were 
 allowed to be exported. He also gave his sanction to 
 coal being loaded by the keel instead of being measured 
 in the detailed manner which appears to have been 
 employed while the trade was Insignificant. 
 
 The keel is a class of vessel peculiar to the Tyne, and 
 to the coal trade. It is a broad flat-bottomed boat of 
 oval form, designed to carry the heaviest load with the 
 least draught of water. Its name and origin are both 
 Saxon, and its history goes back to the advent of the 
 Saxons in England, Verstegan informing us that the 
 first detachment of Saxons crossed from the Continent 
 in three keels. The size of the keel used in the coal 
 
 
1G A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. n. 
 
 trade was fixed near the end of the fourteenth century. 
 At this period it carried twenty chaldrons of coal, on 
 each of which a duty of 2d. was paid to the Crown by 
 merchants and strangers not possessed of the freedom 
 of Newcastle. But while the size of the keel has 
 remained the same down to the present day (about 
 twenty-one tons), the size of the Newcastle chaldron 
 (on which the duty was paid), was gradually much 
 increased until fixed by law long afterwards when it had 
 attained to upwards of twice its original proportions. 
 
 Not only on the banks of the Tyne but at many 
 different points in the Great Northern coalfield the 
 working of coal was being carried on in the latter hall 
 of the fourteenth century. Already at this time 
 collieries had been opened out at Lumley, Cocken, and 
 Rainton, on the River Wear ; and further south at Hett, 
 Coxhoe, Coundon, Evenwood, Softley, and Cockfield 
 Fell. We also hear of coal mines at Plessey, near 
 Blyth, in Northumberland : and have evidence of 
 small collieries being worked in other parts of the same 
 county. 
 
 In the system of mining no less than in the coal 
 trade matters were already assuming a settled form at 
 this epoch. The holes and quarries from which the 
 supplies of coal were at first obtained had in the middle 
 of the fourteenth century been superseded by regular 
 mine works, consisting of pit and adit, or vertical shaft 
 and horizontal gallery. This arrangement was simple 
 
CHAP, ii.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 17 
 
 and effective, and remained the typical form so long 
 as coal workings were only carried on above the level 
 of free drainage. The shaft was employed for raising 
 the coal by means of a windlass, or jack roll, worked J 
 by manual labour ; the adit, 1 or water-gate, served to 
 drain off the water from the workings ; while the two 
 combined produced a natural ventilation sufficient for 
 the shallow and limited workings of these early 
 times. 
 
 Even at this period coal leases were beginning to be 
 drawn out with considerable care and detail. Jn the 
 earliest leases of which we find mention (such as those 
 granted by the monks of Tynemouth about 1330 A.D.), 
 a certain rent per annum was alone reserved by the 
 lessors, without any stipulation as to the quantity of 
 coal allowed to be worked for the same. But the 
 necessity of making the quantity of coal drawn from the 
 mine bear a fixed relation to the amount of rent paid 
 soon became felt, and as early as the middle of the 
 fourteenth century provisions were introduced for this 
 purpose. At first this was effected by simply limiting 
 the quantity of coal which might be worked. Thus in 
 a lease of five mines at Whickham, made by the Bishop 
 of Durham in 1356, it was stipulated that the lessees 
 might not draw from each mine more than one keel 
 
 1 This word occurs in a variety of forms which seem to point to its 
 1-eing a contraction for aqueduct. 
 
 C 
 
18 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. n. 
 
 (twenty-one tons) per day. The arrangement of limiting 
 the quantity of coal to be worked was the plan usually 
 adopted in leases, until the introduction of the more 
 improved modern method of having both a fixed and 
 a sliding, or tonnage rent, which makes the amount of 
 rent to be in exact proportion to the quantity of coal 
 worked. 
 
CHAP, in.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE INCREASING SCARCITY OF WOOD CAUSES COAL TO 
 COME INTO GENERAL USE FOR DOMESTIC PURPOSES. 
 FIRST DIFFICULTIES IN THE MINES. 
 
 " Thou didst swear to me . . . sitting by a sea-coal fire." 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 A SCARCITY of materials appears to exist relative to 
 the coal trade during the fifteenth century, but not 
 so with reference to the mines, and we have evidence 
 of a steady increase in the demand for coal from the 
 gradual extension of mining operations which was going 
 on, many new coal tracts being brought under contri- 
 bution. The extension, however, was on the same 
 lines as before ; the supplies of coal were still obtained 
 from shallow workings ; while the produce of the mines 
 was chiefly consumed by the inhabitants of the coal 
 districts, or of the maritime towns, or exported to the 
 Continent. 
 
 By those altogether unaccustomed to it, the use of 
 stones for fuel was regarded . with curiosity. JEneas 
 
 c 2 
 
20 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP, in 
 
 Sylvius (afterwards Pope Pius II.), who visited Scotland 
 in the capacity of papal legate in the middle of the 
 fifteenth century, mentions in his Commentaries that 
 he saw the poor people who begged at the churches 
 going away quite pleased with stones given them for 
 alms. " This kind of stone," he adds, " being impreg- 
 nated with sulphur or some fatty matter, is burnt 
 instead of wood, of which the country is destitute." 
 
 Even about a century later it seemed to surprise 
 Leland to find the population of the English coal dis- 
 tricts using coals in their fires in places where supplies 
 of wood could still be had. He explains the circum- 
 stance by stating that coal was found plentifully there, 
 and "sold good chepe." 
 
 During the sixteenth ' century the coal trade entered 
 upon a period of greatly increased activity. A con- 
 siderable demand for coal had .sprung up on the 
 Continent, and large quantities were exported thither 
 from the Tyne and the Frith of Forth. In the year 
 1546 we find an order sent to Newcastle by King 
 Henry VIII. for 3,000 chaldrons of coal to be forwarded 
 to Boulogne, in France, with all possible despatch. 
 Artificers in France were already relying to a large 
 extent on supplies of coal from Newcastle. A letter 
 written in 1552 speaks of Newcastle coal as "that 
 thinge that France can lyve no more withowte than the 
 fyshe without water," for without this, says the writer, 
 " they can nother make stele worke, nor metall worke, 
 
CHAP, in.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 21 
 
 nor wyer worke, nor goldsmythe worke, nor gunnes, nor 
 no manner of thinge that passeth the fier." 
 
 The exportation of coal appears to have been a very 
 lucrative trade at this period. We hear of it being 
 bought at Newcastle for 2s. 2d. per chaldron and sold 
 in France at thirteen nobles, or 4Z. 6s. Sd. But the 
 scarcity of fuel at home caused this drain upon the 
 resources of the country to be viewed with a degree of 
 alarm. The question of prohibiting the export of coal 
 was under the consideration of the English Parliament 
 in 1549, and was frequently discussed from time to 
 time during subsequent years. One proposal made was 
 that all the best coal should be kept at home, but that 
 foreigners might have the benefit of the inferior sorts. 
 No actual steps, however, appear to have been taken to 
 check the [export trade in England, but in Scotland, 
 where the decay of the " coal heuchs " was already 
 becoming a source of anxiety, and the gravest fears 
 were entertained of the speedy exhaustion of the coal 
 fields, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1563 pro- 
 hibiting all persons from transporting coals out of the 
 realm under penalty of confiscation of the ship and 
 cargo. This Act sets forth that coals were becoming 
 the common ballast of all empty ships, which was 
 occasioning " a maist exorbitant dearth and scantnesse 
 of fewall." Licences to export coal were subsequently 
 purchased by certain families, who realised large for- 
 tunes from the monopoly. 
 
22 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. m. 
 
 A factor still more important than the exportation of 
 coal in the increased activity of the coal trade at this 
 period was the rapid spread of the use of coal for domestic 
 purposes which was now taking place. Notwithstanding 
 the abundance of wood which had existed in England so 
 much so that it was considered impossible there should 
 ever be any scarcity of it the supplies were beginning 
 to fail. To add to the difficulties of the wood-con- 
 suming portion of the population, the iron trade at the 
 same time received a great impulse from the introduc- 
 tion of the process of making cast iron, which was 
 followed by a t great demand for large cast iron cannon 
 the earlier cannon having been manufactured from 
 bars of wrought iron hooped together : 1 an imperfect 
 arrangement which caused them to become disabled after 
 firing a few rounds. The principal seats of the iron 
 trade at this period were in the thickly- wooded districts 
 of the weald, or wild, in the south-eastern counties of 
 Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, and all the iron made in the 
 country was smelted with charcoal. Repeated Acts of 
 Parliament were passed for the preservation of woods, and 
 restraining the "voragious" iron furnaces, but they proved 
 of little avail. Wood fuel rapidly became scarcer and 
 dearer, and coal as rapidly supplanted it in the market. 
 
 Thus it happened that during the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and in the space of little more than a 
 
 1 A huge antique piece of ordnance of this kind, named " Mons 
 Meg," is still preserved at Edinburgh Castle. 
 
CHAP. Hi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 23 
 
 generation, the relative positions of wood fuel, and coal 
 underwent quite a reversal. The change was not 
 brought about by choice, but by necessity. Elderly 
 people who clung to the usages to which they had been 
 accustomed in their youth regarded the great building 
 of chimneys which was going on as an indication of 
 the degeneracy of the times and the cause of numerous 
 ills. They were so much attached to the smoky 
 atmosphere of their dwellings that they were loth to 
 part with it for the clearer air which resulted from 
 the use of chimneys. Lamenting the decadence of 
 the age in this and other respects, Harrison, writing 
 in 1577, observes : 
 
 " Now we have many chimnyes, and yet our tenderlings com- 
 plaine of rewmes, catarres, and poses ; then had we none but 
 reredoses, and our heads did never ake. For as the smoke in 
 those days was supposed to be a sufficient hardening for thp 
 timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to 
 keep the good man and his family from the quacke and the pose, 
 wherewith as then very few were acquainted. There are old 
 men yet dwelling in the village where I remain, which have 
 noted the multitude of chimnies lately erected, whereas in their 
 young days there was not above two or three, if so many, in 
 most uplandish towns of the realme (the religious houses and 
 inannour places of their lordes always excepted, and peradventure 
 some great personages), but each one made his fire against a 
 reredosse in the halle where he dined and dressed his meate. 
 When our houses were buylded of willowe then we had oken 
 men, but nowe that our houses are come to be made of oke, 
 our men are not only become willow, but a'great many altogether 
 of straw, which is a sore alteration." 
 
24 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. in. 
 
 Under the pressure of necessity people were all 
 beginning to use coal instead of wood towards the close 
 of the sixteenth century. The once banished fuel now 
 found its way back into the furnaces of the London 
 brewers, as we learn from a petition presented to the 
 Council, in 1578, by the Company of Brewers, wherein 
 they offer to use wood only in the brewhouses nearest 
 Westminster Palace, as they understand that the Queen 
 findeth "hersealfe greately greved and anoyed with 
 the taste and smoke of the sea cooles." It also about 
 the same time began to obtain admission into some of 
 " the greatest merchants' parlours." And in a note of 
 the revenues of the Bishop of London, dated 1598, 
 it is set forth that whereas his lordship's predecessors 
 had derived no small part of their income from sales of 
 wood, the present Bishop has to buy timber for repairs 
 and " he has to burn sea coals. " 
 
 The London ladies were very reluctant to acquiesce 
 in the change of fuel, and held out against it as long as 
 possible. Writing in 1631, Howes tells us that 
 ''within thirty years last the nice dames of London 
 would not come into any house or room when sea coals 
 were burned, nor willingly eat of the meat that was 
 either sod or roasted with sea coal fire." Even they, 
 however, now withdrew their opposition, and coal at 
 length became the fuel of the metropolis. 
 
 Within a few years after the commencement of the 
 seventeenth century the change from wood fuel to coal, 
 
CHAP, in.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 25 
 
 for domestic purposes, was general and complete ; the 
 latter, Howes tells us, being used in 1612 in the houses 
 of the nobility, clergy, and gentry in London, and in 
 all the other cities and shires of the kingdom, as well 
 for the dressing of meat, washing, brewing, dyeing, as 
 for other requirements. 
 
 Up to this time the supplies of coal had been 
 obtained without its being necessary for the miners to 
 penetrate far below the surface. In nearly every case 
 the drainage of the mines was effected by means of the 
 horizontal tunnels already mentioned, which were 
 variously termed adits, watergates, soughs, surfs, &c., 
 and these were considered very important adjuncts of 
 the coal mines. 
 
 In some of the districts, however, where the mining 
 of coal had been going on with most activity, symp- 
 toms due to increasing depth had already begun to 
 make their appearance. Even before the end of the 
 fifteenth century, at collieries on the Tyne and the , 
 Wear almost simultaneously, we hear of endeavours 
 being made to push the pits below the water-level, 
 and to raise the water by machinery. In the year 
 1486-7 the monks of Finchale Priory expended a sum 
 of money at one of their collieries on the Wear " on 
 the new ordinance of the pump " and in the purchase 
 of horses for the same. And almost exactly at the 
 same time a commencement was made to draw the 
 
26 A HISTOKY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. in. 
 
 water to the surface at a mine at Whickham on the 
 Tyne, belonging to the Bishop of Durham. In the roll 
 of the stock-keeper of the Bishopric for the year 
 1492-3, a payment is recorded for "two great iron 
 chains for the ordinance of the mine at Whickham, for 
 drawing coals and water out of the coal pit there, by 
 my lord's command." 
 
 Other difficulties besides those arising from water 
 were also beginning to embarrass the miners. Among 
 these may be mentioned underground fires, several of 
 which occurred in the sixteenth century. Thus at 
 Coleorton, in Leicestershire, the coal was on fire and 
 burnt many years during the reign of Henry VIII. 
 The coal at Dysart, in Fifeshire, was on fire equally 
 early and continued to burn for more than two centu- 
 ries. Buchanan from this circumstance fixed on the 
 neighbourhood of Dysart for the scene of the exorcism 
 in his Franciscanus et Fralres (written in the reign of 
 James V.), and describes the place as it appeared under 
 one of those violent eruptions which are stated to have 
 occurred periodically. 
 
 As the collieries became deeper and more extensive, 
 the natural ventilation became more feeble and incon- 
 stant, and noxious gases began to imperil the safety 
 of the miners. These gases we first hear of about the 
 middle of the sixteenth century, writing at which time 
 Dr. Kaye, or Keys (the founder of Caius College, 
 Cambridge), speaks of certain coal pits in the northern 
 
CHAP, in.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 27 
 
 parts of Britain, " the unwholesome vapour whereof is 
 so pernicious to the hired labourers that it would 
 immediately destroy them if they did not get out of 
 the way as soon as the flame of their lamps becomes 
 blue and is consumed." 
 
 In other respects the working of the collieries was 
 conducted with great simplicity. The miner's tools 
 consisted of the pick, the hammer and wedge, and the 
 wooden shovel. The only machine in common use 
 was the windlass for raising the buckets or baskets of 
 coal in the shaft ; and in the collieries in the east of 
 Scotland even the windlass was unknown, the coals 
 being carried up stairs in the shafts on the backs of 
 women termed "coal-bearers." Above ground the 
 produce was conveyed away from the mine either in 
 ordinary wains, or in panniers on horseback, both 
 methods being in common use. 
 
28 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP, iv 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COMBINATION AMONG THE COAL OWNERS AT NEW- 
 CASTLE. TAXES IMPOSED ON COAL. THE HEARTH- 
 MONEY OR CHIMNEY-TAX. THE COAL FLEET. 
 
 " This great trade hath made this part to flourish in all trades." 
 Chorographia ; or, A Survey of Newcastle-on-Tym. 
 
 ONE of the first consequences of the increased demand 
 for coal, arising from its extended use for domestic 
 purposes, was an advance in the price of the com- 
 modity. This was doubtless due at least in part to 
 natural causes, but at the time it was wholly ascribed 
 to a " combynation " among the colliery owners in the 
 north, which was brought about in the following 
 manner : 
 
 In the year 1582 Queen Elizabeth obtained from the 
 Bishop of Durham a lease of the manors of Gateshead 
 and Whickham, with all the coal-pits, &c., for a term 
 of ninety-nine years. This lease (called the Grand 
 Lease) was procured from the Queen by the Earl of 
 
CHAP, iv.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 29 
 
 Leicester, who transferred it to his secretary, Sir 
 Thomas Button, the founder of the Charter House. 
 Button again, for the sum of 12,OOOZ., assigned his 
 interest in the lease to the " Society of Free Hosts " 
 of Newcastle-on-Tyne for the benefit of the town. 
 The members of this society, about sixty in number, 
 many of whom were coal owners, next compounded 
 among themselves and made over their whole right to 
 about eighteen or twenty, who having coal-pits of their 
 own before engrossed the whole trade, and combined 
 to sell coal at their own prices. These few persons, JJj 
 besides the Grand Lease, had secured all the principal 
 mines about Newcastle, viz., Stella, the Bishop's 
 Colliery, Ravensworth Colliery, Mr. Gascoigne's Colliery, 
 Newburn Colliery, and others, of which they opened 
 and shut up such and so many as they thought good. 
 
 While Sutton held the Grand Lease the price of 
 coal of the best sort which for a long time previously 
 stood at 4s. per chaldron rose to 6s. ; and after this 
 lease came into the possession of the town of Newcastle 
 (1591 A.D.), the price rose successively to 7s., 8s., and 
 9s. On this the Lord Mayor of London protested to 
 Lord Burleigh against the action of the northern coal 
 owners, and requested an order from the Privy Council 
 that all owners and farmers of coal-mines might open 
 them and sell the coal at reasonable rates, not exceeding 
 7s. per chaldron, and might ship their coal at the most 
 convenient places without any restraint. No steps, 
 
30 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. iv. 
 
 however, appear to have been taken beyond the sum- 
 moning of two aldermen from Newcastle to explain 
 the causes of the advance in the price of coal. The 
 regulation of the trade, or "management of the vend'' 
 as it was termed, was in full force in the early part of 
 the following century; and long continued to be a 
 peculiar feature of the Tyne coal trade. 
 
 Some other attempts to establish coal monopolies 
 were made at this period at Coventry in the Warwick- 
 shire coal-field, and at Bristol in Somersetshire, but 
 these were merely of local importance. 
 
 Scarcely had the coal trade begun to assume more 
 extended proportions before it became subjected to a, 
 system of heavy taxation. Reference has been made 
 to a small ancient duty of Zd. per chaldron due to the 
 Crown upon all coal sold to persons not franchised in 
 the port of Newcastle. This, it seems, had for a length 
 of time been neglected to be paid, and Queen Elizabeth 
 demanded such arrears from the burgesses of New- 
 castle that they professed themselves unable to satisfy 
 the claim, but offered instead to pay a duty of Is. per 
 chaldron for the future on all coal sold to the free 
 people of England. The compromise was accepted by 
 the Queen, and the duty continued to be levied during 
 a long period. Under the name of "the Richmond 
 shilling " (so termed on account of the proceeds arising 
 from it being subsequently granted by Charles II. to 
 
CHAP, iv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 31 
 
 his natural son the Duke of Richmond), it survived 
 down till near the middle of the present century, when 
 it was finally repealed. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth at the same time imposed a duty of 
 5s. per chaldron on all coal exported over sea. And 
 for the better loading and disposing of coals and grind- 
 stones the Queen in the year 1600-1, by a clause in 
 the great charter to Newcastle, incorporated the society 
 of Hostmen, who had existed as a guild or fraternity in 
 the town " from time immemorial." The origin of the 
 Hostmen, or Free Hosts, appears to date from the 
 year 1404, at which time it was ordained by statute 
 that in every city, town, or seaport to which foreign 
 merchants repaired, " hosts " should be appointed, with 
 whom only the merchants might dwell during their 
 stay. 
 
 From the books of the above society it appears that 
 in 1602 there were twenty-eight acting "fitters," or 
 hostmen, who were to vend by the year 9,080 tens of coal 
 (or 190,680 tons), and to find eighty-five keels for the 
 purpose ; the prices fixed were for the 'best sort not 
 above 10s., for the second best not above 9s., and for 
 " meane coles " not above 8s. per chaldron. 
 
 During the two succeeding reigns additional taxes 
 were imposed upon coal. King James added a duty of 
 3s. 4td. per chaldron on coals exported in foreign ships, 
 and Is. 8^. on coals exported in English ships. And 
 Charles I. augmented the export duty by a further 
 
32 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. iv. 
 
 imposition of 4s. per chaldron. So prolific a source of 
 revenue to the Crown had the coal taxes become, that 
 in 1635 we find "the farm of sea coals " spoken of as 
 " the bravest farm the King has." 
 
 But Charles I. was anxious to make the coal trade 
 still further productive, and for this purpose he resolved 
 to make himself the sole vendor of coals. This was 
 seemingly an attempt to introduce into the coal trade 
 a right of pre-emption similar to that already enjoyed 
 by the Crown in the case of the tin trade. In 1638 an 
 agreement was concluded between the King on the one 
 part, and the colliery owners and hostmen on the other 
 part, for all coals to be sold only to His Majesty, at the 
 price of 11s. per chaldron for coals loaded into English, 
 and 12s. for coals loaded into foreign vessels. An order 
 of the Privy Council at the same time fixed the price 
 of coals sold in London at 17s. per chaldron during the 
 summer, and 19s. during the winter. Scarcely, how- 
 ever, had the monopoly been arranged for before the 
 civil wars came on, and the whole organisation was 
 broken up. 
 
 The great crop of chimneys which had sprung up 
 throughout the kingdom did not escape the notice of 
 the lynx-eyed tax-gatherers, and they, in common with 
 the coal consumed in them, were brought under taxa- 
 tion. The hearth-money, or chimney-tax, was one of 
 the most unpopular of taxes. It pressed heavily on the 
 
CHAP, iv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 33 
 
 poor and lightly on the rich. Macaulay tells us that 
 " the collectors were empowered to examine the interior 
 of every house in the realm, to disturb families at 
 meals, to force the doors of bedrooms, and, if the sum 
 demanded were not punctually paid, to sell the trencher 
 on which the barley loaf was divided among the poor 
 children, and the pillow from under the head of the 
 lying-in woman. Nor could the Treasury effectually 
 restrain the chimneyman from using his powers with 
 harshness; for the tax was -farmed, and the government 
 was consequently forced to connive at outrages and 
 exactions such as have, in every age, made the name of 
 publican a proverb for all that is most hateful." 
 
 The chimneyman was held in the greatest detesta- 
 tion by the housewives ; on his approach they took the 
 precaution to stow the cooking utensils out of sight. 
 
 " The good old dames whenever they the chimneyman espied 
 Unto their works they haste away, the pots and pipkins hide ; 
 There is riot one old dame in ten, search all the nation through, 
 But if you talk of chimneymen will spare a curse or two." 
 
 The chimney-tax was repealed in the reign of 
 William III., and a tax on windows substituted 
 for it. 
 
 The rapid spread of the use of coal during the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth called into existence a considerable 
 fleet of vessels to carry on the traffic between the 
 northern collieries and the metropolis, and other towns 
 
 D 
 
34 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. iv. 
 
 on the eastern seaboard. These vessels, which obtained 
 the name of the " coal fleet," began to receive attention 
 from the Government about the end of the sixteenth 
 century, when, from their numbers and the importance 
 of the trade in which they were engaged, the necessity 
 of protecting them against enemies became obvious. 
 In connection with the first proposal to provide an armed 
 convoy for the coal fleet, made in the year 1596, we 
 learn that the number of vessels engaged in the trade 
 was then two hundred. 
 
 ^ In 1615 the coal fleet numbered four hundred 
 
 vessels, one half of which were required for the supply 
 of London, and the remainder for other parts of the 
 kingdom. A large export trade was also being carried 
 ^ on from the Tyne at this time by foreign vessels. 
 " Besides our own ships," says a writer of the period, 
 " hither, even to the mine's mouth, come all our neigh- 
 >j ^C bouring nations with their ships continually. The 
 French sail thither in whole fleets of fifty sail together, 
 serving all the parts of Picardie, Normandie, Bretagne, 
 &c., even as far as Rochelle and Bourdeaux ; and the 
 ships of Bremen, Embden, Holland and Zealand, supply 
 Flanders, &c., with our coals." 
 
 Twenty years later the coal fleet had increased to 
 six or seven hundred ships, and was already regarded 
 as " a great nursery of seamen." Still it continued to 
 grow apace, and by the middle of the seventeenth 
 century it had reached about nine hundred sail. 
 
CHAP, iv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 35 
 
 At this time it was confidently believed by many 
 that supplies of coal could be got by sinking pits in 
 "Windsor Forest or Blackheath just as well as at New- 
 castle, and that the sole motive for bringing it from 
 the north in preference was to maintain the coal fleet 
 for rearing seamen for the navy. A lease of the coal 
 in Windsor Forest was actually granted, but whether 
 mining operations were really commenced there we are 
 unable to say. 
 
 As London was now relying almost entirely for fuel 
 on coal brought by sea, several times during the 
 seventeenth century the city was reduced to great 
 straits owing to temporary interruptions of the traffic. 
 This was particularly the case in the years 16424, 
 during the civil wars, and again in 1667 during the war 
 with Holland, when the Dutch men-of-war " domineered " 
 over the shores and prevented the colliers from put- 
 ting out to sea. At the latter period coal rose in the 
 metropolis to the famine price of 6/. per chaldron, and 
 the complaints occasioned by the scarcity of fuel 'are 
 described as " great and unspeakable." Near the end 
 of this century the quantity of coal annually consumed 
 in London had reached 400,000 chaldrons, or about 
 half a million of tons. 
 
 D 1 
 
36 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 r 
 
 DIFFICULTIES EXPEEIENCED IN SUBSTITUTING COAL 
 FOR WOOD AND CHARCOAL IN MANUFACTURING PRO- 
 CESSES, MORE ESPECIALLY IN THE SMELTING OF 
 IRON. 
 
 " Alas, what perils do environ 
 All men that meddle with hot iron ! " 
 
 Anon. 
 
 THE same causes which led to the adoption of coal as 
 a substitute for wood in house fires, led in like manner 
 to its gradual adoption for all other purposes of fuel. 
 But in some branches of trade much greater difficulty 
 was experienced in making the change than in others, 
 involving as it did the invention of new arrangements 
 and different processes, or even the removal of the 
 industry altogether to new localities. 
 
 Among the manufactures, glass-making was one of 
 the earliest to abandon wood for coal. But little glass 
 was made in England as late as the middle of the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth, and the little that was made was 
 
CHAP, v.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 37 
 
 manufactured in Sussex with wood fuel. A writer 
 of the period (1577) tells us that 
 
 " As for glass-makers they be scant in this land, 
 Yet one there is as I do understand, 
 And in Sussex is now his habitation, 
 At Chiddingsfold he works of his occupation." 
 
 Other glass-houses were established soon after this 
 date, but in all of them wood was the fuel employed. 
 
 About the beginning of the seventeenth century, a 
 great impulse was given to English manufacturing 
 industries by the importation of improvements from 
 the Continent, and by the arrival of many foreign ad- 
 venturers who brought with them a knowledge of 
 numerous appliances which, though long known on the 
 Continent, had not yet been introduced into England. 
 Among these improvements were new forms of furnaces 
 which appear to have been introduced from Germany 
 and Hungary by one Henry Wright about 1610, in 
 which year a patent was granted for employing them 
 to melt bell-metal, &c., with coal instead of wood. 
 
 In the following year* a patent was solicited for 
 newly-invented furnaces for making glass with coal, 
 a project which occasioned great alarm to Jean Carre', 
 a Frenchman, who had built glass-houses in Sussex and 
 London " at his own great cost," and who entreated the 
 Lord Secretary that the suit might not be granted. 
 The Government, however, was anxious to promote all 
 
38 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 measures calculated to check the consumption of wood, 
 and Carry's expostulations were of no avail. 
 
 The patent for the process of making glass with 
 coal was purchased from the original patentees by Sir 
 Robert Mansell, Vice-Admiral of England, in 1614-15, 
 and immediately afterwards a Royal proclamation was 
 issued prohibiting the manufacture of glass with wood, 
 and also the importation of glass from abroad. King 
 James was himself interested in Mansell's monopoly, 
 having been promised a revenue of 1,000. per annum 
 from it. The King at the same time was amused at 
 his admiral taking to glass-making. He wondered, he 
 said, " that Robin Mansell, being a seaman, whereby he 
 had got much honour, should fall from water to tamper 
 with fire, which are two contrary elements." 
 
 On being vested with the glass monopoly, Mansell 
 set gallantly to work to develop the new process ; but 
 the task which he had entered upon proved no light 
 one. He brought over skilled workmen from the Con- 
 tinent to assist him; but for several years all his 
 experiments were abortive. He erected works success- 
 ively at London, the Isle of Purbeck, Milford Haven, 
 and on the Trent, without accomplishing anything 
 beyond "melting vast sums of money in this glass 
 business." At last, however, his indomitable per- 
 severance was rewarded. About 1619 he tried works 
 near Newcastle-on-Tyne which proved a success, and 
 here the glass trade took root and flourished ; the works 
 
CHAP, v.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 39 
 
 established by Mansell being carried on uninterruptedly 
 till the middle of the present century. They were 
 long presided over by three families of Huguenot glass- 
 makers, natives of Lorraine, named Henzell, Tytory, 
 and Tyzack, some of whose descendan^i^mm^/in .the 
 district at the present day. 
 
 < &A;r 
 
 ' ^ 
 
 The substitution of coal for wood i 
 metalliferous ores, and particularly in the manufacture 
 of iron, was the most important as well as the most 
 difficult industrial problem of the seventeenth century. 
 The idea was not altogether new. As early as 1528 
 Cardinal Wolsey, then Bishop of Durham, projected a 
 scheme for applying the coal from his mines on the 
 Tyne to smelt the lead from his mines in Wear- 
 dale, and had a large house and furnace built for the 
 purpose near Gateshead-on-Tyne ; but the cardinal's 
 downfall and death occurring soon after, the enterprise 
 was abandoned. 
 
 The subject was again mooted in the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and a patent for making iron and steel and 
 melting lead " with earth coal, sea coal, turf, and peat," 
 was granted to Thomas Proctor and William Peterson 
 in 1589. The scheme, however, proved a commercial 
 failure. There is a report relative to the making of 
 "two tons of iron by this process, at an iron-work in 
 Yorkshire, from which it appears that the cost of this 
 quantity amounted to two hundred marks (or 66/. 13s. 4<d. 
 
40 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 per ton), and so, says the reporter, " it is deere iron." 
 And in the hammering of the iron they are stated to 
 have wrought a whole month, night and day, " sondaie 
 and other." 
 
 In the above-mentioned patent there is distinct allu- 
 sion to the subjecting of the fuel to a preparatory 
 process of coking, or cooking indeed coked peat was 
 the fuel used in the trial referred to and immediately 
 afterwards we find the treatment of coal in this way 
 made the subject of a separate patent ; a licence being 
 granted in 1590 to the Dean of York " to purify pit coal 
 and free it from its offensive smell." But some time 
 elapsed before coked coal came to be applied in the arts. 
 
 As the scarcity of wood fuel became more and more 
 felt, the attempts to employ coal in smelting became 
 more frequent, and in the reign of James I. we enter 
 upon a regular series of projects for effecting this much 
 desired object. A patent was granted to Robert Chan- 
 trell in 1607 "to make and forge iron and steel with 
 stone coal, sea coal, pit coal, and peat coal;" but no 
 satisfactory results having been achieved, a new patent 
 was granted in 1612 to Simon Sturtevant, a German, 
 whose scheme, as described in his treatise on Metallica, 
 was of a much more comprehensive character than 
 those which had preceded it. His patent was for a term 
 of thirty- one years, and included the making and work- 
 ing of iron, steel, lead, tin, copper, brass, &c., with sea 
 coal, pit coal, earth coal, and brush fuel. The saving 
 
CHAP, v.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 41 
 
 expected to be effected by his new processes was set 
 down by Sturtevant at 330,OOOZ. per annum. He seems 
 to have been in no hurry to put his projects into execu- 
 tion, in consequence of which, and the fact of his being 
 an outlaw, the patent was cancelled at the end of a 
 year, and a new grant made to John Rovenzon, who 
 had been one of his associates in the enterprise. 
 
 But though Rovenzon had secured the patent he 
 appears to have been able to accomplish nothing, and 
 for this reason, after the expiration of some years, 
 another grant was made in 1620 to a company consist- 
 ing of Sir William St. John, Sir Giles Mompesson, Sir 
 George Ayloffe, knights ; Lewis Powell, Walter Yaughan, 
 John Pruthero, and Henry Vaughan, esquires; Henry 
 Stubbs, gentleman, and Hugh Grundy, for " charking " 
 sea coal, pit coal, stone coal, turf, peat, &c., and em- 
 ploying the same for smelting ores and manufacturing 
 metals, and other purposes. The project originated 
 with Grundy, and referred specially to the making of 
 coke by a process invented by him ; but notwithstanding 
 the powerful support which he obtained, this enterprise, 
 like the preceding ones, proved a failure, so far as the 
 smelting of minerals was concerned. 
 
 One of the chief obstacles to success in the early 
 attempts to smelt with coal, or coke, seems to have 
 been the want of a sufficiently powerful blast. With 
 charcoal fuel a very light blast sufficed. Thus the lead 
 smelters of Derbyshire employed no artificial means to 
 
42 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 produce a blast, but built their boles, or furnaces, on 
 lofty situations exposed to the west wind, and lighted 
 up their fires when this wind began to blow. Rovenzon 
 (doubtless following Sturtevant's example) employed a 
 wind furnace " to save the charge of bellows." Whether 
 he kept the ore and fuel separate does not appear ; by 
 his patent he was at liberty to use furnaces either with 
 or without a division. Grundy and his partners, on the 
 other hand, were restricted to the use of common fur- 
 naces in which the fuel and ore were mixed up together ; 
 but regarding their experiments, we only know that 
 nothing came out of them. 
 
 The first to achieve some measure of success in 
 smelting with coal was Dud Dudley. His efforts were 
 directed exclusively to the manufacture of iron. Dud 
 Dudley was a natural son of Edward, Lord Dudley, of 
 Dudley Castle, Staffordshire. As a boy he took great 
 delight in observing the various processes pursued in 
 the manufacture of iron at his father's ironworks, and 
 thus early acquired some practical acquaintance with 
 the subject. r In 1619 Dudley, then twenty years of 
 age, was brought from Baliol College, Oxford, to 
 manage an iron furnace and two forges, belonging to 
 his father, in Pesnet Chase, Worcestershire. When he 
 entered upon the charge of the works charcoal fuel 
 alone was used, but the supply being scanty, and coal 
 abounding in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
 works, notwithstanding his knowledge of the failures 
 
CHAP, v.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 43 
 
 which had already attended the attempts of others, he 
 resolved to try for himself whether coal might not be 
 substituted for charcoal. 
 
 Having made some alterations in his furnace, Dudley 
 found at his first trial that he could make iron profit- 
 ably with coal fuel. A second trial was made with 
 the like result; and immediately afterwards he wrote 
 to his father announcing the success of his experiments, 
 and desiring him to obtain a patent for the process. 
 This Lord Dudley forthwith proceeded to do, and a 
 patent, dated 21st February, 1621, " for melting iron 
 ore, making bar iron, &c., with coal, in furnaces, with 
 bellows," was taken out in the name of Lord Dudley 
 himself. 
 
 The discovery which Dud Dudley had made, though 
 it has given him an enduring name in the annals of 
 iron smelting, proved disastrous to his personal fortunes 
 and peace of mind. The charcoal ironmasters were 
 bitterly opposed to the new process, and declared the 
 iron manufactured by it to be unfit for use. Even the 
 forces of nature seemed to conspire against him ; within 
 a year after the patent was obtained his works were 
 " ruinated " by an extraordinary flood, long afterwards 
 known as " the great May-day flood " an event which 
 occasioned great joy to the rival ironmasters. Dudley, 
 however, set about repairing his works and recom- 
 menced making iron ; but so loud were the complaints 
 of its bad quality that he was commanded by King 
 
44 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 James " with all speed possible, to send all sorts of bar 
 iron up to the Tower of London, fit for making muskets, 
 carbines, and iron for great bolts fit for shipping ; which 
 iron," says Dudley, " being so tried by artists and smiths, 
 the ironmasters and ironmongers were all silenced until 
 the 21st of King James " (1623-4 A.D.). At this time an 
 endeavour was made to get the patent suppressed as a 
 monopoly, but so much importance was attached to the 
 process that it was specially exempted in the general 
 revocation of monopolies which then took place, though 
 the term of the patent was limited to fourteen years. 
 Dudley now went on with his invention cheerfully, but 
 his prosperity was of short duration. For some reason' 
 or other his works were taken from him. He does not 
 explain the circumstances, merely intimating that he 
 was ousted of his works and inventions " by the iron- 
 masters and others wrongfully, over long to relate." 
 
 Dudley now removed into Staffordshire and started 
 afresh at Himley Furnace, but here he was crippled by 
 the want of a forge, which compelled him to sell his 
 pig-iron to the charcoal ironmasters, who, he tells us, 
 did him much harm by disparaging its quality. This 
 furnace, however, being soon afterwards rented out to 
 charcoal ironmasters, Dudley's operations were again 
 interrupted. 
 
 Up till this time the new process had not been much 
 of a success. It had hitherto" been carried on in fur- 
 naces originally built for smelting with charcoal. Dudley 
 
CHAP, v.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 45 
 
 had in consequence been obliged to use very light 
 charges, and had only been able to produce iron at the 
 rate of three tons per week, or about a third of the 
 quantity that could be run in the ordinary way. He 
 now proceeded to erect a new large furnace at Hasco 
 Bridge, Staffordshire, after his own design. This 
 furnace was twenty-seven feet square, and was provided 
 with extra-large bellows. With his improved arrange- 
 ments he succeeded in making seven tons of iron per 
 week, " the greatest quantity of pit coal iron that ever 
 yet was made in Britain." Near the same place Dudley 
 found the " Staffordshire Thick Coal," and ironstone 
 underneath it, which he proceeded to open out and 
 work. His affairs were now beginning to assume a 
 more prosperous aspect, but his enemies soon found him 
 out. The coal works were no sooner begun than he 
 was forcibly ejected from them, " and the bellows of 
 his new furnance and invention by riotous persons cut 
 in pieces ; so that with law-suits and riots being wearied 
 and disabled" he was compelled to desist from his 
 operations, and from this time he becomes lost to sight 
 for a number of years. 
 
 In the meantime new schemes for smelting with 
 coal continued to be brought forward. A patent for 
 makjng iron with coal was granted to William Astell, 
 John Copley, and Francis Croft, in 1627, but they 
 succeeded no better than their predecessors. The 
 matter was next taken up by the learned and ingenious 
 
46 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 Dr. Jorden, of Bath, who, in 1632, obtained a patent 
 for melting tin, iron, lead, and copper with pit coal, 
 peat, and turf. Dr. Jorden's efforts were specially 
 directed to the smelting of tin with coal, and though 
 he failed to bring his scheme to a successful issue, he 
 remained confident of its ultimate accomplishment. 
 
 About this time considerable attention began to be 
 paid to the charring, or coking, of coal, not only in 
 connection with the smelting experiments which were 
 going on, but with a view to its employment for 
 other purposes as well. In 1627 a patent was granted 
 to Sir John Hacket, and one Octavius de Strada (who 
 two years before had been making attempts to smelt 
 with coal in Hainault), for a method of rendering sea 
 coal and pit coal as useful as charcoal, for burning in 
 houses, without offence by the smell or smoke. A few 
 years afterwards (1633) another patent was granted to 
 a company consising of Sir Abraham Williams, John 
 Gaspar van Wolfen, Edward Hanchett, Amadis van 
 Wolfen, Walter Williams, Henry Regnolds, John 
 Brown, and Gaspar Frederick van Wolfen, for a new 
 way of " charking" sea coal and other earth coal, and 
 for preparing, dressing, and qualifying them so as to 
 make them fit for the melting and making of iron and 
 other metals, and many other good uses. 
 
 During the next three or four years some eight 
 or nine patents were granted for the employment 
 of smokeless preparations of coal; and though the 
 
CHAP, v.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 47 
 
 application of coke to the smelting of minerals was not 
 accomplished till long afterwards, it came into use at 
 this time for several other purposes, particularly for 
 making malt. Houghton tells us that up till about 
 1640 the malt was made with straw fuel in Derbyshire, 
 but that it then came to be made with coke, which 
 occasioned an improvement in the quality of the 
 brewings " and brought about that alteration which all 
 England admired." 
 
 A little later an attempt to substitute coke for coal 
 in house fires was made by Sir John Winter. The 
 project is referred to by Evelyn in his diary under date 
 llth July, 1656, in the following terms : 
 
 "Came home by Greenwich Ferry, where I saw Sir John 
 Winter's new project of charring sea-coale to burne out the 
 sulphure and render it sweete. He did it by burning the coals 
 in such earthen pots as the glasse-men mealt their mettal, so 
 firing them without consuming them, using a barr of yron in 
 each crucible or pot, which barr has a hook at one end, that so 
 the coales being mealted in a furnace with other crude sea-coals 
 under them, may be drawn out of the pots sticking to the yron, 
 whence they are beaten off in greate halfe-exhausted cinders, 
 which being rekindled make a cleare pleasant chamber fire, de- 
 prived of their sulphur and arsenic malignity. What success it 
 may have, time will discover." 
 
 Sir John sent some of his " cooked coal," together 
 with a new-fashioned grate, to several great men for a 
 trial, but his project did not succeed. 
 
 No sooner had Dr. Jorden failed in his attempts to 
 
48 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 smelt with coal than the matter was taken up by others. 
 A patent for the purpose was granted, in 1636, to Sir 
 Philibert Vernat, a Dutchman ; and another, in 1637, 
 to Vernat and Captain Whitmore. In the following 
 year Dud Dudley again came to the front, and in con- 
 junction with three partners obtained a patent of a 
 more comprehensive character than his previous one, 
 viz., to smelt all kinds of minerals with coal. But he 
 was opposed by Vernat and Whitmore, and before any- 
 thing had been effected the civil wars came on, and for 
 a period of thirteen years no further trials were made. 
 
 In 1651, when the country had become settled 
 again, Dudley made another attempt to set up an iron- 
 work near Bristol. He entered into partnership with 
 Walter Stevens, a linen-draper, and John Ston, a 
 merchant, of Bristol. But after 7001. had been ex- 
 pended upon the works, a difference occurred between 
 Dudley and his partners, which involved him in another 
 law-suit, and led to the collapse of the scheme. 
 
 In the same year a project to smelt iron with raw 
 coal was set on foot by Captain Jeremy Buck, who 
 obtained at Act of Parliament for the purpose. Crom- 
 well and many of his officers, and many doctors of 
 physic, and merchants, were partners in the enterprise. 
 They appear to have pursued a course similar to 
 R-ovenzon, employing wind-furnaces and keeping the 
 ore and fuel separate. Several furnaces were built at 
 great cost in the Forest of Dean. One Edward 
 
CHAP, v,] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 49 
 
 Dagney, an Italian, and an ingenious glass-maker, of 
 Bristol, made many pots of glass-house clay for them ; 
 but they all broke and failed. The partners importuned 
 Dudley to visit their works, and he pronounced it 
 impossible to make iron with coal in pots to profit ; 
 but so confident were they of success that they per- 
 severed in their own plan and invited Dudley to come 
 back again " to see it effected." The second attempt, 
 however, failed like the first. Afterwards Buck and 
 his partners removed from the Forest of Dean to 
 Bristol, where they erected new works ; but here hav- 
 ing no better success than before they finally desi* 
 in 1656. 
 
 In the following year the matter was takek u 
 Captain John Copley, who obtained a pa 
 Cromwell. Copley built a blast-furnace at the 
 works near Bristol, and employed engineers to make 
 his bellows to blow ; but after an expenditure of several 
 hundred pounds it was found that the bellows would 
 not work. Dudley (who appears to have resided at 
 Bristol at this time) went to see the works, and told 
 Copley, who was an old acquaintance, that even if his 
 bellows could blow he feared he could not smelt iron 
 with coal. Dudley, moreover, without the help of any 
 engine, made the bellows to be blown " feisibly " by 
 manual labour ; but his prophecy appears to have 
 proved correct, as Copley soon abandoned the scheme 
 and removed from the neighbourhood. 
 
 E 
 
50 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. v. 
 
 Immediately upon the arrival of Charles II. in 
 England we find Dudley petitioning to be restored to 
 his estate (which he had forfeited as a royalist), and to 
 his patent for making iron with coal. But he was only 
 one among a crowd of supplicants for Royal favour. 
 He failed to procure a patent ; and Colonel Proger, who 
 applied for a patent for the same purpose in the follow- 
 ing year, seems to have fared no better. 
 
 Notwithstanding the many failures which had at- 
 tended the attempts to substitute coal for wood in the 
 smelting of minerals up to this time, individuals were 
 not wanting who still continued to hope and expect 
 that this desideratum would eventually be accom- 
 plished. "It is to be hoped/' wrote Dr. Fuller, in 
 1662, "that a way maybe found out to charke sea 
 coal in such manner as to render it useful for the 
 making of iron. All things are not found out in one\ 
 
 / age, as reserved for future discovery : and that per- ) 
 chance may be easy for the next, which seems impossible 
 
 N^to this generation." 
 
 Even as late as 1686 the problem still remained 
 unsolved. Dr. Plot, writing at this time, gives an account, 
 of an attempt made in Staffordshire a few years before 
 by Dr. Frederick de Blewstone, a German, to smelt iron 
 with raw coal. He built his furnace at Wednesbury, 
 " so ingeniously contrived (that only the flame of the 
 coal should come to the ore, with several other con- 
 veniences) that many were of opinion he would succeed 
 
CHAP, v.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 51 
 
 in it. But experience, that great baffler of specula- 
 tion, showed it would not be ; the sulphureous vitriolic 
 steams that issue from the pyrites which frequently, if 
 not always, accompanies pit coal ascending with the 
 flame and poisoning the ore." 
 
 But success was now near at hand. In 1692 a 
 company was incorporated for smelting lead with coal. 
 Leigh tolls us in his Natural History of Lancashire that 
 shortly before 1700 iron was being made "by means of 
 cakes of pit coal " (i.e. coke). And at nearly the same 
 time coal was successfully applied to the smelting of 
 both tin and copper. So that as the general introduc- 
 tion of coal for domestic purposes was the distinguish- 
 ing feature of the coal trade at the close of the sixteenth 
 century, its successful application to the smelting of 
 metalliferous ores may be regarded as marking another 
 epoch in the use of coal at the close of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INCREASE OF MINING DIFFICULTIES. IMPROVEMENTS 
 IN MINING APPLIANCES. INVENTION OF RAILWAYS. 
 
 " Mens agitat molem." 
 
 THE miners, no less than the smelters, had their 
 difficulties during the seventeenth century, but of a 
 totally different kind ; for while the latter were suffer- 
 ing from too little fire, the former were embarrassed by 
 too much water. So long as the demand for coal was 
 small, and supplies were obtainable from shallow mines 
 above the level of free-drainage, the mining of coal 
 had been comparatively easy. But about the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century, this happy state of matters 
 was coming to an end. A great demand for coal had 
 sprung up. Much of the most easily available coal had 
 already been exhausted. To carry the workings down 
 into the region below the level of free-drainage was at 
 this time deemed impracticable. To procure sufficient 
 coal from the previous sources was impossible. Hence 
 the exhaustion of the coal supply was considered to be 
 
CHAP, vi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 53 
 
 already within sight. In 1610, Sir George Selby in- 
 formed Parliament that the coal mines at Newcastle 
 would not last for the term of their leases of twenty- 
 one years. 
 
 It was at this period, when the coal trade was sup- 
 posed to be hastening to its close, that the real work 
 of mining coal only began. By the employment of 
 machinery for raising the water from the mines, which 
 now became general, the horizon of mining operations 
 was indefinitely extended. But the effectual drainage 
 of the mines was a work of the greatest difficulty, as is 
 sufficiently evidenced by the innumerable patents which 
 were taken out during the course of the century for 
 machines invented for the purpose. Indeed the seven- 
 teenth century may not inaptly be termed the wet 
 period of coal mining. 
 
 The improvements introduced into coal mining at 
 this time were due to a considerable extent to adven- 
 turers, who were attracted into the coal trade by the 
 increased importance now attaching to it, and by the 
 advance in the value of coal. Among these a gentle- 
 man named Beamont, or Beaumont, makes a prominent 
 figure, many new and ingenious contrivances being 
 introduced by him into the Newcastle-on-Tyne dis- 
 trict. The earliest historian of Newcastle, writing in 
 1649, refers to this matter in the following terms : 
 
 " Some south gentlemen have upon great hope of benefit come 
 into this country (i.e. district) to hazard their monies in coal 
 
54 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 pits. Master Beamont, a gentleman of great ingenuity and rare 
 parts, adventured into our mines with his thirty thousand pounds ; 
 who brought with him many rare engines not known then in 
 these parts : as the art to bore with iron rods to try the deep- 
 ness and thickness of the coal ; rare engines to draw water out 
 of the pits ; waggons with one horse to carry down coals from 
 the pits to the staiths at the river, &c. Within few years he 
 consumed all his money and rode home upon his light horse." 
 
 It has usually been supposed that the arrival of 
 Beamont with his " rare engines " took place shortly 
 before the above was written, but it has recently been 
 pointed out by Mr. Clephan, of Newcastle, that this 
 event must have occurred considerably earlier, in fact 
 near the commencement of the century, inasmuch as a 
 payment is recorded in the household books of Naworth 
 Castle for " a set of boring rods bought at Newcastle," 
 in July, 1618. Regarding this ingenious individual, 
 whose mining venture, though fraught with benefit to 
 the Newcastle-on-Tyne district, proved disastrous to 
 himself, we have no further information. Where he 
 obtained his superior knowledge of mining machinery 
 we can only conjecture. But as we find the engines 
 commonly used for raising water from the coal mines 
 during the seventeenth century to have been such as 
 had been known and used in the metalliferous mines 
 of the Continent during the previous century, it is 
 probable that he obtained some of his ideas at least 
 directly or indirectly from this source. He appears to 
 have been the discoverer of a new seam of coal which 
 
CHAP, vi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 55 
 
 bears the name of the " Beaumont " or " Engine 
 seam " to this day. 
 
 Among the engines applied to raise water from the 
 coal mines ' at this time were several forms of chain 
 pumps. One of these consisted of a chain to which 
 circular iron plates were attached at short intervals. 
 These plates in ascending travelled through a tube 
 which they exactly fitted, like so many pistons, thus 
 bearing the water before them. Sometimes a bunch 
 of rags was substituted for plates, when it took the 
 name of the " rag-and-chain pump." 
 
 A more important engine was the chain of buckets, 
 or Egyptian wheel, a machine which had been used in . 
 the East for ages for drawing water from deep wells. 
 The construction of this machine resembled that of the 
 modern dredger of which it was the prototype. 
 
 An Egyptian wheel was fitted up, about or before 
 the year 1600, by Sir George Bruce, to re-open the 
 colliery of Culross, in Perthshire, which had been 
 abandoned for some time. Sir George was famed for 
 his knowledge and great skill in machinery, "such 
 like," it is stated, " as no other man has in these days," 
 and he made his colliery at Culross the wonder of the 
 district, the workings being carried to a distance of a 
 mile underneath the Frith of Forth. The colliery had 
 two pits, or shafts, one of which was situated in a little 
 artificial island on the fore-shore near low-water mark. 
 The other pit was on the edge of the shore, and here 
 
56 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 was placed the engine which drew the water from the 
 mine. It was driven by three horses, and consisted of 
 an endless chain with thirty-six buckets attached to it, 
 of which eighteen were continually descending empty, 
 and eighteen ascending full of water. The buckets 
 filled themselves in the well at the bottom of the pit, 
 and emptied themselves into a trough at the top as 
 they passed over the axle-tree. 
 
 Tradition records that King James paid a visit to 
 Sir George Bruce in 1617, and went to see his won- 
 derful colliery. The royal party entered the mine by 
 the shaft on the land, and in returning were brought 
 up the other shaft on the island. The tide happened 
 to be high at the time, and the King, not knowing the 
 peculiar arrangement of the mine, on arriving at the 
 top and seeing himself surrounded by the waves, at 
 once suspected a plot on his life, and shouted 
 "Treason!" His host, however, instantly explained 
 the matter, pointing to a beautiful pinnace waiting to 
 take the party on shore, and the King's equanimity 
 was restored. 
 
 In the latter part of the seventeenth century chain 
 pumps driven by water-wheels were employed to drain 
 the principal collieries in the North of England, viz., 
 Heaton, Jesmond, and Ravensworth collieries, on the 
 Tyne, and Lumley Colliery on the Wear. In 1672 
 some of these collieries had attained to the depth of 
 forty fathoms. The water, however, was not raised 
 
CHAP, vi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 57 
 
 from this depth in one lift, but in several stages. Thus 
 at Ravensworth Colliery, the property of Sir Thomas 
 Liddell, the water engines of which were considered 
 to be the most remarkable in the North of England at 
 this time, the total depth was divided into three stages. 
 The water was raised each stage by means of a separate 
 engine and pit. Three water-wheels were required, all 
 driven by the same stream ; one being placed on high 
 pillars, the second on the surface of the ground, and 
 the third under the surface. The power to work the 
 second and third stages was transmitted from the 
 water-wheels by means of vertical shafting and wheel- 
 work placed in the respective pits. 
 
 At Lumley Colliery on the Wear, at the same period, 
 there were two of these engines (one of three stories, 
 and the other of two), which served to drain all the 
 pits within a radius of two or three miles. 
 
 Chain and bucket engines driven by water-wheels 
 were also commonly employed to drain the collieries in 
 the east of Scotland at this time. Many large artificial 
 ponds were constructed at great cost for supplying 
 water to these machines. 
 
 Where water-power could not be had smaller engines 
 of the same description were sometimes worked by 
 horses, but more commonly machines similar to those 
 employed in raising the coal were applied to raise the 
 water in barrels. The earliest form of horse engine, or 
 "gin," employed for raising both coals and water, 
 appears- to have been the " cog and rung gin," which 
 
58 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 was obviously only a windlass adapted to be worked by 
 horses, instead of by manual labour, by the addition of 
 a wheel and pinion arrangement. The horse travelled 
 round the pit mouth pulling a lever attached to a 
 vertical shaft, and the cogs, or teeth, of a horizontal 
 wheel on this shaft, worked in the rungs, or spokes, of 
 a small pinion on the windlass or drum shaft, thus 
 makiifg it to revolve in the required direction. 
 
 Recourse was still had to adits, or water-levels, to 
 drain off the water from mines situated on high ground, 
 and many long tunnels were driven for this purpose, at 
 great cost, in the latter part of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. "When they are by the side of a hill," says 
 Roger North, speaking of the Newcastle miners in 
 1676, "they drain by a level carried a mile under- 
 
 3und, and cut through rock to the value of 5,000/. or 
 6,000/." The same writer mentions among the "strange 
 histories" of the Newcastle coal works, an attempt 
 made by Sir Walter Blackett to cut into a hill for 
 purposes of drainage which was foiled by reason of the 
 drift penetrating a bed of soft clay. Sir Walter, he 
 tells us, " conquered all difficulties of stone and the 
 like till he came to clay, and that was too hard for him, 
 for no means of timber or walls would assist, but all 
 was crowded together. 1 In this work he lost 20,000/." 
 
 i The difficulty of penetrating horizontally through clay when hard 
 rock can be perforated with comparative ease has long been subject of 
 remark. Pliny was amused at the inability of the Spanish miners to 
 accomplish it. 
 
CHAP, vi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 59 
 
 In other parts of the kingdom in like manner 
 numbers of long water-levels were driven at this 
 period. The increasing length of the levels rendered 
 it necessary to introduce modifications in the "Laws 
 and Customs of the miners in the Forest of Dean." 
 Here in ancient times the bounds of a mine had been 
 fixed at the distance to which the miner could throw 
 the rubbish from his pit an arrangement which speaks 
 of a highly primitive stage of mining. Availing them- 
 selves of this ancient custom, when an adit was driven 
 other miners came and sunk pits so near to it as to rob 
 the drivers of the adit of much of the benefit of their 
 labour. It was therefore enacted by the " Mine Law 
 Court," in 1678, that no miner might sink a pit within 
 one hundred yards of an adit belonging to another man 
 without his consent. This distance was extended in 
 1692 to three hundred yards, and subsequently to one 
 thousand yards. 
 
 When it became necessary for the miners to seek for 
 coal at greater depths than formerly, it was of the 
 utmost consequence that they should obtain information 
 regarding the character of the strata beneath ; whether 
 any valuable coal existed, and at what depth ; or other- 
 wise their shafts might be sunk, and all their time and 
 labour expended in vain. To effect this bore-rods were 
 invented, an invaluable apparatus to which allusion 
 has already been made in connection with its introduc- 
 tion into the Newcastle-on-Tyne district by Beamont. 
 
60 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 By means of this ingenious contrivance holes a few 
 inches in diameter can be drilled to the depth of 
 hundreds of feet ; samples of the strata passed through 
 brought up ; and the depth, thickness, and quality 
 of coal seams ascertained at comparatively small cost. 
 
 This useful art was already widely known early in 
 the seventeenth century. It is alluded to, though in 
 somewhat vague terms, in Rovenzon's Metallica, pub- 
 lished in 1613. Bore-rods, as we have seen, were 
 purchased at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1618, by Lord 
 William Howard, of Naworth Castle ; and ten years 
 later we find the same nobleman sending a borer to 
 the Forest of Dean, to -assist his son-in-law, Sir John 
 Winter, in searching for coal there. In Warwickshire, 
 in 1623, the lessees of Bedworth coal-mines were pro- 
 hibited from boring any holes which might endanger 
 adjoining mines by flooding them with water let down 
 from the surface ; and in 1639 a series of borings were 
 made by one Thomas Wake in the neighbourhood of 
 Leeds. Borers of this name continued to practise 
 the art long subsequently in the Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 district. 
 
 References to boring operations are frequent during 
 the seventeenth century. They sometimes gave rise 
 to unexpected discoveries, as in Cheshire, where in 1670 
 a borer failed to find coal which he was searching for, 
 but discovered the existence of valuable deposits of 
 rock salt. 
 
CHAP, vi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 61 
 
 The application of gunpowder to the blasting of 
 rocks appears to belong to the same period as the 
 invention of . the boring apparatus. It was practised to 
 some extent in the metalliferous mines of Germany as 
 early as 1613, but did not come into use in England 
 till a later period. A method of blasting with gun- 
 powder was described in the Philosophical Transactions 
 in 1665. The first application of the process in Eng- 
 land' was at the Ecton Hill copper-mines, in Staf- 
 fordshire, about this time, where it was doubtless 
 introduced by the German miners employed. It came 
 into use in the lead mines of the Mendip Hills, Somer- 
 setshire, about 1683, up to which time fire-setting 1 
 had been the only means known there for breaking up 
 hard rock. Soon afterwards it began to be practised 
 in the metalliferous mines of other districts, but for a 
 long period the methods of stemming or plugging the 
 shot holes appear to have been very imperfect, and the 
 operation of firing the charge difficult and dangerous. 2 
 There is no mention of the use of gunpowder in coal 
 mines till a considerably later period. 
 
 1 The application of fire and vinegar to break up rock by expansion 
 and contraction was a very ancient process. It was employed by 
 Hannibal in making a road for his army across the Alps ; the work 
 being doubtless executed by his Spanish miners. 
 
 2 At a much later period (1758) we hear of an explosion of fire- 
 damp* being caused in a shaft at Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, sixty 
 yards deep, by the miners throwing down fire from the top to ignite a 
 charge of gunpowder. 
 
62 A HISTORY ON COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 The event, however, to which the greatest general 
 interest attaches in connection with the coal industry 
 at this period is the invention of railways. Unfortu- 
 nately no historian has left us an account of the first 
 introduction of this invention, which from a humble 
 beginning has risen to such extraordinary importance. 
 Neither the date of its first application, nor the name 
 of the inventor with whom the happy thought of the 
 wheel and rail adapted to each other originated, have 
 been handed down to us. Even the district where 
 railways first came into use is not altogether certain. 
 We know, however, that they were invented for the 
 conveyance of coal from the pits to the place of ship- 
 ment, and that they were in use shortly after the 
 middle of the seventeenth century in the North of 
 England, and in Shropshire about the same time. They 
 were for a long period constructed entirely of wood, 
 iron being then a material much too scarce and costly 
 to employ for such a purpose. 
 
 So long as the demand for coal was limited, and the 
 trade moderate in extent, the means employed for the 
 conveyance of ordinary articles had also sufficed for the 
 conveyance of coal. Up till the year 1600 no improve- 
 ment in this direction had taken place at the New- 
 castle collieries. A record of this date in the books of 
 the Hostmen's Company sets forth that " from time out 
 of mind it hath been accustomed that all coal wains 
 did usually carry and bring eight bolls of coals to the 
 
CHAP. VL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 65 
 
 staiths upon the river of Tyne " ; and the only other 
 means of conveyance referred to is " small panniers 
 holding two or three pecks apiece." The first notice of 
 any attempts to effect improvements occurs in the 
 account of the novelties introduced into the north by 
 Beamont, among which, as we have seen, were " wag- (/ 
 gons with one horse to carry down coals from the pits 
 to the staiths/'' It has been supposed that this passage ^^ 
 implies the use of railways, and that they were con- J : 
 sequently introduced by Beamont ; but if so it is 
 remarkable that no allusion is made to the circum- 
 stance either in this or in another passage by the same 
 writer where, in speaking of the large population 
 supported by the trade in coals, he tells us that " many 
 live by conveying them in waggons and wains to the 
 river Tyne." In the absence of direct evidence it is 
 therefore uncertain whether railways had come into 
 use in the north previous to the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, but immediately after this period we 
 meet with notices of them. Thus Mr. T. J. Taylor 
 cites a document, dated 1660, relating to the sale, 
 among other things, of certain "wood or timber laid 
 upon trenches, bridges, and waggon-ways, or unlaid 
 upon the same." It was some time after this, however, 
 before they came much into use. 
 
 Railways and waggons appear to have begun to be 
 used in leading coals from Sir Thomas Liddell's colliery 
 at Kavensworth to Team Staith in 1671. A few years 
 
64 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 later the new method of conveyance attracted the 
 attention of Roger North, who, writing in 1676, refers 
 to the subject in the following terms : 
 
 " Another thing that is remarkable [at the Newcastle collieries] 
 is their way-leaves, for when men have pieces of ground between 
 the colliery and the river, they sell leave to lead coals over their 
 ground, and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground will 
 expect 20Z. per annum for this leave. The manner of the 
 carriage is by laying rails of timber from the colliery down to 
 the river, exactly straight and parallel, and bulky carts are made 
 with four rowlets fitting these rails, whereby the carriage is so 
 easy that one horse will draw down four or five chaldrons of 
 coals, and is an immense benefit to coal merchants." 
 
 This account seems to indicate a considerable im- 
 provement upon the " waggons with one horse " above 
 referred to; the improvement being probably due to 
 the invention of the railway in the interim. 
 
 ^Before railways came into use a prodigious number 
 of carts and wains were required to carry the produce 
 of the Newcastle collieries to the shipping places on 
 the Tyne. The collieries of Kenton and Benwell each 
 employed from four to five hundred; and in 1690, 
 Whickham Colliery had no fewer than six hundred 
 wains in use leading coals to the river. 
 
 The Wear district soon followed the example of the 
 Tyne district in the adoption of railways; the new 
 method of conveyance being first applied there, in 
 1693, by Thomas Allan, Esq., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 
CHAP, vi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 65 
 
 the proprietor of Allan's Flatts Colliery, near Chester- 
 le-Street. 
 
 The history of the early use of railways in the ^ 
 coalfields of the South-west is even more obscure than 
 in the case of the North of England. When they 
 first came to be employed in Shropshire we have been 
 unable to discover. Professor Pepper, in his Play Book 
 of Metals, speaks of Coalbrookdale as being " cele- ,, 
 brated as the place where railroads formed of wood 
 were first used in the year 1620 and 1650," but 
 without adducing any evidence in support of the 
 statement. 
 
 They were introduced into South Wales by the 
 ingenious Sir Humphry Mackworth, who had one 
 already constructed at his colliery at Neath, in 
 Glamorganshire, in 1698. This railway, after being 
 about eight years in use, was declared by the grand 
 jury at Cardiff to be a nuisance, and a portion of it 
 crossing the highway between Cardiff and Neath was 
 torn up and the rails cut in pieces. In some evidence 
 brought forward (about 1706) to rebut the present- 
 ment of the Cardiff jury, it is set forth that 
 
 " These waggon-ways are very common and frequently made 
 use of about Newcastle, and also at Broseley, Benthal, and other 
 places in Shropshire, and are so far from being nuisances that 
 they have ever been esteemed very useful to preserve the roads, 
 which would be otherwise made very bad and deep by tho 
 carriage of coal in common waggons and carts. " 
 
 F 
 
66 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vi. 
 
 Not only had Sir Humphry Mack worth introduced 
 the most improved methods of conveyance for his 
 coal, but a number of other novelties were to be 
 found at his collieries and copper-works at Neath. 
 As early as 1698 he was employing coal in the 
 smelting of copper. He also had several schemes 
 for enlisting the force of the wind in his service, and 
 had invented "new sailing waggons for the cheap 
 carriage of his coal to the water-side, whereby one 
 horse does the work of ten at all times, but when 
 any wind is stirring one man and a small sail does 
 the work of twenty/' He had in like manner set 
 up "sailing engines," or wind-mills, for other pur- 
 poses. As Yalden says of him in his poem : 
 
 " The winds, thy slaves, their useful succour join, 
 Convey thy ore, and labour at thy mine." 
 
 But among the various productions of the genius 
 of Sir Humphry Mackworth, vastly the most important 
 in a mining point of view was "his new method of 
 coffering out the water from his shafts and sinking- 
 pits, and thereby preventing the charges of water- 
 engines." Waller tells us that by this means Sir 
 Humphry succeeded in recovering a large vein of 
 coal which had been in vain attempted by other 
 artists. This seems to be the earliest notice we 
 have of the invaluable process of damming out water 
 from coal-pits by means of a water-tight lining, termed 
 
CHAP, vi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 67 
 
 in the North of England lulling, from the circumstance 
 of its having originally consisted of a frame of wooden 
 staves like the sides of a tub. This excellent inven- 
 tion, already important at this time as the shafts were 
 becoming deeper, has become infinitely more so at 
 the present day. Indeed, without a system of keeping 
 the water out of the shafts in this way, the working 
 of deep seams of coal lying under very wet strata 
 would in many cases be altogether impracticable. 
 
 p 2 
 
68 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. VIL 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NOXIOUS GASES PREVALENT IN THE MINES. ACCIDENTS 
 OCCASIONED THEREBY. SMALL EXPLOSIONS OF FIRE- 
 DAMP BECOME FREQUENT. 
 
 A 
 
 " And oft a chilling damp or unctuous mist, 
 Loosed from the crumbling caverns, issues forth, 
 Stopping the springs of life .... 
 
 To cure this ill 
 
 A philosophic art is used to drain 
 
 The foul imprison'd air, and in its place 
 
 Purer convey." JAGO. 
 
 WHILST water was the chief enemy with which the 
 miners had to contend during the era under considera- 
 tion, it was not the only one. As the mine workings 
 receded further and further from the surface, the supply 
 of air arising from natural ventilation gradually ran 
 short, and noxious gases became a source of increasing 
 trouble and danger. 
 
 During the middle ages phenomena connected with 
 the atmosphere of mines which were beyond the com- 
 
CHAP, vii.} IN GREAT BRITAIN. 69 
 
 prehension of the miners were usually ascribed to the 
 supernatural agency of fairies and goblins, whose oppo- 
 sition was to be overcome by means of fasting and 
 prayer. Before the light of scientific investigation, 
 however, these ignorant and superstitious notions began 
 to give way. The subterranean spirits vanished into 
 air, or rather became metamorphosed into noxious 
 gases. The apparently altogether capricious pheno- 
 mena were demonstrated to be occasioned by purely 
 natural causes, and ventilation was found to produce a 
 more effective exorcism than the methods previously 
 adopted. During the seventeenth century nearly all 
 mines were more or less subject either to " choke-damp " 
 or suffocating gas, or to the still more perilous " fire- 
 damp " or explosive gas. 
 
 Of these choke-damp was at this time the most com- 
 mon, and was most troublesome in mines where fires 
 had existed, or where fire-setting was resorted to for 
 splitting the rocks, and in dry mines where there was 
 no laving, pumping, or drawing of water to set the air 
 in motion. On account of this gas some mines could 
 not be worked when the wind blew from certain 
 quarters, and hence it was said in these days that a 
 prudent collier " minds the wind." Before the miners 
 proceeded to work in pits where this gas was suspected 
 to be present, it was customary to try the air by first 
 lowering a dog down the shaft, which began to howl as 
 soon as it entered the choke-damp, or by lowering down 
 
70 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vn. 
 
 a light, which became extinguished if the gas were 
 present. 
 
 The usual method of procuring larger supplies of air 
 at this time, was to sink air-shafts for the purpose. At 
 Cheadle, in North Staffordshire, however, where fire- 
 setting was practised, the additional expedient of 
 placing a fire-lamp, or grate full of burning coals, in 
 the air-shaft to produce a circulation of air through the 
 workings to clear away the smoke and gases arising 
 from these fires, was resorted to previous to 1686 an 
 early example of artificial ventilation by means of fire 
 placed in the mine. 
 
 An accident which was probably due to the presence 
 of this gas occurred in the year 1662, when seven or 
 eight men and one woman were suffocated through 
 their going into an old working, or waste, in Lord 
 Sinclair's colliery at Dysart, in Fifeshire. 1 
 
 Though fire-damp, or explosive gas, is the peculiar 
 scourge of deep coal-mines, it has in many instances 
 been met with in dangerous quantity at very little 
 depth. In some cases it has even been known to come 
 quite up to the surface, as in the famous "burning 
 well" in Lancashire, once the wonder of the Wigan 
 
 1 The method of recovering asphyxiated colliers at this period was 
 curious. "The ordinary remedy," we are told, "is to dig a hole in 
 the earth, and lay them on their bellies, with their mouths in it ; if 
 that fail, they tun them full of good ale ; but if that fail, they conclude 
 them desperate." 
 
CHAP. VIL] IN GEEAT BKiTAIN. 71 
 
 neighbourhood, where the gas boiled up through the 
 water, and could be ignited and made to burn on the 
 top of it. 1 
 
 In the early part of the seventeenth century this gas 
 had already commenced to claim its victims. Perhaps 
 one of the first allusions to an accident from this cause 
 is that contained in the register of St. Mary's church, 
 Gateshead-on-Tyne, where, under date 14th October, 
 1621, is recorded the interment of "Richard Backas, 
 burn'd in a pit." 
 
 We next hear of fire-damp annoying the miners at the 
 ancient colliery of Mostyn, on the estuary of the Dee> 
 where it began to be met with about 1640. At this 
 period a seam of coal fifteen feet thick was sunk to 
 at a depth of twenty or thirty fathoms. When the coal 
 was first found it was extremely full of water, but as 
 the water drained off and the excavations receded from 
 the shaft, thereby causing the ventilation to become 
 weaker, fire-damp began to appear. At first the work- 
 men made sport of it, till one morning as a collier 
 entered his working place, where the gas happened to 
 be present in stronger force than usual, it exploded at 
 his candle and knocked him down, singeing all his hair 
 and clothes, and disabling him from working for 
 a while. 
 
 After receiving a few warnings of this kind, the 
 
 1 Another burning well is stated to have existed at Broseley, in 
 Shropshire. 
 
72 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vii. 
 
 miners deemed it necessary to adopt measures of pre- 
 caution, and for this purpose they selected one of their 
 number, more resolute than the rest, to go down a while 
 
 * before them every morning, to set fire to and explode 
 all the small accumulations of gas. Covering himself 
 with sackcloth saturated with water, this man (termed 
 the fireman) advanced towards the place where the fire- 
 damp existed, and creeping on his belly, held a long 
 pole before him with one or more lighted candles at its 
 end. This ignited the fire-damp and produced an ex- 
 plosion more or less violent according to the quantity 
 of gas accumulated. As the flame ran along the roof 
 the fireman lay flat on his belly till it passed over him. 
 When the operations of the fireman had been completed 
 the rest of the colliers entered the mine, and the motion 
 of the air caused by their working prevented the gas 
 from collecting during the day. After the works had 
 been more fully opened out, the fire-damp ceased to 
 annoy the miners at Mostyn for a long period. 
 
 As the seventeenth century advanced, difficulties with 
 fire-damp became great and general. It appears to have 
 
 * been about 1675 that explosions first began to become 
 alarmingly violent. At this period they did not yet 
 occasion much loss of life, but scorched and maimed the 
 colliers, and frequently issued with such force out of 
 the mouth of the pit as to blow away the winding-drum 
 placed over it. 
 
 About this time numerous explosions occurred in 
 
CHAP. VIL] IN GKEAT BRITAIN. 73 
 
 different parts of the kingdom. One happened at a 
 pit in Hasleberg-hills, by which a collier had his arms 
 and legs broken and his body all distorted. In the 
 summer of 1675 a pit at Wingersworth, near Chester- 
 field, fired four times within a few weeks, scorching and 
 otherwise injuring a collier each time. The pit was 
 about fifteen yards deep. One of the blasts shot off 
 the windlass at the mouth of the pit, and carried 
 small coals and rubbish to a considerable height into 
 the air. 
 
 In the same year the miners at Mostyn commenced 
 to open out a new seam of coal, which had been dis- 
 covered lying twenty yards below the one already 
 mentioned, when the fire-damp became a source of 
 much greater difficulty than before. On the 3rd of 
 February, 1675-6, it gave rise to an explosion of great L 
 fierceness, a graphic account of which, written by Mr. 
 Roger Mostyn, is preserved in the Philosophical Trans- 
 actions. One man was shot right out of the pit-mouth, 
 and the winding-drum at the top of the pit, weighing 
 1,000 Ibs., was blown off and torn in pieces. 
 
 It is evident from the observations of Roger North 
 that explosions were already well known in the North 
 of England collieries in 1676. With reference to noxious 
 gases in the mines, he tells us that 
 
 Damps or foul air kill insensibly ; sinking another pit that V 
 the air may not stagnate is an infallible remedy. They are 
 most affected in very hot weather. An infallible trial is by a 
 
74 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vn. 
 
 dog, and the candles show it. They seem to be heavy sulphurous 
 airs, not fit to breathe, and I have heard some say that they 
 would sometimes lie in the midst of a shaft and the bottom 
 be clear. The flame of a candle will not kindle them so soon 
 as the snuff, but they have been kindled by the striking fire with 
 a tool. 1 The blast is mighty violent, but men have been saved 
 by lying flat on their bellies." 
 
 At the same period fire-damp had become formidable 
 in the collieries near Mendip Hills, in Somersetshire. 
 An account written in 1681 states that "many men of 
 late years have been there killed, many others maimed 
 and burnt ; some have been blown up at the works' 
 mouth, the turn-beam which hangs over the shaft has 
 been thrown off its frame by the force of it." 
 
 In the collieries of Scotland fire-damp was more rare, 
 but was not unknown. The trouble which it occasioned 
 was assigned as one of the causes for abandoning a 
 colliery on the Frith of Forth previous to 1672. 
 
 During the seventeenth century many under-ground 
 fires occurred, particularly in Staffordshire, where they 
 were so common as to excite comparatively little anxiety. 
 These fires were sometimes attributed to the malice or 
 carelessness of the colliers; but the liability of some 
 coals to ignite spontaneously was now well known. Fires 
 from this cause had occurred above-ground also, both 
 
 1 Another writer of this period mentions that fire-damp had been 
 kindled in some places ' ' by the motion of the sled in which they draw 
 their coals." 
 
CHAP. VIL] IN GKEAT BRITAIN. 75 
 
 on the staiths at Newcastle and on the wharves at 
 London. Coals containing pyrites (termed metal coals) 
 were peculiarly liable to ignition in this way. Dr. 
 Power mentions an instance which occurred at Ealand, 
 in Yorkshire, where a person had collected many cart- 
 loads of this pyrites for some private purpose of his 
 own. The roof of the place where they were stored 
 being faulty and admitting rain-water to fall copiously 
 in among them, they began to smoke and then took 
 fire and burnt like red-hot coals, " so that the town 
 was in an uproar about the quenching of them." 
 
76 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vm. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 INADEQUACY OF THE WATER-RAISING MACHINERY. 
 INVENTION OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 
 
 u It is a giant with one idea." 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 IN the beginning of the eighteenth century the 
 / common depth of the mine shafts in the North of 
 England was from twenty to thirty fathoms, but a 
 few had attained to depths of fifty or sixty fathoms. 
 The deeper shafts were already entering the drier 
 region below the zone of watery strata (which 
 usually extends to a depth varying from fifty to a 
 hundred fathoms from the surface), where difficulties 
 with water begin to grow less, while difficulties 
 with fire-damp increase in magnitude. In these 
 deeper shafts the process of tubbing out the water 
 by means of water-tight timber frames could already 
 be practised with considerable success; but in the 
 great majority of cases water continued to harass 
 
CHAP, viii.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 77 
 
 or even altogether baffle the miners : sometimes 
 preventing them from reaching the coal in spite 
 of all their arts, or entailing a ruinous expense 
 in carrying on the collieries, so much so as in some 
 instances to occasion their abandonment. 
 
 The chain of buckets was soon found to be in- 
 adequate to meet the ever-increasing wants of the 
 miners. Without water-power to drive these engines 
 they were of little use; and even where this was 
 available, this kind of machine was open to many 
 serious objections. The wear and tear was excessive ; 
 between vibration of the chains and leakage, half 
 of the contents of the buckets was spilled before they 
 arrived at the top; water was constantly pouring 
 down the pit like a deluge; and when a bolt broke 
 the whole set of chains and buckets fell to the 
 bottom with a most tremendous crash, and every 
 bucket was splintered into a thousand pieces. 
 
 Hence a widely-felt want existed for a suitable 
 machine to raise the water from the mines. In the 
 year 1708 a plan was projected in Scotland for 
 draining collieries by means of windmills and pumps, 
 but so backward was the state of engineering art 
 in the country that no person was known compe- 
 tent to put the scheme into execution except one 
 John Young, a millwright of Montrose, who had 
 been sent to Holland at the expense of the town to 
 inspect the machinery there. It was suggested 
 
 
78 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vm. 
 
 that if the services of this person could not be 
 obtained advice on the matter should be sought 
 from the Mechanical Priest of Lancashire. Wind- 
 mills were erected at several collieries, but though 
 they were powerful their action was found to be 
 too intermittent ; the mines being drowned and all 
 the workmen thrown idle during long periods of 
 calm weather. 
 
 Pumps, however, being free from many of the 
 defects of the chains of buckets, began to be sub- 
 stituted for them. We find the Earl of Mar, pro- 
 prietor of Alloa Collieries in Clackmannanshire, 
 having his water-engines altered in this way in 
 1710, on the recommendation of Mr. George Soro- 
 could, an eminent engineer from Derby, whom he 
 had called in to report on this and other matters 
 connected with the machinery at his collieries. The 
 alteration was found to effect a great improvement. 
 
 But the points where water-power could be obtained 
 to drain the mines were comparatively few, and 
 windmills, as we have seen, could not be relied 
 upon; hence in far the most cases horse-power 
 had to be employed, the water being drawn in 
 barrels by means of a gin of the same description 
 as that employed in drawing the coals. This power 
 was capable of universal application, but it was of 
 a limited and expensive character. In some instances 
 as many as fifty horses were employed in raising 
 
CHAP. VIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 79 
 
 water at a single colliery. Many good mines were 
 allowed to lie unwrought and drowned, it being 
 found impracticable to drain them by means of any 
 machine then known. 
 
 Captain Savery was at this time making efforts 
 to get his " engine for raising water by fire " intro- 
 duced as a mine-draining engine. In the description 
 of his engine entitled The Miner's Friend, published 
 in 1702, he expresses himself in very sanguine terms 
 regarding the benefits which the miners might derive 
 from its adoption, not doubting, he says, but that 
 in a few years it would be the means of doubling, 
 if not trebling, the importance of the mining industry. 
 Not only was his engine to free the mines from 
 water, but also from "damps," or noxious gases. In 
 applying the engine in a mine it was necessary to 
 place it in the shaft within twenty-six or twenty- ^ 
 eight feet of the level of the water to be raised, a 
 circumstance which Savery proposed to take ad- 
 vantage of by employing the furnace and chimney 
 of his engine to ventilate the mine. 
 
 But Savery's engine was wholly unsuited for 
 draining mines, and he failed to induce the miners 
 to take it up. The greatest height to which it could 
 raise water with safety was not more than sixty or 
 eighty feet, so that for one of the deeper mines of 
 this period five or six engines would have been, 
 required to raise the water stage by stage. 
 
80 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vm. 
 
 In addition to this there was constant danger of 
 the boiler bursting, on account of its not being pro- 
 vided with any kind of safety-valve. Moreover the 
 miners in some districts were as yet afraid to intro- 
 duce furnaces into their shafts, on account of the 
 dread of their giving rise to explosions of fire-damp. 
 Commenting on the engine for raising water by fire, 
 which he had heard of, the author of the Compleat 
 Collier (a treatise on mining in the Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne district, published in 1708) remarks that he 
 fears few in the northern collieries would venture to 
 try it, "because nature doth generally afford us too 
 much sulpherous matter, to bring more fire within 
 these our deep bowels of the earth, so that we judge 
 cool inventions of suction or force would be safest 
 and best for this our concern, if any such could be 
 found that would do so much better and with more 
 expedition than what is done generally here." 
 
 It was at this juncture that the miners had put 
 into their hands the most wonderful invention which 
 human ingenuity had yet produced the Newcomen 
 steam-engine, commonly called the " atmospheric 
 engine " ; a machine capable of draining with ease 
 the deepest mines ; applicable anywhere ; requiring 
 little or no attention; so docile that its movements 
 might be governed by the strength of a child ; so 
 powerful that it could put forth the strength of hun- 
 dreds of horses ; so safe that, to quote the words of a 
 
CHAP, viii.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 81 
 
 contemporary writer, "the utmost damage that can 
 come to it, is its standing still for want of fire." 
 
 Soon after the discovery of the pressure of the 
 atmosphere, and the invention of the air-pump, it 
 became evident to philosophers that if a means 
 could be devised to produce a vacuum under a piston 
 sliding in a cylinder, the pressure of the atmosphere 
 might be brought into play as a useful motive power. 
 Huyghens ^endeavoured to effect this, about 1679, by 
 employing gunpowder to expel the air from the 
 cylinder. Papin, in 1690, suggested the use of steam 
 in lieu of gunpowder, but did not get beyond the 
 experimental stage of raising the steam in the cylinder 
 itself by the application of fire to it. To Newcomen, 
 of Dartmouth, in Devon, assisted by an associate 
 named Cawley, of the same place, belongs the honour 
 of perfecting the mechanism which had previously 
 existed only in a rudimentary form. By supplying 
 the cylinder with steam from a separate boiler, and 
 adding numerous highly ingenious devices, by which 
 the engine was made self-acting, Newcomen suc- 
 ceeded in inventing, about the year 1710, an engine 
 of vast power and utility an engine which " produced 
 a new era in the mining and commercial interests of 
 Britain, and as it were in an instant put every coal- 
 field which was considered as lost within the grasp 
 of its owner." 
 
 ' Newcomen applied his engine to actuate a common 
 
 G 
 
|U 82 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. vm. 
 
 /sp- 
 litting or suction pump. His first engine was built 
 at a colliery near Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire, in 
 1712, and so rapidly was the invention adopted by 
 - the miners, that within the space of a few years engines 
 were built in all the principal mining districts through- 
 out the kingdom. Three were erected at collieries 
 in the North of England about 1713 14, viz., one in 
 the Wear district and two on the Tyne ; another was 
 built at Austhorpe, in Yorkshire, about 1714 ; and pre- 
 
 ''* vious to 1720, engines had been erected at collieries 
 in Scotland, at Whitehaven in Cumberland, in 
 Warwickshire, and in North Wales. 
 
 The great superiority of Newcomen's engine over 
 horses, in point of economy, is well illustrated by the 
 account of the performance of an engine at Griff 
 I Colliery, in Warwickshire, which Dr. Desaguliers in- 
 forms us " did discharge as much water as did before 
 employ fifty horses, at an expense not less than 
 900Z. a year; whereas the fire, in coals, attendance, 
 and repairs, did never cost more than 150. a year in 
 this engine." Thus the water-charge at Griff was 
 reduced to one-sixth of its previous amount. 
 
 But apart from the economy attending its use, the 
 great value of the steam-engine lay in the fact that 
 the miners now had in their possession a machine 
 powerful enough to command the water in their 
 deepest mines; the thing which, of all others, they 
 were at this time most in want of. 
 
CHAP, ix.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 83 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 STATE OF MINING AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. FIKST GREAT EXPLOSIONS 
 IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND COLLIERIES. 
 
 " A narrow pass 
 
 Once made, wide and more wide the gloomy cave 
 Stretches its vaulted sides, by numerous hands 
 Hourly extended. Some the pickaxe ply, 
 Loos'ning the quarry from its native bed ; 
 Some heave it to th' expectant scale, that waits 
 With never-ceasing motion from above 
 To waft it to the light." JAGO. 
 
 THOUGH the Newcastle-on-Tyne district was the 
 great centre of the coal-mining industry, and the 
 Tyne and Wear together exported 650,000 tons of 
 coal annually at the commencement of the eighteenth 
 century, the art of mining even here was still only 
 in an elementary state. 
 
 The shafts (which in this district are invariably 
 circular in form) were at this time made seven or 
 eight feet in diameter, and their maximum depth was 
 
 a 2 
 
84 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. ix. 
 
 about sixty fathoms. The coals were drawn up the 
 shafts in corves, or circular baskets made of hazel 
 twigs, having a wooden low, or handle, by which they 
 were attached to the hook at the end of the rope. 
 Each basket carried about 4| cwts. of coal. For the 
 deeper pits an output of twenty-one scores of such 
 baskets, or about ninety tons, was considered a good 
 day's work. A gin, worked by two horses at a time, 
 was used for raising the coals ; and four shifts, or 
 relays, of horses were required to carry on the work. 
 The ropes were of hemp, and about three inches in 
 circumference. 
 
 In addition to the " cog and rung gin," already 
 mentioned, another and more commodious form of 
 horse-engine, named the "whim gin," came into use. 
 In this case the drum, or rope-roll, was removed from 
 the pit mouth, and placed upon a vertical axis a short 
 distance off; the ropes being conducted therefrom to 
 pulleys fixed on a timber frame erected over the pit. 
 The horse-track, or " gin-race," instead of being round 
 the pit as formerly, was round the axis of the drum. 
 This arrangement was a superior one in many re- 
 spects. The pit mouth was left freer from obstruction ; 
 the diameter of the drum could be enlarged without 
 inconvenience ; and the number of horses applied to 
 the levers could be increased as required. 
 
 Underground the baskets of coal were conveyed on 
 sledges, or trams, dragged along the barrow-way by 
 
CHAP, ix.] IN GREAT BEITAIN. 85 
 
 two or three persons (the barrow-men, or coal-putters), 
 horses not having yet been introduced into the mines. 
 In consequence of the difficulties connected with 
 underground conveyance and ventilation, the area 
 worked from each shaft was extremely limited; the 
 coal lying within a radius of two hundred yards in 
 all directions from the shaft being considered a 
 sufficient extent to be worked by one pit. 
 
 A superior method of underground conveyance was 
 in use at Madeley and other places in Shropshire, 
 where access was obtained to the workings by means 
 of "day-levels," or adits. Advantage was taken of 
 this circumstance to employ small carriages with four 
 wheels (of about twelve inches diameter), in which 
 the coals were conveyed not only along the under- 
 ground passages of the mines, but even to the boats 
 lying in the Severn : a sight which the Rev. Francis 
 Brokesby tells us, in a letter dated 1711, he had 
 been very much pleased to see some years before. 
 
 The system of working coal in the North of Eng^ 
 land appears from time immemorial to have been to 
 excavate only a certain portion of the seam, leaving 
 the remainder to support the superincumbent strata. 
 This is commonly known as the lord and pillar 
 system. The " bords," or main excavations, are .driven 
 in parallel lines across the planes of cleavage of the 
 seam (on account of the coal being worked most 
 easily in this direction), and of a width of three, 
 
88 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. ix. 
 
 four, or five yards, according to the character of the 
 roof of the mine. Between these bords, walls or 
 ribs of coal are left, more or less thick according to 
 the depth of the mine and consequent weight of the 
 strata resting upon the coal ; while narrow excava- 
 t tions (about two yards in width), termed " headways," 
 are driven at intervals through the walls to connect 
 the bords with each other for purposes of haulage 
 and ventilation; the effect of the narrow excavations 
 being to cut the walls into a series of pillars of a 
 square or oblong form. In the deeper pits, at this 
 period, it was customary to make the bords three 
 yards wide, and the walls or ribs of coal four yards 
 wide ; so that more than one-half of the coal was 
 permanently sacrificed to support the surface. 
 
 In Shropshire, and some other counties, a totally 
 different method of working came into use. This 
 consisted in removing the whole of the seam or vein 
 of coal as the workings advanced from the shaft, the 
 space previously occupied by the coal being partially 
 or wholly packed or plugged up by refuse or pillars 
 built of stones, while the roadways are preserved by 
 means of walls of stones built on both sides. This 
 system of working, sometimes designated " the Shrop- 
 shire method," is more commonly known as the long 
 wall system. It is akin to that pursued in working 
 metalliferous veins, from which doubtless the principle 
 was derived. 
 
CHAP, ix.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 87 
 
 Between the extreme types of bord and pillar and 
 long wall, many intermediate methods of working 
 were adopted in different districts, usually with a 
 view to meet peculiar local conditions. 
 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century little 
 or no improvement had been effected in the ventila- 
 tion of coal-mines. Even in the North of England 
 no artificial system of ventilation had yet been insti- 
 tuted, though steps were already taken to guide the 
 air-current arising from natural ventilation into such 
 parts of the mine as were actually in work ; it being 
 prevented from dispersing itself irregularly by means 
 of checks termed " stoppings," which were placed in 
 the excavated passages where necessary. But the 
 only means employed to produce a circulation of air 
 was to sink another pit before the workings advanced 
 too far; " which, if happily done by the daily care, 
 prudence, and orders of the viewer," says the author 
 of the Compleat Collier, " and his drift to the new 
 pit carried on so exactly as to hit the new shaft 
 and supply her with air, then has he evidenced both 
 his care and parts, and well deserved his 15s. or 20s. 
 per week, or more, as he has pits to look after." 
 
 It was at this period in the history of coal-mining, 
 when the pits had reached a depth of about sixty 
 fathoms, and entered the drier region, already re- 
 ferred to, where the fissures which had previously 
 been filled with water or choke-damp were now 
 
88 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. ix. 
 
 charged with fire-damp instead, that we begin to 
 meet with accounts of great colliery explosions. 
 
 The first of these calamities in the collieries on 
 the Tyne occurred in a pit near Gateshead, on the 
 3rd or 4th of October, 1705, and occasioned the loss 
 of over thirty lives. The pit was upwards of sixty 
 fathoms in depth, yet so fierce was the blast that 
 six individuals (including one woman) are stated to 
 have been blown out of its mouth. The parish 
 register of Gateshead contains a record of the inter- 
 ments of the unhappy victims of this early explosion, 
 the melancholy list being headed by the words, 
 " These were slain in a coal-pit in the Stony Flat, 
 which did fire." 
 
 Only a few years later the mining community in 
 the north was startled by a still more dreadful ex- 
 plosion at Fatfield Colliery, near Chester-le-Street, 
 on the river Wear. This accident occurred at three 
 o'clock in the morning on the 18th of August, 1708. 
 The fire discharged itself at the mouths of three 
 shafts " with as great a noise as the firing of cannons, 
 or the loudest claps of thunder," and sixty-nine per- 
 sons were instantly destroyed. Three persons, viz. 
 two men and one woman, were blown out of a 
 shaft fifty-seven fathoms deep, and carried a con- 
 siderable distance from its mouth. An account of 
 this explosion was communicated to the Royal Society 
 at the time, and published in the Philosophical 
 
CHAP, ix.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 89 
 
 Transactions. After describing the dangers arising 
 from choke-damp and fire-damp, the narrator (the 
 Kev. Dr. Arthur Charlett, Master of University 
 College, Oxford) continues as follows: 
 
 "To prevent both these inconveniences, as the only remedy 
 known here, the viewer of the works takes the best care he can 
 to preserve a free current of air through all the works, and as 
 the air goes down one pit [the 'downcast'] it should ascend 
 another [the 'upcast']. But it happened in this colliery, that 
 there was a pit which stood in an eddy, where the air had 
 not always a free passage, and which in hot and sultry weather 
 was very much subject to sulphur ; x and it being then the 
 middle of August, and some danger apprehended from the close- 
 ness and heat of the season, the men were with the greatest care 
 and caution withdrawn from their work in that pit, and turned 
 into another ; but an overman, some days after this change, and 
 upon some notion of his own, being induced, as is supposed, by 
 a fresh, cool, frosty breeze of wind, which blew that unlucky 
 morning, and which always clears the works of all sulphur, had 
 gone too near this pit, and had met the sulphur justjas it was 
 purging and dispersing itself, upon which the sulphur imme- 
 diately took fire by his candle, which proved the destruction of 
 himself and so many men, and caused the greatest fire ever 
 known in these parts." 
 
 It was at this colliery that endeavours to produce 
 artificial ventilation by means of fire-lamps, or fur- 
 naces, were first made in the North of England, in 
 the year 1732. Soon afterwards these appliances 
 came into use in the collieries on the Tyne. Thus 
 
 1 I.e. fire-damp. 
 
90 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. ix. 
 
 in a report on Byker Colliery, near Newcastle, dated 
 1740, the viewers employed set forth that " this 
 colliery will be attended with difficulties occasioned 
 by the great quantity of sulphur ; but from expe- 
 rience we find, by using a fire-lamp to rarefy and 
 put the air in motion, hath removed almost all 
 difficulties in that way." 
 
 In connection with the above-mentioned explosions 
 we have perhaps the only notices of the employment 
 of females underground in the pits of the Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne district ; but in many of the other coal-fields 
 they continued to be employed in the mines long 
 afterwards. 
 
CHAP, x.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 91 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE COAL TRADE OF THE WEST COAST. WHITEHAVEN 
 MINES. CARLISLE AND JAMES SPEDDING. INVEN- 
 TION OF THE STEEL MILL, AND COURSING THE 
 AIR. 
 
 " Where late along the naked strand, 
 The fisher's cot did lonely stand, 
 And his poor bark unshelterM lay, 
 Of every swelling surge the prey, 
 Now lofty piers their arms extend, 
 And with their strong embraces bend 
 Round crowded fleets." 
 
 DR. DALTON. 
 
 WHILE the coal trade had attained to large dimensions 
 on the Tyne and the Frith of Forth, in consequence 
 of the great quantities of coal required for the supply 
 of London and the towns on the coast, as well as for 
 exportation to the Continent, the trade on the west 
 coast was still inconsiderable. As early as the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century a small export 
 trade was being carried on from Swansea and Milford ; 
 the port of Chester (which included the collieries on 
 
92 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. x. 
 
 the estuary of the Dee) ; also from Liverpool and 
 some points of Cumberland ; but the quantities shipped 
 were as yet insignificant. The demand for coal for 
 Ireland increased, however, during this century; the 
 supply being chiefly drawn from Mostyn and other 
 collieries on the Dee, and in the latter part of the 
 century also from Whitehaven. At the same time 
 the export of coal had commenced from the port of 
 Irvine, in Ayrshire, but the primitive character of 
 the trade may be inferred from the manner in which 
 it was carried on. A large horn was kept in readiness 
 fixed to a post on the quay by an iron chain, and 
 when coal boats arrived the fact was announced by 
 blowing the horn ; upon which signal the country 
 people proceeded to load their coal ponies and carried 
 down to the harbour the quantities of coal required. 
 
 In the early part of the eighteenth century the 
 Whitehaven coal trade underwent a great development. 
 This town and harbour owe their existence entirely 
 to the coal trade. In the time of Queen Elizabeth 
 Whitehaven consisted of six fishing cabins, and 
 possessed only one small boat (of nine tons), called 
 the Bee of Whitehaven, which carried herrings to 
 Liverpool and Chester and brought back cattle. The 
 working of coal for local requirements, in the land 
 which had previously belonged to the dissolved 
 monastery of St. Bees, was already going on during 
 this reign; but it was not until Whitehaven came 
 
CHAP, x.] IN GREAT BKITAIN. 93 
 
 into the possession of the Lowther family (early in 
 the seventeenth century) that the systematic develop- 
 ment of the mines and the exportation of coal 
 commenced. Up till about 1700 the supply of coal 
 was obtained by means of day-levels, or adits, but 
 at this period a thicker and much superior sean 
 coal (the Main Seam) was discovered at a depth v of 
 about twenty fathoms. To work this new sea\n pits 
 were sunk at a place subsequently known as ^Qj^Q^ 
 Gins"; it being so termed from the number of "^s 
 horse-gins employed in freeing the pits from water. 
 
 Sir James Lowther, who succeeded his father in 
 1706, being desirous to improve the working of his 
 collieries, selected as his engineer a promising youth 
 named Carlisle Spedding, fourth son of the principal 
 steward of the Lowther estates. Tradition records 
 that previous to entering on his duties at Whitehaven, 
 Spedding was sent incognito to Newcastle-on-Tyne by 
 Sir James, to acquire a knowledge of the methods 
 of mining pursued in that district. Here, under a 
 fictitious name, he obtained employment in the pits 
 as a hewer, or hagger, of coal, making in the mean- 
 while all the inquiries and discoveries he could relative 
 to the colliery operations. After continuing in this 
 capacity for a considerable time, Spedding, who was 
 then known by the name of " Dan," had the misfortune 
 to be burnt by the fire-damp, whereupon a message 
 was sent to Newcastle to procure the best medical 
 
94 A HISTOEY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. x. 
 
 assistance possible in order to recover him. The 
 extraordinary attention paid to a person in the 
 apparent situation of Spedding by such eminent 
 medical practitioners led to the discovery of his true 
 character and motives ; accordingly after his recovery, 
 having already accomplished to a large extent the 
 object of his mission, he returned to Whitehaven and 
 set about the improvement of the collieries. 
 
 Spedding entered upon the management of the 
 pits at Whitehaven about the year 1718. The build- 
 ing of a steam-engine (or fire-engine as it was then 
 termed) in this year, at a pit in "The Gins," is 
 supposed to have been one of the first acts of his 
 administration. This proved a most decided success, 
 and at once got rid of the expensive and inefficient 
 horse-machines previously employed in draining the 
 mines. 
 
 Being endowed with great ingenuity and originality, 
 he soon began to frame comprehensive schemes for 
 carrying on the collieries. At a place called Saltom 
 on the sea shore, half a mile distant from " The Gins," 
 he made a boring, and ascertained the Main Seam 
 of coal to exist there in perfection at a depth of 
 about eighty fathoms. Here he proposed to Sir James 
 Lowther to sink a pit and erect a steam-engine which 
 would drain many hundred acres of coal under the 
 land and an unknown extent under the sea. 
 
 The sinking at Saltom was the most remarkable 
 
CHAP, x.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 95 
 
 colliery enterprise of its day. It was commenced in 
 1729 within twenty yards of high-water mark. The 
 shaft was made oval in form, ten feet by eight feet, 
 in order to admit of pumping and winding being both 
 carried on in it. At a depth of forty-two fathoms 
 the miners pricked a small bed of black stone six 
 inches in thickness, and full of fissures, overlying a 
 seam of coal two feet thick. Contrary to expectation 
 very little water was found at this point, but instead 
 of this a " blower " or strong discharge of fire-damp 
 came off, " which bubbled through a small quantity 
 of water then spread over that part of the pit, and 
 made a great hissing noise." On a candle being held 
 towards it the gas ignited, and burned fiercely on the 
 top of the water. This appears to have been the first 
 encounter with fire-damp at the Whitehaven collieries. 
 The " blower " having been lighted and extinguished 
 several times, and being found to give off an unin- 
 terrupted flow of gas, all lights were excluded from 
 the pit till it was sunk quite through the bed of stone 
 and coal, when a tight framing of timber was con- 
 structed to dam back the gas out of the pit: a small 
 pipe, two inches square, being led to the [surface from 
 behind the framing, which carried off the gas to the 
 open air. 
 
 The sinking at Saltom when completed answered 
 to the full the expectations anticipated from it. A 
 number of other pits were sunk in the tract of coal 
 
96 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. x. 
 
 thus drained, by which the output of the colliery was 
 largely increased. 
 
 Under Spedding's able management the coal work- 
 ings at Whitehaven were carried to a much greater 
 depth than had hitherto been attained in any other 
 part of the kingdom, having reached during his term 
 of office a vertical depth of 130 fathoms. The drainage 
 of the mines was effected with little difficulty by 
 means of four Newcomen steam-engines ; but the 
 great abundance of fire-damp was a source of much 
 embarrassment, and occasioned many accidents. The 
 accident attended with the greatest loss of life appears 
 to be that which occurred at the Corpsill pit on the 
 5th of August, 1737, at four o'clock in the morning, 
 when twenty-two people and three horses were killed 
 by a " Great Fire-damp." 
 
 No artificial means were employed to produce a 
 ventilating current at Whitehaven, but the mines were 
 unusually favourably situated for obtaining the full 
 advantage of natural ventilation, there being numerous 
 openings to the surface at different altitudes. Not- 
 withstanding this, but for the devices contrived by 
 Spedding for combating the fire-damp, the working 
 of the mines could not have been carried on. The 
 expedient adopted with the blower of gas in the 
 Saltom pit was carried out in other similar cases. 
 Careful search was made for crevices which gave off 
 gas, and such places were dammed off and the discharge 
 
CHAP, x.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 97 
 
 of gas carried in pipes to the surface. Such a pipe 
 was conveyed into the laboratory of Dr. Brownrigg, 
 who made many experiments with the gas thus 
 obtained, and also employed it as a substitute for 
 fire in chemical operations. Spedding even proposed 
 to the town authorities to carry pipes to different 
 parts of the town, and light up the streets at night 
 with the natural gas evolved from the mines ; but the 
 project does not appear to have gone beyond a proposal, 
 probably owing to the illuminating power of the gas 
 being low, and its discharge somewhat fluctuating. 
 
 But Spedding' s name is most widely known in 
 connection with the novel method of lighting dan- 
 gerous parts of mines introduced by him. Observing 
 the low inflammability of fire-damp, which though at 
 once kindled by flame is much less readily ignited in 
 any other way, he invented a small machine called 
 the steel mill, in which, on a handle being turned, a 
 thin disc of steel five or six inches in diameter is 
 made to rotate with great velocity ; and on a piece 
 of flint being applied to the edge of the revolving 
 disc a continuous flow of brilliant sparks is emitted, 
 sufficient to enable the miners to carry on their work 
 in places where the use of candles could on no account 
 be allowed. As early as 1733 flint and steel were 
 being used at Whitehaven, though it is doubtful 
 whether the steel mill had been invented at this date. 
 In his description of the Whitehaven mines, written 
 
 H 
 
98 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. s. 
 
 twenty years later (about 1753), in which Speckling 
 is referred to under the name of Prospero, Dr. Dalton 
 poetically describes it as 
 
 u That strange spark-emitting wheel 
 Which, formed by Prospero's magic care, 
 Plays harmless in the sulphurous air, 
 Without a flame diffuses light, 
 And makes the grisly cavern bright." 
 
 Spedding also appears to have been among the 
 first to employ gunpowder for blasting purposes in 
 coal-mines. It is improbable that this agent was 
 applied at this time in the work of getting the coal ; 
 but Dr. Dalton alludes to the " nitrous blast " severing 
 the rock in the cutting of drifts across faults, or 
 dislocations, of the strata. 
 
 Spedding introduced at Whitehaven the wooden 
 railways he had seen at Newcastle-on-Tyne ; the first 
 being constructed between the Parker pit and the 
 harbour (a distance of half a mile) about 1738. 
 
 The coals were drawn from the pits by means of 
 horse-gins, the work being carried on night and day. 
 From the greater depths they were raised in several 
 stages, by underground gins and blind pits, or staples, 
 from one seam to another. 
 
 Already in Spedding's time the coal workings had 
 been carried to a considerable distance under the sea. 
 " Sir James's riches," says Sir John Clerk, in a letter 
 dated 1739, "in part swim over his head, for ships 
 
CHAP, x.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 99 
 
 pass daily above the very ground where his colliers 
 work." 
 
 In the year 1755 Whitehaven lost both Sir James 
 Lowther and Carlisle Spedding. The latter, after 
 conducting the collieries with wonderful ability and 
 energy during the long period of thirty-seven years, 
 had the misfortune to fall a victim to the fire-damp, 
 to disarm which he had laboured so diligently. He 
 was killed by F an explosion in the above year, while 
 underground discharging his duties in the mines. 
 
 Within a few years after the death of Carlisle 
 Spedding, a great improvement in the method of 
 ventilating coal-mines was introduced by his son, 
 James Spedding, who succeeded to the management 
 of the collieries belonging to the Lowther family on the 
 death of his father. The elder Spedding, in common 
 with his contemporaries, directed the ventilating cur- 
 rent specially towards such parts of the mines as were 
 in course of being worked, to the neglect of the portions 
 already excavated and abandoned. This early system 
 of ventilating is termed face airing, on account of the 
 air being carried along the front or "face" of the 
 solid coal, where the miners were immediately at 
 work. It was open to the fatal objection that many 
 vacant unventilated spaces were left, in which the 
 noxious gases unobserved and unsuspected might 
 " . ... train their dread artillery," 
 
 H2 
 
100 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. x. 
 
 ready, under altered conditions of the atmospheric 
 pressure, to steal out upon the miners' lights and in 
 an instant carry death and destruction through the' 
 colliery. 
 
 The improved system, first introduced about 1760 
 in a colliery at Workington (where were situated some 
 recently opened mines belonging to the Lowther 
 family), consisted in forming the whole of the excavated 
 part of the mine into one vast labyrinth, or pipe, 
 by means of doors and stoppings, thus compelling the 
 ventilating current to sweep through every passage 
 of the mine on its way between the downcast and 
 upcast pits. This system is technically termed coursing 
 the air. 
 
 Possibly James Spedding may have been incited to 
 set about improving the ventilation of collieries from 
 the fact that the steel mill was already ascertained 
 to be not altogether safe to work with. Previous to 
 1765 it was known at Whitehaven to have been the 
 cause of several explosions ; but it continued to be 
 extensively used long afterwards, many being quite 
 unaware of the danger connected with it. 
 
CHAP, xi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 101 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 REVIVAL OF THE IRON TRADE. GREAT BUILDING 
 OF STEAM-ENGINES IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 
 INCREASING DEPTH OF THE PITS. VARIOUS AP- 
 PLIANCES FOR VENTILATING THE MINES. EXPLO- 
 SIONS OF FREQUENT OCCURRENCE. 
 
 IN the early half of the eighteenth century the 
 iron trade of Britain was at an extremely low ebb. 
 The charcoal iron manufacture was fast dying out 
 for want of fuel ; the manufacture of iron with coke 
 or coal was yet only in its infancy. The total make 
 of pig-iron in England in 1740 is set down at 
 17,350 tons. 
 
 It is generally agreed that the first notable revival 
 of the iron trade took place at Coalbrookdale Foundry, 
 in Shropshire, but a considerable discrepancy prevails 
 as to the precise date when charcoal was superseded 
 by coal fuel in the smelting operations. It appears 
 that the manufacture of iron with coal (or coke) 
 commenced here in the time of the first Abraham 
 
m 
 
 -^7 frr, 
 
 102 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XL 
 
 ".' *'. JDarb^'^6- -settled at Coalbrookdale in 1709 and 
 ; : ,^ died., is. .17.1 7. .Charcoal was employed in the blast 
 : '* ; furnace : whiil^Darby first began operations, but soon 
 afterwards coke was used according to Scrivenor in 
 1713 the fuel employed in smelting a charge of 
 ore consisting of five baskets of coke, two of brays 
 or small coke, and one of peat. The quantity of 
 iron produced at this period, however, was insigni- 
 ficant, only reaching from five to ten tons per week, 
 and it was not until long subsequently that the 
 production of pit-coal iron at Coalbrookdale assumed 
 
 y importance. The second period appears to date 
 from 1730-5, about which time a more powerful 
 blast was obtained by the erection of a Newcomen 
 steam-engine to provide an increased supply of water 
 for driving the blast water-wheel. 
 
 For a long period Coalbrookdale Foundry con- 
 tinued one of the principal seats of the pit-coal iron 
 industry, but the success achieved here led to the 
 establishment of many new iron-works in different 
 parts of the kingdom for the manufacture of iron 
 by the same process. The greater abundance and 
 cheapness of iron* which ensued led to a rapid 
 extension of its use. 
 
 Not only were the Coalbrookdale Company the 
 first to manufacture iron with coal on a large scale, 
 but they took the lead in promoting the more general 
 use of cast-iron as a substitute for wood and other 
 

 CHAP. XL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 103 
 
 materials. It being contrary to the principles of the 
 Darbys, as members of the Society of Friends, to 
 accept contracts, however lucrative, for the manufac- 
 ture of engines of war, this firm developed the 
 application of iron in the arts of peace. Hence, 
 while the proprietors of the great foundry at Carron 
 became celebrated for their Carronades or "smashers," 
 the Coalbrookdale firm are famous as the construc- 
 tors of the first iron railways and the builders of 
 the first iron bridge; and their foundry became the 
 great emporium for cast-iron cylinders for steam- 
 engines, cast-iron pipes for mine-pumps, and useful 
 articles of all descriptions made of the same material. 
 
 About the year 1740 a commencement had already 
 been made to use cast-iron cylinders in steam-engines 
 (all the earlier cylinders having been made of brass), 
 and there is little doubt that the facility with which 
 large iron cylinders could from this time be obtained 
 helped on to a great extent the marked increase 
 in the building of steam-engines which took place 
 shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Prominent among the builders of engines, as well 
 as in promoting other improvements in the me- 
 chanical engineering of collieries in the Newcastle-on- V 
 Tyne district at this period, was ^illiam Brown, an 
 eminent colliery viewer. Brown was brougnT up at 
 Throckley, a village situated about six miles west of 
 Newcastle, and was of an aspiring mind and endowed 
 
104 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XL 
 
 with much natural ability. The means of acquiring 
 a knowledge of the various branches of colliery work 
 were few at this time, but by dint of careful obser- 
 vation and making the most of such opportunities 
 as he had, Brown was already possessed of superior 
 attainments at an early period of his life, and sub- 
 sequently succeeded in raising himself to the first 
 position among the colliery viewers of his day. 
 
 At the outset of his career he had the good fortune 
 to be taken by the hand by Mr. Bell, a gentleman 
 living in the neighbourhood, who leased Throckley 
 Colliery, and appointed him manager, with a hand- 
 some salary and one-fourth share of the colliery. On 
 obtaining this position, in 1756, Brown immediately 
 proceeded to erect a steam-engine at the colliery ; 
 and no sooner had he shown his engine-building 
 capabilities at Throckley, than his services were in 
 great request for the building of engines to drain 
 other collieries in the district. In the two following 
 years he built six more engines at different collieries ; 
 and in the short space of ten years after commencing 
 practice he had fitted up no fewer than twenty-one 
 steam-engines, including three at collieries in Scotland. 
 Subsequently he built several others. 
 
 In the meantime other engineers had in like 
 manner been actively engaged in erecting engines at 
 collieries in the Newcastle-on-Tyne district ; so much 
 so, that from a list of these machines preserved in 
 
I 
 
 CHAP. XL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 105 
 
 Mr. Brown's books, dated 1769, we find that nearly 
 one hundred had then been built at the northern 
 collieries. 
 
 The most remarkable engine and pumping estab- 
 lishment of this period was at the new colliery of 1A 
 Walker-on-Tyne, recently sunk to the Main Coal 
 seam at a depth of one hundred fathoms the 
 greatest depth yet reached in the Newcastle district. 
 Considering the date of its erection (1763), the engine 
 at Walker was of colossal proportions, its cylinder 
 (brought from Coalbrookdale Foundry) being seventy- 
 four inches in diameter and ten and a-half feet in 
 length. To supply it with steam four large boilers 
 were provided, three of which were always in use. 
 All the pipes in the shaft were made of cast-iron. 
 This engine was pronounced " the most complete and 
 aoble piece of iron-work that had up to this time 
 been produced." 
 
 The increasing depth of the pits in the North of 
 England necessitated a number of alterations in the 
 methods of conducting the colliery operations. The 
 sinkings, or " winnings," being more tedious and 
 costly, fewer shafts were employed and a larger area 
 was worked by each establishment. The shafts 
 themselves also were, made larger, to admit of both 
 pumping and winding being carried on, as well as 
 to allow of the employment of larger coal-baskets. 
 
106 A HISTOEY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XL 
 
 Sometimes, but rarely, they were made oval in form ; 
 usually they were circular, and of a diameter of ten 
 or twelve feet. 
 
 To compensate for the greater distances over which 
 coal had to be conveyed underground, wooden rail- 
 ways, resembling those on the surface, were introduced 
 into the mines ; and horses were applied on the 
 main underground roads to haul four-wheeled trams 
 carrying one or two baskets of coal. 
 
 As the shafts became fewer and deeper, the 
 difficulties arising from the abundance of fire-damp 
 became more and more formidable, and various mea- 
 sures were resorted to, to promote the safety of the 
 collieries. Stoppings of a more substantial character, 
 built of brick and lime, were employed to guide 
 the ventilating current ; being first used at Fatfield 
 Colliery, on the Wear, in 1754. At the same colliery, 
 in 1763, after an explosion by which seventeen per- 
 sons were killed, steel mills brought from Whitehaven 
 were used for the first time in the Newcastle district ; 
 and the system of ventilating by " coursing the air " 
 was introduced here about the same time. 
 
 Various methods were now in use for producing 
 artificial ventilation : the ordinary arrangement con- 
 sisting in the employment of a fire-lamp or small 
 furnace to rarefy the air in the upcast shaft. Some- 
 times, however, the furnace was placed on the surface, 
 at the bottom of a tall chimney communicating with 
 
CHAP. XL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 107 
 
 the upcast ; an arrangement applied in the North of 
 England for the first time in 1756, at North Biddick 
 Colliery. \J 
 
 At Walker Colliery a different system was pursued, 
 two rotating mechanical ventilators, worked by the 
 steam-engine by means of a train of wheel-work, 
 being employed to produce an air-current as early 
 as 1769. This was the first colliery on the Tyne in 
 which the system of coursing the air was adopted. 
 
 Notwithstanding the endeavours which were being 
 made to place the collieries on a safer footing, by 
 employing artificial means to produce a steady air- 
 current to dilute and sweep away the fire-damp, by 
 building more substantial stoppings and coursing the 
 air through all the workings, and by substituting 
 steel mills for candles, explosions took place in one 
 colliery after another, sometimes two or three occur- 
 ring in a single year. The best means known being 
 ineffectual to prevent these calamities, allusions to 
 them by the public press were regarded with dis- 
 pleasure. Commenting on this matter, the Newcastle 
 Journal, under date 21st March, 1767, makes the 
 following observations : 
 
 " As so many deplorable accidents have lately happened in 
 collieries, it certainly claims the attention of coalowners to 
 make provision for the distressed widows and fatherless chil- 
 dren occasioned by these mines, as the catastrophes from foul 
 air become more common than ever. Yet, as we have been 
 
108 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XL 
 
 requested to take no particular notice of these things, which, in 
 fact, could have very little good tendency, we drop the further 
 mentioning of it." 
 
 So far from being able to cope with the fierce and 
 invisible enemy with which they were brought face 
 to face, the viewers themselves at times fell victims 
 to the fiery blasts which devastated the mines. 
 
CHAP. XIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 109 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 FIRST EMPLOYMENT OF IRON IN RAILWAY CONSTRUC- 
 TION. THE STEAM-ENGINE INDIRECTLY APPLIED TO 
 DRAW THE COALS OUT OF THE PITS THROUGH 
 THE MEDIUM OF WATER-WHEELS. CURR'S IMPROVE- 
 MENTS IN SHAFT FITTINGS AND UNDERGROUND 
 CONVEYANCE. 
 
 RAILWAYS were now in use in many of the coal- 
 fields, but this system of conveyance had received its 
 greatest development in the Newcastle-on-Tyne dis- 
 trict, where, all the collieries were connected by rail 
 with their shipping places on the Tyne or Wear. 
 An inadequate idea of the character of the railways 
 of this period has been entertained by many writers 
 who have referred to them. This appears to have 
 originated in the remarks of Arthur Young, who, in 
 the account of his northern tour in 1768, states that 
 "the coal- waggon roads, from the pits to the water, 
 are great works, carried over all sorts of inequalities 
 of ground." From this casual description it seems to 
 
110 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xn. 
 
 have been inferred that the railways followed the 
 undulations of the ground. Such, however, was by 
 no means the case. 
 
 A very exact account of the manner of construct- 
 ing railways in the North of England, in 1765, is given 
 by an intelligent French traveller, M. Jars, who terms 
 them nouvelles routes. In order to facilitate the con- 
 veyance of the loaded waggons, the railways were laid 
 off as much as possible with a uniform descent to- 
 wards the depots at the river ; great expense being 
 incurred to accomplish this desirable arrangement. 
 Oak sleepers, from four to eight inches square, were 
 placed at distances of two or three feet from each 
 other, and to these the rails, six or seven inches 
 broad by four or five inches thick, and sawn truly 
 square, were secured by means of wooden pins. The 
 ordinary gauge of the rails was about four feet. Some 
 of the railways were nine or ten miles in length, 
 and served to convey the coal from several collieries. 
 These early railways were of the "edge rail," or 
 modern type, the flanges being upon the wheels of 
 the waggons. 
 
 Up till the year 1767 all the railways in the 
 kingdom were constructed wholly of wood, with the 
 exception of the employment of small bands of iron 
 to strengthen the joints of the rails. But wooden 
 rails were liable to rapid deterioration, and the de- 
 mand for iron at Coalbrookdale happening to be slack 
 
CHAP. XIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. Ill 
 
 in this year, it occurred to Richard Reynolds, one 
 of the partners, that rails of cast-iron might be 
 employed with advantage. A small quantity were 
 accordingly cast as an experiment. They were four 
 inches in breadth, an inch and a-quarter in thickness, 
 and four feet in length, and were laid upon and 
 secured to the previously existing wooden .rails. 
 They were found to improve the railway so much 
 that the same course was pursued with all the 
 railways at the works. Between this period and the 
 end of the eighteenth century considerable progress 
 was made in the substitution of iron for wood in 
 railway construction. 
 
 While the application of the Newcomen steam- 
 engine to work the pumps had afforded a satisfactory 
 solution of the problem of raising water from the 
 collieries, no adequate machinery had yet been in- 
 vented for drawing the coal out of the deeper pits 
 now being sunk. At Walker Colliery, alike the \ 
 deepest and most important in the North of England 
 at this time, a machine worked by eight horses was 
 employed in the work. The horses were kept at a 
 sharp trot, and a large horizontal wheel was used to 
 give greater velocity to the drum or rope -roll ; but 
 all the machine could do was to bring up a load of 
 6 cwts. of coal from a depth of 100 fathoms in two 
 minutes. 
 
112 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP.XII. 
 
 An attempt made at Hartley Colliery to apply the 
 steam-engine to this work attracted considerable at- 
 tention at the time. The arrangement was patented 
 -M by a Mr. Joseph Oxley, in 1763, and the first machine 
 was built at Hartley in the same year. A second 
 and improved one was fitted up at the same place 
 in 1765, which raised coal at the rate of a basket 
 a minute, and was for a short time regarded as the 
 greatest improvement in the coal trade since the in- 
 vention of the steam-engine. The machine, however, 
 was subject to frequent breakages. The celebrated 
 James Watt, who went to see it in 1768, speaks of 
 it as performing its work sluggishly and irregularly, 
 having no fly-wheel. 
 
 The steam-engine being at this period only a single- 
 acting machine, was ill-adapted for producing an even 
 rotative motion directly. The attempts to use its 
 power indirectly in raising coal were more successful. 
 One of the earliest arrangements to effect this the 
 invention of Mr. Michael Menzies was applied at 
 Chatershaugh Colliery, on the Wear, in 1753. The 
 j^ basket of coals was raised by the descent of a bucket 
 of water, a steam-engine being employed to re-pump 
 the water to the surface. By this means a basket 
 containing 5J cwts. of coal was drawn from a depth 
 of fifty fathoms in two minutes. An arrangement 
 on the same principle, known as the balance-tub 
 system, was subsequently largely employed, more 
 
CHAP. XIL] IN GKEAT BRITAIN. 113 
 
 especially in collieries where the water used in 
 raising the coals could be run off by an adit 
 without requiring to be pumped up again. 
 
 The most approved method, however, and the one 
 which came into most general use at the deeper 
 collieries, consisted in applying the steam-engine to 
 raise water into elevated cisterns for driving water- 
 wheels, by means of which the coals were drawn. 
 Double water-wheels, with their buckets arranged in 
 reverse order, had been in use at the Alloa Collieries, 
 on the Frith of Forth, since the beginning of the 
 century. The introduction of these machines, as well 
 as the construction of large reservoirs to provide 
 a supply of water for the engines at this colliery 
 establishment, was probably due to Sorocould, as they 
 appear to date from the time of his visit to Alloa. 
 It is stated that Mr. Brown, of Throckley, when at 
 Alloa, in 1774, was so much struck with the double 
 water-wheel that he made a drawing of it, and on 
 his return home designed one on the same principle 
 to suit the deep pits at Newcastle. But the idea of 
 employing water-wheels for drawing coal had already 
 begun to receive attention, and in this same year 
 we find Smeaton erecting one at Sir Roger Newdi- ^ 
 gate's Colliery, at Griff, in Warwickshire, for this 
 purpose. To economise water, Smeaton employed a 
 single water-wheel which always travelled in the 
 same direction, the reversing of the drum being 
 
 I 
 
114 A HISTOKY OF COAL MINING [CHAP.XII. 
 
 effected by means of gearing ; but, owing to its 
 greater simplicity, the double - bucket wheel was 
 almost universally adopted. 
 
 In the above cases natural supplies of water were 
 available, but so simple, so powerful, and so easily 
 managed was the water-wheel that it soon became 
 apparent that it afforded the best medium for draw- 
 ing coals yet invented, even in situations where 
 steam-engines might be required to provide a supply 
 of water. Among Smeaton's Reports is a "Compara- 
 tive estimate of drawing coals by horses, or by a 
 coal-engine worked by water supplied by a fire- 
 engine." It is dated 14th August, 1776, and shows 
 a considerable saving by the latter method. In the 
 following year Smeaton designed a " water coal gin " 
 of the above description for the Prosperous Pit, at 
 Long Benton Colliery, near Newcastle. It was found 
 to be a great improvement on the horse-gin pre- 
 viously in use, doing the work of sixteen horses and 
 four men, and drawing a basket carrying 6J cwt. of 
 coal from a depth of 82 fathoms in two minutes. 
 Mr. Brown had been engaged at the same time in 
 the construction of a similar machine for the colliery 
 recently opened out by him and the Bell family at 
 Willington. It was started in November, 1778, and 
 " exceeded the most sanguine expectations," uniformly 
 drawing thirty 6-cwt. baskets an hour from a depth 
 of 101 fathoms. 
 
CHAP. XIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 115 
 
 These machines came rapidly into use at all the 
 deeper collieries in the North of England, and to a 
 smaller extent in other parts of the kingdom. For a 
 period of nearly twenty years they were the most 
 efficient means known for drawing coal from great 
 depths. But on the expiration of the patent for the 
 application of the crank to the steam-engine, in the As 
 year 1794, the facility with which Watt's double-acting ^ 
 steam-engine could be applied directly to the drum 
 shaft caused it rapidly to supersede all other methods. 
 The use of water-wheels went out as quickly as it 
 came in, and the drawing of the coal out of the pits 
 was added to the duties already performed by the 
 steam-engine. 
 
 Reference has been made to the introduction of 
 wooden railways underground in the North of England 
 collieries to expedite the conveyance of coal between 
 the faces, or hewers' working places, and the shaft 
 bottom, and to the employment of horses on the main 
 roads. The barrowmen, or putters, brought single 
 baskets from the face to the horse station, where by 
 means of a crane they were lifted upon a large tram, 
 or rolley, carrying two or three baskets, on which 
 they were conveyed to the pit bottom. Here they 
 were hooked on to the rope by the corf-bow and 
 swung up the shaft to the surface. The damage 
 occasioned by the baskets striking against each other, 
 
 I 2 
 
116 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP.XII. 
 
 or against the sides of the pit, during their passage 
 up and down, had been a source of inconvenience 
 from a very early period, but had not been so much 
 felt while the winding was carried on by horse-gins 
 at a slow rate. To lessen the force of collision between 
 the ascending and descending baskets in passing, 
 Smeaton introduced a self-acting arrangement in his 
 water-gins whereby the speed was momentarily 
 reduced at this point. 
 
 While the above system was being pursued in the 
 collieries of the North of England, an entirely 
 different and in some respects superior arrangement 
 had been invented and applied by Mr. John Curr at 
 
 the Duke of Norfolk's collieries at Sheffield. Mr. Curr 
 
 PW . 
 
 belonged to the North of England, having been brought 
 
 r^ up at Pontop Pike, near Tanfield, in Durham. He 
 
 Ua went to the Duke of Norfolk's collieries in a subor- 
 
 Y dinate capacity, but was subsequently intrusted with 
 
 their entire management, when he introduced a series 
 
 of improvements in the mechanical arrangements 
 
 which exhibited a remarkable degree of ingenuity 
 
 and originality. 
 
 The most notable of these consisted in the sub- 
 stitution of cast-iron rails for wooden ones, both 
 underground and on the surface (introduced by him 
 in 1776) ; the employment of small carriages with 
 four wheels in which the coals were conveyed direct 
 from the faces to the pit bottom ; the application of 
 
CHAP. XIL] IN GKEAT BRITAIN. 117 
 
 guides, or conductors, in the shaft, which enabled the 
 carriages to be raised to the surface at a high speed 
 without any danger of collision; and the use of flat 
 ropes instead of round ones to ease the load upon 
 the winding engine. 
 
 Mr. Curr's rails were of the plate rail or tram \ 
 plate form, and were six feet long, three inches . \-i 
 broad on the trod, and half an inch thick. The A^ 
 margin or flange was two inches higher than the 
 plate. 
 
 The carriages held five and a half or six hundred- 
 weight of coal, and were provided with wheels from 
 ten to thirteen inches in diameter. The flange being 
 transferred to the rails, the carriage wheels were made 
 plain and with a narrow periphery to lessen friction. 
 Coupling-chains were provided for attaching the 
 carriages together, thus enabling a horse to haul a 
 train of ten or twelve at a time. 
 
 The conductors, or guides, consisted of two or three 
 continuous wooden rails, or rods, four inches by three, 
 secured on opposite sides of the pit. At the rope 
 ends cross-bars were provided, fitted with rollers at 
 their extremities which ran upon the conductors, and 
 below these the carriages were suspended. On arriving 
 at the surface the carriage was raised a little distance 
 above the mouth of the pit, when a wooden platform 
 or trap-door was introduced beneath it, on to which 
 
118 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xn. 
 
 its wheels were lowered. It was then detached from 
 the rope and run off, and an empty carriage having 
 been substituted for it and raised so as to admit of 
 the platform being withdrawn, the winding recom- 
 menced; the speed of winding being as much as 
 seventy fathoms in half a minute. 
 
 As the depth of the mines increased, the weight of 
 the ropes employed in raising the coals became of 
 itself a considerable load upon the winding machine. 
 In addition to the weight of coals, the engine had to 
 raise the weight of the whole length of rope hanging 
 in the pit at the commencement of its run, the other 
 rope at this point being wound upon the drum and 
 rendering no assistance. Several expedients to counter- 
 act this were brought forward in the latter part of 
 the eighteenth century. Smeaton applied conical 
 drums ; others used counterbalance weights of various 
 kinds. With the same object Mr. Curr invented the flat 
 rope. It consisted of several small round ropes stitched 
 together, and was made to lap upon itself in winding. 
 Thus at the commencement of a run the loaded rope 
 began to coil upon a small diameter gradually 
 increasing, while the empty rope began to coil off 
 a large diameter gradually decreasing an arrange- 
 ment which rendered great assistance to the winding 
 engine. 
 
 A number of other improvements were introduced 
 
CHAP, xii. 1 IN GKEAT BRITAIN. 119 
 
 by Mr. Curr at the collieries under his care. Among 
 these was the use of self-acting incline planes, whereby 
 a train of full carriages in descending was made to 
 pull up an empty train at the same time, the two 
 being connected by means of a rope passing round a 
 sheave, or pulley-wheel, at the top. By the employ- 
 ment of cast-iron rails these incline planes could be 
 employed whenever the fall of the road amounted to 
 three inches per yard. 
 
 Mr. Curr's improvements were a great step in the 
 direction of modern arrangements. His rails and flat 
 ropes soon came into general use throughout the 
 kingdom; but his shaft fittings were not sufficiently 
 matured to admit of their introduction into the 
 deeper mines, though they answered the purpose 
 remarkably well in the shallow collieries about 
 Sheffield, and other parts in the south. 
 
 The introduction of Mr. Curr's cast-iron rails (or 
 plates as they were termed) underground relieved 
 enormously the slavish labour of the barrow-men, or 
 coal-putters, who conveyed the coal between the 
 working places and the horse roads. It would appear 
 from the following stanzas that the improvement was 
 received with much gratitude : 
 
 " But heavy puttin' 's now forgotten 
 Sic as we had i' former days ; 
 Ower holey thill an' dylls a-splittin', 
 Trams now a-run on metal ways. 
 
120 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP.XII. 
 
 " God bless the man in peace and plenty 
 That first invented metal plates ; 
 Draw out his years to five times twenty, 
 Then slide him through the heavenly gates. 
 
 " For if the human frame to spare 
 Frae toil an' pain ayont conceiving 
 Hae aught to dae wi' gettin' there, 
 Fm sure he maun gan' strite to heaven." 
 
. .-- 
 CHAP.XIIL] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 121 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GKEAT DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN OPENING OUT THE 
 FAMOUS WALLSEND COLLIERY. JOHN BUDDLE, SENR. 
 CAST-IRON TUBBING. 
 
 IN the district situated between the town of Newcastle 
 and the mouth of the River Tyne, there lay a tract 
 of land beneath which existed an important seam of 
 coal known as the "Main Coal," the peculiar excel- 
 lence of which for household purposes rendered it the 
 most valuable seam in the Great Northern Coal-field 
 at this epoch. The tract in question locally termed 
 "the Tyne basin" being intersected by the River 
 Tyne, presented unusual facilities for the shipment of 
 coals; but the depth of the seam from the surface 
 had hitherto operated to retard its development. 
 
 Near the centre of this tract stood the village of 
 
 Wallsend (so named from its position at the eastern 
 
 end of the Roman Wall), in the vicinity of which the 
 
 opening out of the famous Wallsend Colliery was 
 
 ^commenced in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
 
122 A HISTOKY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xra. 
 
 Though this colliery eventually became exceedingly 
 prosperous and profitable, and the excellent quality of 
 its coal led to the name " Wallsend " being adopted 
 as a password by other collieries, the winning of the 
 pits proved one of the most arduous mining enterprises 
 which had up to this time been attempted. Difficulties 
 arising from quicksands, water, and inflammable gas, 
 taxed to the utmost the arts of the miners, and 
 occasioned numerous disasters during the infancy of 
 the colliery. 
 
 Sinking operations were commenced at Wallsend in 
 1778, but the first pit was lost in a quicksand. A 
 second attempt narrowly escaped the same fate; but 
 by means of successive tiers of piles the shaft was 
 carried through the sand, though its diameter was 
 reduced in the process to five feet eleven inches. Two 
 shafts the A pit and the B pit, the latter being nine 
 feet in diameter were at length carried down to the 
 seam at a depth of about one hundred fathoms, and the 
 working of coal began in 1781. 
 
 Pumping engines were applied in both pits, but they 
 were of inadequate power; a circumstance which, 
 aggravated as it was by great abundance of fire-damp 
 met with, caused the greatest difficulty to be expe- 
 rienced in carrying on the colliery. In October, 1783, 
 a " blower " of fire-damp ignited at the candle of a 
 hewer, who fled precipitately without attempting to 
 extinguish the flaming gas. The overman made a 
 
CHAP. XIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 123 
 
 courageous attempt to reach the seat of the fire, but 
 was overpowered by the smoke and noxious gases and 
 suffocated ; and it having become evident that the coal 
 itself had been set on fire, the burning district was 
 flooded with water in order to extinguish it. 
 
 The above accident did not long delay the colliery 
 operations, but two years later an explosion occurred 
 which entailed a long series of disasters. On the 9th 
 of October, 1785, the discharge of fire-damp so over- 
 loaded the ventilating current as to raise it to the 
 firing point, when it ignited at the ventilating furnace 
 and produced a severe " blast " in the upcast, or B pit. 
 Fortunately the few men who were in the mine at the 
 time were occupied at the bottom of the other pit, and 
 succeeded in escaping to the surface without serious 
 injury; but the woodwork supporting the pumps in 
 the B pit was blown out, and the coal at the pit bottom 
 set on fire, so that it became necessary to seal up the 
 mouths of the pits, and to flood the workings with water 
 a second time in order to extinguish it. 
 
 The pits remained covered up till the 2nd of 
 November, when three men descended the B pit to 
 examine the state of the shaft by the light of a steel 
 mill; but no sooner had they reached a depth of 
 seventy fathoms from the surface than an explosion 
 took place which killed the whole of the exploring 
 party. Up till >this time implicit reliance had been 
 placed in the safety of the steel mill by the Wallsend 
 
124 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP, xm. 
 
 miners, in consequence of which this explosion caused 
 great consternation. The use of the instrument, 
 however, was continued, and the repairs in the shaft 
 were proceeded with by its light. 
 
 On the llth of November, while the engine-wright 
 and an assistant were engaged in changing a bucket in 
 the A pit by the light of a steel mill, another explosion 
 occurred which killed both, and occasioned a great 
 panic. Still the mill was scarcely suspected, the 
 pitmen preferring to imagine that the explosion 
 originated from fire in the workings under water, or 
 some other mysterious cause. Its use was accordingly 
 continued in executing the repairs in the B pit till the 
 21st of December, when another explosion occurred, by 
 which the overman and a sinker who were at work in 
 the shaft were both killed. 
 
 This accident shook the confidence of the miners in 
 the mill to such a degree that for some time they dared 
 not venture to employ it, preferring to work by such 
 other feeble light as they could obtain. The daylight 
 received from above being dim and imperfect, fish 
 in a phosphorescent state and various preparations 
 of phosphorus were tried, but with little benefit. 
 Another method, accidentally discovered, afforded 
 material service. It happened that a carpenter 
 engaged upon some work at the top of the pit in 
 which he made use of a bright new hand-saw, turned 
 the blade to such an angle as to throw a flash of light 
 
CHAP. XIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 125 
 
 down the pit. The sudden gleam so alarmed the men 
 below, who thought the pit had fired, that they 
 demanded to be drawn to the top with all speed. The 
 discovery of the cause of the alarm led to the employ- 
 ment of a mirror at the top of the pit, which proved 
 of great service during periods of sunshine. 
 
 The progress of restoring the colliery, however, being 
 slow and tedious, the season being the depth of winter, 
 the steel mill began again to be partially used ; but on 
 the 14th of February, 1786, another explosion took 
 place in the B pit by which three men were severely 
 burnt. The mill was in consequence once more thrown 
 into discredit, and the work proceeded very much in 
 the dark. None but the most intrepid colliers would 
 venture down the pit. Two men descended at a time 
 in a sinking corve, with a rope round their bodies to 
 attach them to the chain. They grubbed about and 
 filled the corve with their hands as well as they could, 
 and then returned to the top with it. This trip 
 constituted their shift, for which they were paid 5s. each 
 with a pour boire into the bargain. 
 
 By continuous struggles in this manner the pits were 
 at length cleared, and the water lowered sufficiently to 
 allow a current of air to pass between the pits, after 
 which the operations for restoring the colliery to 
 working order went forward more briskly. The steel 
 mill was again introduced as the only light available 
 underground, and all went well till the 9th of June, 
 
126 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xm. 
 
 1786, when an explosion took place in the workings 
 near the bottom of the A pit. This explosion did not 
 kill any of the workmen who were in the pit at the 
 time, and was distinctly ascertained to have been 
 occasioned by a spark from a steel mill. The over- 
 man was " playing " the mill at the moment, and saw 
 the gas igniting at the sparks which it produced. The 
 explosion did little damage beyond paralysing the 
 exertions of the workmen for a time. Work, however, 
 was soon resumed, and on the 19th of July, 1786, the 
 drawing of coal was again commenced at the A pit 
 after a cessation of upwards of nine months. 
 
 In the meantime the repairs in the B pit were 
 continued till the 3rd of November, when another 
 explosion occurred by which six lives were lost. The 
 men were engaged in making a communication between 
 the two pits, and were under the necessity of working 
 among inflammable gas. Having no alternative but to 
 use the steel mill or to work in absolute darkness they 
 preferred the former course, but the result proved fatal 
 to them. The excavation was subsequently effected 
 without light of any kind, and bore the name of the 
 "Dark Wall" ever after. The repairs to the B pit 
 were completed, and work again resumed on the 7th of 
 January, 1787, the ventilation being improved by 
 placing a powerful furnace at the shaft bottom and 
 other measures. 
 
 The foregoing and one or two accidents which 
 
CHAP. XIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 127 
 
 subsequently occurred pointed to the necessity of having 
 additional shafts, the sinking of which was accordingly 
 proceeded with ; and after the G and D pits came into 
 operation, in 1790, the colliery was carried on with 
 great success, and no more fatal accidents occurred for a 
 considerable number of years. 
 
 Shortly after this period (about the year 1792) John 
 Buddie, senr., father of the celebrated John Buddie, 
 entered upon the management of Wallsend Colliery, 
 which soon became the most important colliery on the 
 River Tyne. Comparatively little appears to be known 
 regarding the elder Buddie. He is stated to have been 
 a person of great intelligence, and possessed of consider- 
 able literary and scientific attainments. He took delight 
 in solving mathematical and scientific problems, and 
 kept up a correspondence with Hutton, Emerson, and 
 others, on subjects in which they took a common 
 interest. He was a frequent contributor to the Ladies' 
 and Gentlemen's Diaries, and from a mathematical 
 question propounded by him in the latter periodical we 
 learn that he was born in the year 1743. In early life 
 he resided at Chester-le-Street, the centre of the 
 mining district of the River Wear, where for some time 
 he held the position of schoolmaster. From thence he 
 removed to Kyo, a small village near Tanfield, and here 
 his son John was born in 1773. We are unable to state 
 the precise date at which the elder Buddie abandoned 
 the " delightful task," for the more arduous but more 
 
128 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xni. 
 
 remunerative profession of colliery viewer, but it must 
 have occurred several years subsequent to the birth of 
 his son, inasmuch as the only regular schooling young 
 Buddie got, is said to have consisted in one year's 
 attendance at his father's school when very young- 
 v , At this period Mr. Buddie published an edition of the 
 Marquis of Worcester's Century of Inventions, to which 
 he appended some historical notes relative to the 
 invention of the steam-engine. The preface to the 
 work (which was subsequently republished by his son) 
 is dated " Kyo, near Lanchester, 1778." 
 
 From Kyo, Mr. Buddie removed to Greenside, near 
 Ryton, to superintend the colliery operations there. In 
 explanation of his acquaintance with the theory and 
 practice of coal-mining it has been stated that he had 
 originally been a pitman ; but however this may be, the 
 skill with which he discharged the duties of colliery 
 viewer is sufficiently attested by the fact of his being 
 selected by Mr. Russell to fill the difficult position of 
 manager at his colliery at Wallsend, whither he removed 
 about the year 1792, as already stated, and where young 
 Buddie, now a lad of nineteen, acted in the capacity of 
 assistant to his father. 
 
 , r^* The successful establishment of Wallsend Colliery 
 
 T was followed by the opening out of a number of other 
 
 / deep collieries in the immediate neighbourhood, on both 
 
 sides of the River Tyne, to work the same valuable 
 
 ^A seam of coal. Of these Hebburn Colliery, 129 fathoms 
 
 . 
 
CHAP. XIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 129 
 
 in depth, was won in 1792-4 ; Percy Main Colliery, 120 
 fathoms, in 1796-9 ; Jarrow Colliery, 128 fathoms, in 
 1803; and South Shields Colliery, 140 fathoms, in 
 1810. 
 
 The opening out of the above important collieries 
 caused the Tyne basin to become the great theatre of 
 mining operations in the north at this epoch. The 
 sinking of the pits was in most cases attended with much 
 difficulty, on account of the watery strata passed through, 
 from which large feeders of water were discharged into 
 the shafts, necessitating the employment of tubbing to 
 dam it out. In the case of Hebburn Colliery these 
 feeders amounted to 3,000 gallons per minute. Up till 
 this time the universal practice had been to construct 
 the tubbing with timber, and the same custom was 
 pursued in the case of the shafts at Hebburn, Jarrow, 
 and South Shields ; the timber being applied either in 
 the form of plank tubbing or of solid cribbing. Cast 
 iron, however, which was gradually supplanting wood 
 on the surface and underground railways, and was 
 likewise now beginning to be used in the construction 
 of bridges, offered a superior material for damming out 
 the water in the shafts, and a commencement was 
 accordingly made to substitute this for wood tubbing. * 
 In the year 1792 a cast-iron tub, consisting of cylinders 4 
 the full size of the pit, was applied by the elder BuddleAM> 
 to dam back a quicksand in the A pit at Wallsend. 
 Similar cylinders were employed' by Mr. Barnes in the 
 
 K 
 
130 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xm. 
 
 King pit at Walker Colliery about 1795. This form 
 of tubbing, however, was only available near the 
 surface, but by dividing the rings into segments it 
 became applicable in any part of the shaft. Segments 
 of cast iron, having flanges turned inwards for bolting 
 the pieces together, were first used by Mr. Buddie, in 
 1796-7, in sinking the Percy Main pit. An improved 
 form of segments, having the flanges turned outwards 
 and without bolts, was introduced by the same gentle- 
 man in sinking the Howdon pit in 1804-5 ; an 
 arrangement which has ever since been universally 
 adopted where cast-iron tubbing is applied under 
 ordinary circumstances. 
 
CHAP, xiv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 VARIOUS METHODS OF DEALING WITH INFLAMMABLE 
 GAS. THE DILUTING SYSTEM, THE NEUTRALIZING 
 SYSTEM, THE FIRING SYSTEM, THE DRAINING SYSTEM. 
 
 DURING the years 1805-6 a number of disastrous 
 colliery explosions occurred in close succession in 
 various parts of the kingdom. In the North of 
 England, Hebburn Colliery exploded on the 21st of 
 October, 1805, occasioning a loss of thirty-five lives; 
 Oxclose Colliery on the 28th of November following, 
 with the loss of thirty-eight lives ; and Killingworth 
 Colliery on the 28th of March, 1806, with the loss of 
 ten lives. Other explosions occurred in 1806, viz., two 
 at Mostyn, in North Wales, by which thirty-six men 
 perished ; another at St. Helens, in Lancashire, with 
 the loss of sixteen lives ; and another at Whitehaven, 
 with the loss of eleven lives. The frequent repetition 
 of these calamities led to the proposal of several 
 new schemes for dealing with the noxious gases, and 
 particularly with the fire-damp, of coal mines. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xiv. 
 
 Two methods of combating the inflammable gas have 
 already been referred to, and were now in use in 
 different parts of the kingdom. The first of these, 
 consisting in the introduction of a ventilating current 
 sufficiently ample to reduce the gas below the point^ 
 of ignition and sweep it out of the mine as quickly as 
 it was produced, has been termed the diluting system. 
 The second method, practised where the ventilation 
 alone was inadequate to remove the gas, consisted in 
 kindling and exploding it at intervals sufficiently short 
 to prevent large accumulations from being formed, and 
 was known as the firing system. 
 
 Near the close of the year 1805 a new scheme was 
 brought under the notice of the owners and agents of 
 the collieries in the North of England by Dr. Trotter, 
 a physician resident in Newcastle-on-Tyne. The atten- 
 tion of this gentleman was drawn to the subject, he 
 tells us, in connection with the explosion at Hebburn 
 Colliery. When on a visit to a sick friend he happened 
 to pass the churchyard at Jarrow, at the time that 
 thirty-two pitmen, victims of this explosion, were 
 being interred there. The solemnity of the scene, 
 and the fact that the unfortunate men had left twenty- 
 five widows and eighty-one orphans to bewail their 
 loss, so impressed him as to induce him to prepare 
 and issue a pamphlet addressed to the coal-owners 
 and agents, entitled A Proposal for Destroying the Fire 
 and Choak Damps of Goal Mines. 
 
CHAP, xiv.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 133 
 
 In this pamphlet Dr. Trotter suggested a scheme for 
 depriving fire-damp of its explosive properties by a 
 process of fumigation, to be performed by means of 
 oxygenated muriatic gas a neutralizing system it may 
 be termed. But though the proposal does credit to 
 his humanity, and proved of service in leading to a 
 discussion of the subject, the scheme was open to a 
 number of fatal objections. These were urged with 
 much force by two writers who undertook to reply 
 to Dr. Trotter's proposal, viz., Dr. Dewar, physician 
 to the Manchester Infirmary, and an anonymous 
 writer who styles himself "A Friend to Kational 
 Schemes of Improvement," both of whom display a 
 knowledge of chemistry, and of the interior economy of 
 coal mines, superior to that possessed by Dr. Trotter. 
 The chief objections urged against the proposed scheme 
 were, that the gases resulting from the fumigation 
 would be extremely deleterious, and that the cost of 
 the process, assuming the possibility of carrying it 
 out in practice, would be so enormous as to put its 
 employment altogether out of the question. 
 
 Dr. Trotter's able critics offered some valuable 
 suggestions of their own for the consideration of the 
 owners and agents of coal mines. Dr. Dewar proposed 
 the employment of steam, instead of fire, for rarefying 
 the air at the mouth of the upcast shaft in the case of 
 the ventilation of old workings, where explosion might 
 be apprehended at a ventilating furnace. " Let the 
 
134 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xiv. 
 
 air from the shaft," he says, "pass through a tall 
 cylinder of tinned iron. Let this be contained within 
 another cylinder sufficiently large to leave a consider- 
 able vacant space between the two, and let this 
 space be accurately closed in all directions, with only 
 two openings, one for admitting the steam from a 
 boiler, and the other for allowing the condensed water 
 to escape. It is hardly necessary to observe that the 
 external cylinder must be surrounded with baked clay, 
 brick, or some other slow-conducting substance, to 
 prevent a superfluous expenditure of heat. This 
 mode of ventilation would be slower than that in 
 common use, but it would evidently be much more 
 safe in the cases here referred to. Would it not be 
 equally certain in its effect ? and (where the price 
 of fuel is no object) would it not be sufficiently 
 economical ? " 
 
 A suggestion of still greater value emanated from 
 Dr. Trotter's second critic, "A Friend to Rational 
 Schemes of Improvement." This writer proposed an 
 improved arrangement of the underground ventilation, 
 so as to dispense with the numerous doors required to 
 guide the air current. The inconvenience arising from 
 the use of doors, he states, " might probably be obviated 
 by dividing the mine into a greater number of inde- 
 pendent systems of ventilation, so disposed that each 
 .waggon-road shall form part of an air-course, and shall 
 not intersect any air-course. This measure must of 
 
CHAP, xiv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 135 
 
 course be attended with some expense in making 
 partitions, &c. ; but this would be of no great amount, 
 and would be cheaply purchased, when it is considered 
 that it would insure the lives of numbers of persons 
 who may now be brought into danger by the trifling 
 circumstance of inadvertently leaving open a door." 
 
 Shortly after the date when the above pregnant 
 suggestion was published (1806), the plan of adopting 
 "independent systems of ventilation" was actually 
 carried out in practice, and was found to be productive 
 of immense benefit in many ways ; indeed, it has been 
 aptly termed the true secret of mine ventilation. 
 The introduction of this improvement, however, will 
 be referred to hereafter. 
 
 Contemporaneously with Dr. Trotter's proposal to 
 employ chemical agents to destroy the noxious gases, 
 a new scheme for dealing with the inflammable gas 
 was devised by a Mr. James Ryan. We are unable 
 to state how Ryan was employed in his earlier years, 
 but in 1800 he was engaged as a mineral surveyor 
 under the Grand Canal Company in Ireland. In 1804 
 we find him employed to examine and report upon 
 Mostyn and some other collieries in North Wales ; and 
 in the following year he invented and patented an 
 improved method of boring, whereby cores could be 
 obtained, and the quality of the strata pierced be 
 ascertained with more certainty than formerly. He 
 also proposed to employ his apparatus for boring out 
 
136 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xiv. 
 
 shafts several feet in diameter, which might be used 
 for pumping or ventilating mines. 
 
 Having in the course of his professional duties 
 acquired a knowledge of the properties of the gases 
 met with in coal mines, Ryan projected a new scheme 
 for clearing the mines of fire-damp. This gas, on 
 account of its light specific gravity, tending always to 
 flow upwards and collect in the higher parts of the 
 workings, he proposed to employ a series of small 
 passages, or gas drifts, so arranged as to collect and 
 draw off the gas at the highest level. His system 
 may be termed the draining system. 
 
 For some time Ryan was unable to obtain an oppor- 
 tunity of putting his scheme into practice. In 1806 
 he visited the scenes of the various explosions in the 
 west, at Mostyn, St. Helens, and Whitehaven, but his 
 proposals were rejected. In the same year he also 
 visited Newcastle-on-Tyne, and had many conversations 
 with Mr. Buddie on the subject of mine ventilation, 
 in consequence of which he delivered a course of 
 lectures at Newcastle ; but he failed to induce any 
 colliery to adopt his system, and was forced to return 
 home without having obtained a trial of his scheme 
 in any pit. In the following year (1807) he proceeded 
 to London and waited upon Sir John Sinclair, the 
 liberal-minded President of the Board of Agriculture, 
 who highly approved of his plans, and introduced him 
 to the Honourable Washington Shirley, through whose 
 
CHAP, xiv.] -IN GREAT BRITAIN. 137 
 
 influence he at last succeeded in obtaining an oppor- 
 tunity of applying his system in some of the mines in 
 South Staffordshire. 
 
 Ryan's system of ventilation was peculiarly suited 
 to the South Staffordshire mines. The method of 
 working pursued in this county was of a unique type, 
 having its origin in the exceptional conditions under 
 which the coal existed and the character of the coal 
 itself. The seam of coal most extensively worked, viz., 
 the Thick Coal, was of extraordinary thickness, as much 
 as thirty or forty feet ; while the small coal, or slack, 
 which was produced in working and was invariably 
 left underground, was remarkably subject to spon- 
 taneous combustion, or "breeding fire," as it was 
 termed by the miners. The coal being comparatively 
 shallow, and a large quantity obtainable from a small 
 area, the workings were never carried 1 to any great 
 distance from the shafts ; and the arrangement of the 
 workings was specially designed to check the spread 
 of the underground fires which were of such frequent 
 occurrence. This was effected by dividing the area to 
 be worked into a number of large chambers surrounded 
 on all sides by fire ribs, or barriers of solid coal, through 
 which no openings were made save only such as were 
 essentially necessary for the extraction of the coal and 
 the passage of air, and these were effectually stopped 
 up and the whole chamber dammed off as soon as all 
 the coal that could be got from it had been obtained. 
 
138 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xiv. 
 
 To reduce still further the risk of premature ignition 
 of the slack, the working of the coal was carried on 
 with a minimum of ventilation ; and inasmuch as the 
 air current from the downcast pit was brought by 
 means of a passage termed the " air-head " into the 
 upper part of the chamber, and the quantity of air 
 introduced was insufficient to dilute and sweep away 
 the fire-damp, recourse was regularly had to the firing 
 process to dissipate the collections of inflammable gas 
 in the upper parts of the chambers. 
 
 The firing process as practised in Staffordshire, 
 being essential to the method of working and ventilat- 
 ing pursued, was conducted upon a regular system. 
 During the operation of exploding the gas, all the 
 workmen, save those actually engaged the firemen 
 as they were termed were withdrawn from the mine. 
 The pit stables were employed by the firemen as their 
 base of operations, and were strongly barricaded for 
 the purpose. From this point a copper wire the 
 firing line was led to the part of the mine where 
 the accumulation of gas existed. Approaching as 
 near to the place of danger as was consistent with 
 their own safety, the firemen raised the wire aloft 
 by means of a long pole (or series of poles fitting 
 each other like a fishing-rod), and provided with a 
 small sheave or wheel at the extremity for carrying 
 the line. Having fixed the pole in the required 
 position, and secured to the end of the line on the 
 
CHAP, xiv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 139 
 
 floor of the mine a lighted candle weighted with a 
 piece of lead to keep it steady, the firemen retired 
 to the stable, where, pulling in the wire through a 
 crevice, they elevated the lighted candle at the other 
 end and so exploded the gas. If by any accidental 
 circumstance the candle had become extinguished, 
 and the explosion did not take place, the firemen 
 were sometimes left in a state of the greatest suspense, 
 and being afraid to sally out, remained pent up for 
 a length of time imprisoned in their own stronghold. 
 
 In many instances the above dangerous operation 
 had to be repeated several times in a day. Thus at 
 the Netherton pits belonging to Lord Dudley, between 
 the years 1798 and 1808, the firing of the gas was 
 regularly practised three times a day, viz. at four 
 o'clock in the morning, at noon, and at seven in the 
 evening. 
 
 Such was the condition of mine ventilation in South 
 Staffordshire when Ryan came into the district at the 
 close of the year 1808. Having been intrusted with 
 the management of one of the most fiery mines, he 
 proceeded to put his ideas to a practical test, and by 
 a few alterations which he made, succeeded in clear- 
 ing the mine from fire-damp, and putting the work- 
 ings into a safe state, in the short space of twenty 
 days. This he effected chiefly by a rearrangement of 
 the ventilating current, connecting the air-heads, or 
 passages in the higher parts of the coal, with the 
 
140 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xiv. 
 
 upcast instead of the downcast pit, and thus employing 
 them to draw off the gas, instead of blowing in air 
 among it as formerly. In this way the light specific 
 gravity of the fire-damp, which had previously been a 
 source of difficulty, was made to aid in the escape of 
 the gas. 
 
 That the introduction of Ryan's system was pro- 
 ductive of great benefit to the South Staffordshire 
 mines cannot be disputed. It threw a new light on 
 the subject of ventilation, and led to the general 
 adoption of top-heads, or passages in the upper portion 
 of the Thick Coal for draining off the gas. This 
 alteration rendered the use of the firing-line un- 
 necessary, inasmuch as accumulations of gas could no 
 longer take place. Like other innovators and im- 
 provers, however, Ryan was not without detractors 
 and rivals. 
 
 But though the draining system proved of great 
 service under the peculiar circumstances attending the 
 working of the Staffordshire Thick Coal, it was less 
 applicable in the case of thin coal lying in a level 
 or undulating position, where the workings were 
 carried over extensive areas, and fire-damp was met 
 with in great quantities, and where no natural difficulty 
 prevented the introduction of large volumes of air 
 into the mines. Hence it is not surprising to find 
 that while Ryan's system was highly esteemed by 
 many intelligent persons in the midland districts, his 
 
CHAP, xiv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 141 
 
 schemes were regarded with complete apathy by the 
 viewers of the North of England, who universally 
 adhered to the diluting system of ventilation. A few 
 years later (1815) he attempted to introduce his system 
 into the north, but without success. His labours in 
 the cause of the better ventilation of mines were 
 duly appreciated by the London Society of Arts, who, 
 in the year 1816, presented him with their gold 
 medal and one hundred guineas : and the value of 
 his suggestions has been acknowledged by later in- 
 vestigators, both in this country and on the Continent, 
 to a greater extent than was accorded to him by some 
 of his contemporaries in the mining world. 
 
142 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xv. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE SYSTEM OF COURSING THE AIR BECOMES IN- 
 ADEQUATE. CREEPS. MR. BUDDLE INTRODUCES 
 COMPOUND OR DOUBLE VENTILATION, AND PANEL- 
 WORKING. 
 
 IN the year 1806, on the death of his father, Mr. John 
 Buddie succeeded to the management of Wallsend 
 Colliery, and to an extensive practice as a mining 
 engineer. At this period the collieries in the North 
 of England were conducted in the manner which had 
 been pursued with little alteration for a considerable 
 length of time, but which was gradually becoming 
 inadequate, owing to the increasing depth and extent 
 of the mines, and the large quantities of inflammable 
 gas met with. 
 
 The ventilating power universally employed con- 
 sisted of a large furnace, which was occasionally placed 
 in connection with a chimney at the surface, but more 
 usually at the bottom of the upcast shaft. The use 
 of the furnace was known to be an element of danger 
 
CHAP, xv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 143 
 
 in fiery mines, but no other means had been discovered 
 so effectual in producing a powerful ventilating current. 
 The common arrangement of the ventilation was 
 that invented by Mr. James Spedding, and already 
 referred to as coursing the, air. Though a great im- 
 provement upon the ancient or primitive method in 
 which large portions of the abandoned workings, or 
 waste t were left altogether unventilated, this system 
 was being carried beyond the limits within which 
 it could be safely applied; and as the extent of 
 the workings increased, its inadequacy and defects 
 were being more and more felt. To guide the air- 
 current in its long labyrinthine passage through the 
 mine, a vast number of doors and stoppings were re- 
 quired, the failure or neglect of any one of which 
 might be productive of the most disastrous results ; 
 and apart from this source of danger the enormous 
 length of the passage which the air had to traverse 
 between its entrance at the downcast and its exit at 
 the upcast shaft, constituted a radical defect in the 
 system. At Walker Colliery, for example, though the 
 shafts were only half a mile apart, the ventilating 
 current travelled a distance of more than thirty miles 
 on its way underground from the one to the other. 
 Conveying the air through long passages of this kind 
 not only heavily taxed the ventilating power on account 
 of the great friction with which it was attended, but 
 in the case of fiery mines gave rise to a more direct 
 
144 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xv. 
 
 and imminent danger. In passing through the mine 
 the ventilating current became more and more loaded 
 with fire-damp on its way, so much so that at times 
 the last of the air was raised almost to the firing point, 
 and flashed into large sheets of fire as it rushed over 
 the furnace. When explosion was threatened from 
 this cause, the only resource known was to throw open 
 the main doors, thus suspending the ventilation and 
 allowing the fresh air to pass directly from the down- 
 cast to the upcast pit, until the furnace could be 
 extinguished; when the doors were again closed, and 
 other temporary expedients applied, such as a waterfall 
 in the downcast pit, by means of which the vitiated 
 air was driven safely over the cold furnace. To relight 
 the furnace in such a case was a task of much anxiety 
 and danger. This was sometimes accomplished by 
 charging it with tar and various highly inflammable 
 materials, which were ignited by means of a red-hot 
 iron ring run down a line from the surface. Mr. Buddie 
 relates how on one particular occasion he watched the 
 furnace at Hebburn Colliery almost daily for about six 
 weeks before he got it lighted, and only accomplished 
 it at last by taking advantage of a favourable state of 
 the atmosphere. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of carrying on the colliery 
 operations with safety were greatly increased by move- 
 ments of the workings termed creeps, which were of 
 common occurrence at this time in the deeper collieries 
 
r 
 
 CHAP, xv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 145 
 
 of the north. Creeps took place when the pillars of 
 coal left were insufficient to support the weight of the 
 superincumbent strata. Under these circumstances the 
 pillars gradually sank into the floor of the mine, the 
 soft and yielding materials of which rose into and 
 filled up the excavations until the whole became a 
 solid mass. They were productive of great expense 
 and inconvenience, contracting the air-ways, and shat- 
 tering the stoppings built to guide the ventilating 
 current. At times the movement extended to the 
 surface. It is related that on one occasion when the 
 congregation was assembled in the church at Long 
 Benton, a few pieces of plaster were observed to fall 
 from the ceiling. Noticing a feeling of uneasiness x^ 
 spreading among the congregation, the clergyman 
 announced that it was " only a creep." His flock was 
 however little quieted by the assurance, and lost no j .. t 
 time in making good their escape to the outside of / 
 the church, leaving their worthy pastor reiterating 
 the announcement that it was " only a creep ; only a 
 creep/' 
 
 The only expedient known for arresting the progress 
 of these movements was the bold one of removing 
 
 o 
 
 several rows of pillars in front of it, and thus inducing 
 a complete break of the overlying strata ; a proceeding 
 analogous to that employed in checking the advance 
 of a prairie fire by burning up the vegetation in 
 its path. 
 
 L 
 
146 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xv. 
 
 It was now customary to sink the deeper pits of 
 a larger diameter than formerly, viz., from twelve to 
 fourteen feet; and they were usually divided by 
 wooden partitions, or brattices, into two, three, or four 
 compartments, so as to admit of pumping, ventilating, 
 and drawing coal, being all carried on by means of 
 a single pit. The arrangement, however, was a highly 
 objectionable one, inasmuch as in the event of an 
 explosion taking place the brattices were blown to 
 pieces, and falling to the bottom of the shaft cut off 
 all communication with the surface and prevented 
 access to the workings. They were also liable to be 
 set on fire by the ventilating furnace; an accident 
 likely to result in the death of all in the mine if no 
 other outlet existed. 
 
 * 
 
 The evils of the existing system of mining were 
 nowhere more severely felt than in the deep, extensive, 
 and fiery collieries on the Tyne, the management of 
 which Mr. Buddie was called upon to undertake. Owing 
 to creeps which took place in some portions of Wallsend 
 and Hebburn Collieries the ventilation was deranged, 
 and the air-currents loaded with inflammable gas, to 
 such a degree as to necessitate the discontinuance of 
 ventilation by means of furnaces. Accordingly between 
 the years 1807 and 1810 Mr. Buddie attempted to 
 employ various kinds of ventilating power in lieu of 
 the furnace. Of these the steam ventilator was an 
 
CHAP, xv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 147 
 
 apparatus for discharging steam into the upcast pit 
 a few fathoms below the surface, the heat of which 
 rarefied the air and produced a ventilating current. 
 Another expedient was the hot cylinder, which consisted 
 of a cast-iron cylinder fixed in a brick furnace, and 
 completely enveloped in flame ; and the mouth of the 
 upcast pit being covered up, the air-current was passed 
 through this cylinder and escaped by a chimney built 
 for the purpose. The air-pump was also tried, having 
 a piston five feet square and a stroke of eight feet, 
 and was capable of exhausting 5,000 or 6,000 cubic 
 feet of air per minute, at a velocity of from twenty 
 to thirty strokes. The preceding appliances, however, 
 though useful as temporary expedients in cases of 
 difficulty, failed to afford results approaching in 
 efficiency to a furnace placed at the bottom of the 
 upcast shaft. 
 
 Mr. Buddie now turned his attention to the mini- 
 mising of the dangers connected with the use of the 
 furnace, and soon succeeded in devising a number 
 of excellent improvements whereby many of the most 
 serious difficulties attending the working of the deeper 
 collieries were happily obviated. This he effected by 
 subdividing the workings and ventilation into a series 
 of independent systems. 
 
 Instead of following out one uniform and homo- 
 geneous plan, as had been the practice heretofore in all 
 the collieries of the north, Mr. Buddie apportioned the 
 
 L 2 
 
148 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xv. 
 
 area to be worked into a number of divisions, or 
 panels, separated from each other by ribs, or barriers, 
 of solid coal. This he termed c< panel-work." The 
 origin of the new arrangement is described by him 
 as follows : 
 
 " Though the removing or robbing of the pillars left 
 in the first working had long been practised in shallow 
 collieries yielding little inflammable gas, it had not 
 originally been contemplated in the deeper and more 
 fiery collieries, the pillars of which were accordingly 
 made only of such strength as was deemed necessary 
 to support the superincumbent strata, and were 
 intended to be permanently sacrificed, it being impos- 
 sible to maintain the ventilation in an efficient state 
 after the removal of the pillars had been commenced. 
 About the year 1795, however, when the Main Coal 
 at Walker Colliery was exhausted with the exception 
 of the pillars, a scheme was devised by Mr. Thomas 
 Barnes, the viewer of the colliery, for working off a 
 portion of the pillars without either disturbing the 
 ventilation or bringing a creep on the colliery. This 
 was effected by dividing the workings into small 
 areas, of from ten to twelve acres, around which 
 artificial barriers were constructed by packing up all 
 the excavated passages for a breadth of forty or fifty 
 yards. By this means any creep which might take 
 place in the inclosed district was prevented from 
 extending to the surrounding pillars, and the produce 
 
CHAP, xv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 149 
 
 of coal obtained from the seam was increased from 
 39 to 54 per cent." 
 
 The above arrangement having proved successful 
 at Walker was adopted soon after at the adjoining 
 colliery of Bigge's Main; and the same plan was 
 pursued at Wallsend, when the robbing of the pillars 
 commenced in 1810. 
 
 Mr. Barnes's scheme, however, was only an expedient 
 adapted to pre-existing conditions, and it occurred to 
 Mr. Buddie that a great improvement upon it might 
 be effected by dividing a colliery, in the course of the 
 first working, into districts, or panels, surrounded on 
 all sides by barriers of solid coal, and thus to obviate 
 the necessity of subsequently constructing the artificial 
 ones employed in Mr. Barnes's system. This course 
 Mr. Buddie at once adopted in the G pit at Wallsend, 
 which was a separate winning unconnected with the 
 rest of the colliery ; and here it was that panel-work, 
 as it was termed, was first introduced in the year 
 1810. 
 
 By the adoption of panel- work an effectual check 
 was put to the spread of creeps, the primary object 
 of the arrangement ; but other benefits were obtained 
 at the same time; as for example the facility with 
 which accidental fires in the workings could be ex- 
 tinguished by the insertion of air-tight dams in the 
 few openings through the barrier. 
 
 Coincidently with the subdivision of the workings 
 
150 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xv. 
 
 into panels Mr. Buddie effected a great improvement 
 in the ventilation of collieries by dividing the ven- 
 tilating current. This improvement also was first 
 introduced in the Wallsend G pit in 1810. Mr. Buddie 
 had thought of the arrangement some time previously, 
 but was deterred from putting it into practice because 
 it was not in accordance with the views of many of 
 the old and experienced pitmen, who entertained 
 "a horror of dividing a current of air, inasmuch as 
 that each division, or split, would weaken the principal 
 current." As first applied by Mr. Buddie the improve- 
 ment consisted in the employment of two air-currents 
 instead of one, and was introduced where two down- 
 cast pits, or two compartments of the same pit, 
 could be used to discharge their air into one upcast 
 pit. Such was the case at the Wallsend G pit, which 
 was divided into three compartments, two of which 
 were downcast, and the third an upcast pit. 
 
 The new system was termed by Mr. Buddie double 
 or compound ventilation. In its simplest form two air- 
 currents were employed, which ventilated separate 
 divisions of the workings and were discharged by 
 separate passages into the upcast shaft. In each of 
 the passages leading into the upcast pit furnaces were 
 provided, only one of which was kept burning ; the 
 passage in which it was placed being hence termed 
 the furnace drift. The other passage was known as 
 the dumb drift. The air-current which ventilated 
 
CHAP, xv.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 151 
 
 the portion of the workings yielding the least 
 quantity of inflammable gas was passed over the 
 burning furnace ; the other current, however loaded 
 with impurities, was discharged with safety through 
 the dumb drift without 'at all coming in contact 
 with fire on its way. In the event of the state of 
 the workings undergoing a reversal the furnace in 
 the dumb drift could be lighted and the other ex- 
 tinguished, in which case the furnace drift became 
 for the time being the dumb drift. 
 
 To maintain an equilibrium between the two cur- 
 rents, sham doors, or regulators, were provided to check 
 the velocity of the shorter run; and inasmuch as it 
 was frequently necessary to pass the one current 
 over the other, passages termed crossings were pro- 
 vided, which were constructed by throwing an arch 
 over the lower air-way and cutting a channel out of 
 the roof for the upper one. 
 
 By the introduction of compound ventilation not 
 only was much of the danger previously attending 
 the employment of ventilating furnaces obviated, but 
 many other important advantages were obtained. 
 Numerous doors were dispensed with, and thus one 
 of the most vulnerable points in Spedding's system of 
 ventilation was overcome. No air-current had to 
 travel more than half of the distance formerly neces- 
 sary ; and as more passages were provided the amount 
 of friction was greatly reduced. In addition to this, 
 
152 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xv. 
 
 fresh air being supplied in two streams instead of 
 one, the atmosphere of the mine was rendered 
 much more wholesome ; and the impurities contained 
 in even the last of the air immensely lessened. The 
 expedient of throwing open the main doors and ex- 
 tinguishing the furnace, frequently necessary under 
 the old system, had rarely to be resorted to under 
 the new one. 
 
 No sooner had the system of compound ventilation 
 been successfully applied in the Wallsend G pit than 
 its use was extended to other parts of the colliery* 
 as well as to the other collieries under Mr. Buddie's 
 care, wherever two or more downcast pits could be 
 made to communicate with one upcast. Before the 
 close of 1813 it had been introduced by him at 
 Percy Main, Hebburn, and Heaton Collieries. With 
 shafts of sufficient area, the number of subdivisions 
 of the ventilating current was found to be capable 
 of indefinite multiplication ; and the system under- 
 went great development subsequently in the hands 
 of Mr. Buddie and his contemporaries. Mr. Buddie's 
 system of ventilation is now known as splitting the 
 air, and is the system invariably practised in all 
 well-regulated collieries at the present day. 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 INVENTION OF THE SAFETY LAMP. 
 
 " What fairer triumph, what brighter extension of the empire 
 of science, has marked the annals of philosophy, than this victory 
 over the swart demon of the mine ? " SURTEES. 
 
 ME. BUBBLE'S improvements had introduced a new 
 order of things in the ventilation and working of 
 collieries, but certain other known sources of danger 
 remained for which no remedial measure had yet 
 been thought of. It is true that the risk attendant 
 upon the use of ventilating furnaces had been mate- 
 rially lessened by the invention of the dumb drift, 
 but no improvement had been effected in the methods 
 employed to light the miners at their work. This 
 continued in the same unsatisfactory position as it 
 had been since the days of the elder Spedding. 
 
 If the inflammable gas met with in coal mines 
 were discharged into the workings in equable and 
 determinate quantities, and if the ventilating arrange- 
 ments were at all times in a state of thorough 
 
 
154 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 efficiency, it might be possible, by the introduction 
 and proper distribution of sufficient volumes of 
 atmospheric air, to sweep off the gas as fast as it 
 was produced, and so to maintain the mine in a 
 safe condition. But so far from this being the case, 
 the quantity of gas given off from the goaves, or 
 wastes, varies with the varying pressure of the atmos- 
 phere ; accumulations of gas are liable to be formed 
 through the temporary neglect of a door, or derange- 
 ment of a stopping; while danger of a still more 
 formidable character arises from outbursts, or sudden 
 discharges of large volumes of inflammable gas, which 
 occasionally take place unexpectedly in deep mines, 
 and instantly overpower, for the time being, the 
 strongest ventilation. If from any of these causes 
 the atmosphere of the mine has become explosive, 
 it is obvious that the presence of a single lighted 
 candle or lamp is sufficient to give rise to the most 
 disastrous consequences. 
 
 In situations where the use of ordinary lights was 
 inadmissible, owing to the presence or fear of inflam- 
 mable gas, the steel mill continued to be resorted 
 to ; and notwithstanding its known insecurity and 
 the poor flickering light which it afforded, and the 
 great cost with which its use was attended, it was 
 still largely employed at many collieries between 
 1810 and 1815. At Hebburn Colliery, where the 
 ventilation had been deranged by a creep taking 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 155 
 
 place, as many as one hundred of these machines 
 were in daily use. 
 
 The first person to entertain the idea of supplying 
 the coal miners with a better and safer light was 
 Dr. Clanny, a medical gentleman residing in Sunder- 
 land. His attention was drawn to the subject by 
 the frequency with which explosions took place at 
 collieries in the neighbourhood, and it occurred to 
 him that some arrangement might be devised for 
 insulating the miners' lights so as to prevent them 
 from communicating explosion to the surrounding 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Having given much thought to the matter, Dr. 
 Clanny proceeded to put his idea to the test of 
 experiment. His first lamp was constructed about 
 the end of the year 1811. It was a small lamp of 
 strong glass, and shut at the bottom, with the ex- 
 ception of a small opening to admit a tube from 
 the bellows, which he used for throwing in the neces- 
 sary quantity of air to support the combustion of 
 the candle. He found he could safely insulate the 
 candle in this way, but was told his lamp would 
 never answer, as it was certain to get broken in 
 the mine. 
 
 In the course of his experiments, Dr. Clanny tried 
 a lamp insulated by means of valves, but found they 
 would not suit, as the expansive force of an explo- 
 sion within the lamp threw them open, and allowed 
 
156 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 a communication to take place with the surrounding- 
 atmosphere. At length, in the beginning of the year 
 1813, he succeeded in constructing a strong form of 
 lamp which was perfectly insulated by the ingenious 
 arrangement of passing the air from the bellows 
 into the lamp through a stratum of water below, 
 while a similar stratum of water above allowed the 
 products of combustion to escape safely at the top. 
 An account of this lamp was communicated by him 
 to the Royal Society, in a paper " On a Steady Light 
 in Coal Mines," read on the 20th of May, 1813. 
 
 Dr. Clanny' s lamp, however, was useful rather as 
 directing attention to the matter and showing what 
 might be done in the way of providing a greater degree 
 of efficiency and security in the lighting of coal mines. 
 It was highly approved of by many scientific gentlemen, 
 and after various tests had been applied to it to prove 
 its security, it was carried by Dr. Clanny into a 
 dangerous mine at the risk of his life ; but the idea was 
 novel, and the lamp being somewhat inconvenient, it 
 did not come into practical use, at least to any extent. 
 
 But though Dr. Clanny is entitled to the high merit 
 of being the first to conceive and carrry out the idea of 
 constructing an insulated lamp, he did not long remain 
 alone in this department of invention, the attention of 
 many minds being drawn to the subject soon after- 
 wards by a series of occurrences which we shall proceed 
 to narrate. 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 157 
 
 On the 25th of May, 1812, an explosion occurred at 
 Brandling Main, or Felling Colliery, near Gateshead- 
 on-Tyne, which, was attended with a more appalling 
 loss of life than any like calamity that had ever taken 
 place in the annals of coal-mining. Ninety-two men 
 and boys were destroyed by the blast. This great loss 
 of life was occasioned by the disaster happening at a 
 most inauspicious moment. It is the common custom 
 in the North of England to work the collieries with two 
 shifts or sets of men, and for several reasons it is made 
 a rule that the men of the first shift remain at their 
 working-places until relieved by the arrival of the men 
 of the second shift. Hence, during a short space of 
 time, both sets of men are in the mine at the same 
 moment, and this was unfortunately the case when the 
 above-mentioned explosion took place. Out of one 
 hundred and twenty-one persons who had entered the 
 mine, only thirty-two escaped alive, three of whom died 
 within a few hours after the accident. 
 
 The colliery was at this time the property of Messrs. 
 John and William Brandling, Henderson, and Grace, 
 each of whom held a fourth share. It is situated in the 
 parish of Jarrow and Heworth, of which the Rev. J. 
 Hodgson (who afterwards became celebrated as the 
 historian of Northumberland) was the incumbent. As 
 Mr. Hodgson resided at Heworth, this dreadful calamity 
 occurred at his very door, and on him devolved the task 
 of administering the consolations of religion to the 
 
158 A HISTOEY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 bereaved, and of performing the last solemn rites beside 
 the graves of the dead. 
 
 Mr. Hodgson was not unacquainted with the details 
 of coal-mining operations. He had lived for a consider- 
 able number of years in the Newcastle coal district, and 
 had made frequent descents into the mines. At this 
 time the editors of newspapers avoided publishing 
 accounts of colliery explosions, being afraid of giving 
 offence by doing so. Impressed, however, with the con- 
 viction that something further might be done to pre- 
 vent the recurrence of such" calamities, Mr. Hodgson, 
 contrary to the feelings of the coalowners, determined to 
 make the circumstances connected with the Felling 
 explosion as widely known as possible, with the hope of 
 rousing the attention of scientific men to investigate 
 the causes of these accidents, and find some mode of 
 preventing them. To this end, for many weeks he con- 
 tinued to write notices, respecting the accident, to the 
 Newcastle Courant, and also wrote and published a par- 
 ticular account of it and its consequences, accompanied 
 with a plan of the mine and the mode of ventilating it. 
 This publication (the preface of which is dated 4th 
 January, 1813) was widely circulated ; and part of it, 
 unknown to Mr. Hodgson, was inserted in Dr. Thom- 
 son's Annals of Philosophy for May of the same year. 
 
 Among those whose sympathies were excited by the 
 recital of the dangers to which the workers in coal 
 mines were exposed was a Mr. J. J. Wilkinson, a 
 
CHAP. XVL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 159 
 
 barrister resident in the Temple. During the Long 
 Vacation in 1813 Mr. Wilkinson went to the North of 
 England, and consulted with many of his friends on the 
 matter, which resulted in his determining to call the 
 attention of the public to colliery explosions with a 
 view to the investigation of the whole subject, to see if 
 any remedy could be found. With this object, on the 
 1st of September, 1813, he published, and sent into 
 Durham and Northumberland, proposals for the esta- 
 blishment of a society for preventing accidents in coal 
 mines. These proposals having come under the notice 
 of the Bishop of Durham, among others, his Lordship 
 wrote to the Rev. Dr. Gray, then Rector of Bishopwear- 
 mouth (afterwards Bishop of Bristol), giving him carte 
 blanche to aid in the formation of such a society. A 
 meeting of those interested was accordingly arranged 
 for, and was held at Sunderland on the 1st of 
 October, 1813, when the society was duly instituted 
 and a Committee appointed to carry out the objects 
 contemplated. 
 
 In the following month the society issued its first 
 report, which contained a very valuable letter, volun- 
 tarily communicated by Mr. Buddie to Sir Ralph 
 Milbanke, the president, in which was given a detailed 
 account of the various systems employed to effect the 
 ventilation of collieries " the only method we are at 
 present acquainted with," says the writer, " for the pre- 
 vention of accidents by fire." In concluding his letter, 
 
160 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 Mr. Buddie expresses his conviction that any further 
 application of mechanical agency would be ineffectual 
 'to prevent explosions in mines exposed to excessive dis- 
 charges of fire-damp, " and therefore/' he says, " conclude 
 that the hopes of this society ever seeing its most 
 desirable object accomplished must rest upon the event 
 of some method being discovered of producing such a 
 chemical change upon carburetted hydrogen gas as to 
 render it innoxious as fast as it is discharged, or as it 
 approaches the neighbourhood of lights. In this view 
 of the subject, it is to scientific men only that we must 
 look up for assistance in providing a cheap and effectual 
 remedy." 
 
 It was deemed advisable to apply to Sir Humphry 
 Davy, the distinguished chemist and philosopher, and 
 Mr. Wilkinson accordingly called at the Royal Institu- 
 tion, but found that he was absent in Paris. Mr. 
 Wilkinson then posted a letter to Sir Humphry, but 
 having neglected to pay the foreign postage, it was 
 returned to Mr. Burn, the secretary of the society. 
 
 At this time so little expectation was entertained that 
 any means could be devised likely to prevent explosions 
 in collieries, that the object of the society was regarded 
 as chimerical and visionary. Amidst much difficulty 
 and discouragement, however, and a perpetual harass 
 by the offer of impracticable schemes, they persevered 
 in their meetings, though their humane efforts were for 
 a considerable period attended with little success. 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 161 
 
 In the meantime colliery accidents continued to occur 
 from time to time. A second explosion took place at 
 Felling Colliery on the 24th of December, 1813, occa- 
 sioning the loss of twenty-three lives. In 1814 explo- 
 sions occurred : at Percy Main Colliery, on the 15th of 
 April, with the loss of four lives ; at Hebburn Colliery, 
 on the 12th of August, with the loss of eleven lives ; 
 and at Seafield Colliery, on the 9th of September, with 
 the loss of four lives. On the 3rd of May, 1815, the 
 great inundation took place at Heaton Colliery, causing 
 a loss of seventy-five lives ; on the 2nd of June, New- 
 bottle Colliery exploded, with the loss of fifty-seven 
 lives ; and on the 27th of the same month, Sheriff Hill 
 Colliery exploded, with the loss of eleven lives. 
 
 Ever since the occurrence of the first explosion at 
 Felling, accounts of similar accidents which took place 
 were regularly forwarded to, and published in, Dr. 
 Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, and thus the attention 
 of the scientific world was kept alive to the matter. 
 The idea of the practicability of employing insulated 
 lights, which Dr. Clanny had never ceased to advocate, 
 was gradually gaining ground. In his Elements of 
 Chemical Science, published in June, 1815, Mr. Murray, 
 a lecturer on chemistry, proposed the use of an air- 
 tight lamp, which was to be supplied with air through 
 a tube extending downwards to the floor of the mine. 
 Lamps on this principle were actually constructed by 
 Mr. Brandling, and Dr. John Murray, of Edinburgh, 
 
 M 
 
162 A HISTOKY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 during the summer or autumn of 1815; but as they 
 presupposed the existence of determinate strata in 
 the air of a mine, which is not the case, they were 
 inapplicable to the purpose intended. 
 
 A correspondence regarding insulated lights for miners 
 was also commenced in the Morning Chronicle by Mr. J. 
 H. H. Holmes (author of a treatise on the coal mines of 
 Durham and Northumberland), the first letter being 
 dated 12th July, 1815. Mr. Holmes was desirous to 
 know, from motives of humanity, whether Dr. Clanny's 
 insulated lamp had been in use in any of the collieries 
 where explosions had recently occurred. This led to a 
 series of letters between Dr. Clanny and Mr. Holmes, 
 which were published successively for a number of 
 weeks. 
 
 We have seen that the first endeavour of the Sunder- 
 land Society to obtain the assistance of Sir Humphry 
 Davy had proved abortive, owing to his absence on the 
 Continent. In the close of the summer of 1815 it was 
 again resolved to apply to him, and a letter was accord- 
 ingly despatched to London by Dr. Gray, the Chairman 
 of the Committee, who was generally acquainted with 
 Sir Humphry. Dr. Gray's letter followed Sir Humphry 
 into Scotland, whither he had gone on a visit to Lord 
 Somerville, at Melrose. In his reply, dated 3rd August, 
 Sir Humphry expresses the great satisfaction it will 
 give him if his chemical knowledge can be of any use 
 in an inquiry so interesting to humanity, and begs Dr. 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BEITAIK 163 
 
 Gray to assure the Committee of his readiness to co- 
 operate with them in any experiments or investigations 
 on the subject. He offers at the same time to visit the 
 mines, should it be thought desirable for him to do so. 
 
 It having been arranged that Sir Humphry should 
 visit the coal district on his way south, he arrived in 
 Newcastle on the 23rd or 24th of August, where he was 
 waited upon at the Turk's Head by Mr. Hodgson, who 
 laid before him all the printed information he knew of 
 respecting the ventilating and lighting of coal mines 
 Sir Humphry entering at once with ardour into the 
 subject. They then proceeded together to Mr. Buddie's 
 house at Wallsend. 
 
 Mr. Hodgson had, among other things, communicated 
 to Sir Humphry a theory which he had been led to 
 form regarding the source of the inflammable gas in 
 coal mines, by some experiments which he had made, 
 viz., that it existed in the coal itself. Little was known 
 then on this subject, though various hypotheses had 
 been suggested. Some thought that it arose from the 
 decomposition of the water in the mines ; others from 
 the decomposition of the coal or of the iron pyrites 
 contained it. At Mr. Buddie's house, after much gene- 
 ral conversation on the subject of the safe lighting of 
 mines, Sir Humphry took up in his own hand a bucket 
 of fresh coal and said : " With this I will try Mr. Hodg- 
 son's experiment on coal gas." Carrying it into Mr. 
 Buddie's dining-room, he asked for a bucket of water, 
 
 M 2 
 
164 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 and having put some coal into it, and stirred it round 
 several times that no air might remain, he struck a 
 heavy poker with all his strength on the coal, shattering 
 it into several pieces, whereupon numerous hubbies rose 
 through the water. On this Sir Humphry remarked 
 that Mr. Hodgson's experiments were certainly correct 
 and interesting. The only other point he wished to 
 ascertain, he said, was the minimum of light with which 
 the colliers could see to work. This was exhibited to 
 him by procuring a steel mill and " playing " it in a 
 dark place. 
 
 From the first Sir Humphry entertained a san- 
 guine hope of being able to help the miners in their 
 difficulties. Mr. Buddie took the opposite view : 
 
 " I explained to him," he says, "as well as I was able, the 
 nature of our fiery mines, and that the great desideratum was 
 a light that could be safely used in an explosive mixture. I had 
 not the slightest idea myself of ever seeing such a thing accom- 
 plished Just as we were parting he looked at me and 
 
 said, 'I think I can do something for you.' Thinking it was too 
 much ever to be achieved, I gave him a look of incredulity ; at 
 the moment it was beyond my comprehension. However, 
 smiling, he said, ' Do not despair ; I think I can do something 
 for you in a very short time.' " 
 
 From Mr. Buddie's house, Sir Humphry and Mr. 
 Hodgson proceeded to Coaly Hill, to examine a geolo- 
 gical phenomenon mentioned by the latter, which Sir 
 Humphry had expressed a strong desire to see. This 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 165 
 
 consisted of an intrusive dyke of whin, or basalt, on 
 the sides of which the coal had been charred for some 
 distance by the heat of the whin when first injected in 
 a molten state. 
 
 Having inspected several parts of the 
 great interest, Sir Humphry and Mr. Hodgsontofct to - 
 Hebburn Hall, where they had been invited 
 Ellison (who was a very kind friend of Mr. Hodgson's) 
 to dine and spend the night. 
 
 On the following morning Sir Humphry proceeded 
 to Dr. Gray's, at Bishopwearmouth, and in the course 
 of the day, accompanied by Dr. Gray's eldest son, he 
 called at Dr. Clanny's house, being desirous to see 
 Dr. Clanny and his insulated lamp. Dr. Clanny was 
 not at home ; neither was he at home when Sir 
 Humphry called a second time on the same day. 
 
 Hearing of Sir Humphry's visits on his return home, 
 Dr. Clanny, being much engaged at the time, took the 
 lamp in his carriage, and calling at Dr. Gray's, left it 
 for the inspection of Sir Humphry, who remained at 
 the rectory overnight. On the following morning 
 Sir Humphry had an interview with Dr. Clanny, who 
 had been invited to breakfast at Dr. Gray's, but did 
 not arrive till after the meal was over, when he found 
 Sir Humphry engaged in making some experiments 
 with his lamp. 
 
 Leaving Bishopwearmouth, Sir Humphry paid visits 
 to Auckland Castle, Egglestone, Eokeby, and Harwood 
 
166 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 House, remaining at the latter place till the 29th or 
 30th of September. 
 
 On the 29th of September Sir Humphry wrote to 
 Mr. Hodgson requesting him to send him a quantity 
 of fire-damp from a blower. Six wine-bottles were 
 accordingly filled from a strong blower of gas coming 
 from a dyke in Hebburn Colliery, and were transmitted 
 to Sir Humphry on the 5th of October. In a letter 
 dated 15th October, Sir Humphry acknowledged the 
 receipt of the fire-damp, and announced to Mr. Hodgson 
 that his investigations were progressing well. "My 
 experiments," he says, " are going on successfully, and 
 I hope in a few days to send you an account of 
 them ; I am going to be fortunate far beyond my 
 expectations." 
 
 The progress of Sir Humphry Davy in the new path 
 of discovery which he had entered upon was as rapid as 
 it was brilliant, and from time to time he commu- 
 nicated the results of his researches to his friends in 
 the north and to the scientific circles in London. 
 
 On tJie I9th of October, in a letter to Mr. Hodgson, 
 he announces an entirely new method of insulating 
 lights. "I have already discovered," he says, "that 
 explosive mixtures of mine-damp will not pass through 
 small apertures or tubes ; and that if a lamp or lanthorn 
 be made air-tight on the sides, and furnished with 
 apertures to admit the air, it will not communicate 
 flame to the outward atmosphere." 
 
CHAP. xvi.J IN GREAT BRITAIN. 167 
 
 On the 25th of October, Sir Humphry communi- 
 cated the progress of his discoveries to the Chemical 
 Club of London. 
 
 On the 30th of October he wrote simultaneously to 
 Dr. Gray and Mr. Hodgson, giving an account of his 
 discoveries with considerable detail, and describing 
 three forms of insulated lamps. In these communi- 
 cations he states, among other things, that 
 
 " Atmospherical air, when rendered impure by the combustion 
 of a candle, but in which the candle will still burn, will not 
 explode the gas from the mines ; and when a lamp or candle is 
 made to burn in a close vessel, having apertures only above and 
 below, an explosive mixture of gas admitted merely enlarges 
 the light and gradually extinguishes it without explosion. 
 Again, the gas mixed in any proportion with common air I have 
 discovered will not explode in small tubes, the diameter of which 
 is less than one-eighth of an inch, or even a larger tube, if there 
 is a mechanical force urging the gas through the tube." 
 
 The above communications were not intended to be 
 made public at this stage. 
 
 " I consider this at present as a private communication," says 
 Sir Humphry in his letter to Dr. Gray. " I wish you to examine 
 the lamps I have had constructed, before you give any account 
 of my labours to the committee. I have never received so much 
 pleasure from the result of any of my chemical labours ; for I 
 trust the cause of humanity will gain something by it." 
 
 The letter sent to Mr. Hodgson was copied by several 
 professional men of the neighbourhood on the 2nd of 
 
168 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 November. [Perhaps Mr. Matthias Punn, who pro- 
 cured the fire-damp, may have been one of them. He 
 gives an extract from it in his View of the Coal Trade, 
 but by some error has dated the letter loth instead 
 of 30th October.] Mr. Hodgson tells us that he re- 
 cords this fact merely to show that Sir Humphry's 
 discoveries were known at this time to several persons 
 in the Newcastle district besides himself. He did not 
 imagine that any of the gentlemen who copied his 
 letter made an improper use of it. 
 
 In an oration delivered on the 4th of November at 
 the foundation of the college of the Royal Institution, 
 Mr. Butler alluded, in terms of exultation, to the pro- 
 cess discovered "within these few weeks" by Sir H. 
 Davy, whereby the fire-damp of coal mines had been 
 absolutely subdued. 
 
 On the 9th of November, Sir Humphry read his 
 first paper to the Royal Society relative to the pro- 
 gress of his discoveries. It is entitled, " On the fire- 
 damp of coal mines, and on methods of lighting the 
 mines so as to prevent its explosion." As this paper is 
 published in the Philosophical Transactions, it is un- 
 necessary to enter into any account of the innumerable 
 delicate experiments made by Sir Humphry before he 
 succeeded in producing lamps which were at once safe 
 and gave a good light. It may be remarked, however, 
 that the results achieved were arrived at by processes 
 which could only have been pursued by an individual 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 169 
 
 conversant with all the resources of chemical science, 
 and with every appliance at his command, leaving out 
 of view altogether the rare creative genius of Sir 
 Humphry Davy. 
 
 We have entered with considerable detail into the 
 dates at which the various announcements of the 
 progress of Sir Humphry Davy's discoveries were 
 made, on account of the claim to priority of invention 
 which was shortly afterwards put forward by Mr. R W. 
 Brandling on behalf of George Stephenson, who at 
 this time was an engineer at Killingworth Colliery, 
 near Newcastle-on-Tyne. It is perfectly clear that 
 for some time, at all events, Sir Humphry and Mr. 
 Stephenson were devoting their energies simultaneously 
 to the invention of an insulated lamp on entirely 
 different lines. The first occasion on which a rencontre 
 took place between their respective lamps was at a 
 public meeting of the coal-trade held at Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne on the 10th of November. 
 
 It will be remembered that Sir Humphry Davy 
 addressed letters containing an account of his dis- 
 coveries to Dr. Gray and Mr. Hodgson on the 30th of 
 October, and that these communications were intended 
 to be kept private. Mr. Hodgson, however, having 
 seen a notice of Sir Humphry's labours in the public 
 newspapers, considered it no longer necessary to main- 
 tain any reserve, and on his own responsibility attended 
 
170 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 the above-mentioned meeting and read to the coal- 
 owners the communication which he had received. 
 The reading of the paper appeared to excite considerable 
 interest. Mr. Hodgson was not aware at the time that 
 Sir Humphry Davy had any rival in the field, but 
 after he had read the paper, some gentlemen from the 
 neighbourhood of Killingworth, among whom was Mr. 
 K. Lambert, made mention of Mr. Stephenson's lamp, 
 which Mr. Hodgson then heard of for the first time. 
 We shall now, therefore, proceed to endeavour to 
 elucidate the origin and progress of Mr. Stephenson's 
 efforts to invent an insulated lamp. 
 
 In the summer of .1815 Mr. Stephenson, in his 
 capacity of engineer, being engaged in setting up some 
 machinery in the Killingworth pit, frequently set fire to 
 a blower of gas which he passed on his way under- 
 ground to and from his work. He was expostulated 
 with by several pitmen regarding the danger of this 
 proceeding, but excused himself by stating " generally " 
 that he thought he could make it useful to preserve 
 men's lives. Having discovered that, by holding a 
 number of lighted candles on the windward side of the 
 blower, he could extinguish its flame by the " burnt 
 air " proceeding from them, he was led to form a theory 
 on which he thought a safety-lamp might be con- 
 structed. It was, "that if a lamp could be made to 
 contain the burnt air above the flame, and to permit 
 the fire-damp to come in below in small quantity, to be 
 
CHAP. XVL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 171 
 
 burnt as it came in, the burnt air would prevent the 
 passing of explosion upwards, and the velocity of the 
 current from below would also prevent its passing 
 downwards." 
 
 This theory he communicated to Mr. Nicholas Wood 
 "about or before the month of August." No steps, 
 however, were taken to carry out the idea till the 
 beginning^ of the month of October, at which time a 
 plan was made by Mr. Wood from Mr. Stephenson's 
 directions ; and the lamp was ordered from Mr. Hogg, a 
 tinman in Newcastle, "most probably as early as the 
 2nd, but certainly before the 7th of October." It was 
 at first intended to supply air to the lamp through a 
 tube in the bottom J of an inch in diameter, but on its 
 being represented by Mr. Hogg that it probably would 
 not burn, the tube was made J an inch in diameter, 
 and a slide was attached in order to lessen it if neces- 
 sary. At the same time a glass for the lamp was 
 ordered at the Northumberland Glass-House. It was 
 conical in shape and open at the top. 
 
 The lamp was completed and delivered to Mr. 
 Stephenson on the 21st of October, and on the evening 
 of the same day was tried at the blower in Killing- 
 worth Colliery. It was found that when the slide 
 was so far shut that the lamp burnt " but feebly " in 
 good air, when exposed to the current of the blower, 
 "within a few inches of the mouth," the flame of the 
 lamp increased in size, and then went out, without 
 
172 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 communicating explosion to the gas outside ; but when 
 in this condition, the lamp was easily put out by motion. 
 
 Mr. Stephenson's biographer has constructed a " pretty 
 story" about the trial of this lamp, in which he states, 
 with considerable emphasis, that the very first experi- 
 ment with it was made by Mr. Stephenson in the mine 
 at the risk of his own life. Mr. Wood, however, who 
 was present, explains that the danger was not quite so 
 great as represented by Mr. Smiles. "At most," he 
 says, " an explosion might have burnt the hands of the 
 operator, but would not extend a few feet from the 
 blower." 
 
 Whatever was proved by the trials to which the 
 lamp was put, it was found that the tube and slide 
 arrangement was a failure. If it was safe at all, it was 
 only when the flame of the lamp was reduced to such a 
 degree as to be practically valueless, as it could not 
 bear being carried about. It was consequently deter- 
 mined to make alterations; and, as Mr. Stephenson 
 conceived that the cause of the lamp going out (when 
 moved quickly, he says) was owing to the "burnt air" 
 hanging about the flame, he determined to apply three 
 smaller tubes instead of one large one, and to place 
 them round the flame and point them towards it, in 
 order to dispel this air. The lamp was accordingly 
 forthwith intrusted to a Mr. Matthews, a tinman in 
 Newcastle, who made the alterations ; but they were of 
 such a trivial description that the transaction was not 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 173 
 
 entered in his books, and no particulars were preserved 
 by him either of the date or of the size of the tubes. 
 They are stated, however, to have been made of such a 
 size as the experiments with the slide had determined 
 to be the dimensions of safety the safety, we presume, 
 ascribed to " the velocity of the current from below." 
 
 The altered lamp was delivered to Mr. Stephenson 
 on the 4th of November, and tried in Killingworth 
 Colliery on the same day. The accounts of the trial 
 are somewhat laconic. Mr. Stephenson says it was 
 " found safe." Mr. Wood tells us that it was " found 
 to burn better than the other, but still not well ; still, 
 however, the explosion did not pass downwards." The 
 overman states that Stephenson thought, and he agreed 
 with him, " that the altered lamp burnt better than the 
 former ; " also that the lamp was tried in a " very foul " 
 place, and the effect was the same as before ; the flame 
 increased and then went out. 
 
 Whether the tests which were applied to the altered 
 lamp can be regarded as conclusive evidence of its 
 safety is perhaps questionable. It is scarcely probable 
 that either Mr. Stephenson or his companions knew at 
 this time that pure fire-damp extinguishes lights, or 
 were acquainted with the proportions of gas and air 
 which form the most explosive mixture. Again, was 
 the lamp proof against passing explosion upwards ? 
 HoAvever this may be, there appears to have been a 
 general consensus of opinion as to its deficient burning 
 
174 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 powers. Even Mr. Stephenson was disappointed with 
 it. " It did not entirely answer my expectations/' he 
 says ; nor is this surprising, inasmuch as, according to 
 his theory, his lamp was to lurn among fire-damp, 
 whereas it did exactly the reverse. 
 
 This lamp was never exhibited outside of Killing- 
 worth, but two subsequent sets of experiments were 
 made with it there which are worthy of note. We are 
 told that "on the 17th of November it was tried 
 at Killingworth office, with inflammable air, before 
 Richard Lambert, Esq. ; and on the 24th of November 
 before R. W. Brandling, Esq., C. J. Brandling, Esq., 
 and Mr. Murray;" but that at the latter date 
 Mr. Stephenson had a new lamp in the hands of the 
 manufacturer. 
 
 What transpired at Killingworth office on the 17th 
 of November we do not know; it is possible that 
 neither Sir Humphry Davy, nor his lamps with aper- 
 tures above and below, were ever mentioned. Neither 
 do we know whether the notice of Sir Humphry Davy's 
 discoveries which appeared in the Newcastle Chronicle 
 on the 18th of November was seen by Mr. Stephenson. 
 One thing, however, appears to be pretty certain, and 
 that is that at this particular juncture a new light 
 burst in upon Mr. Stephenson, and that he instantly set 
 about constructing a new lamp, which differed in several 
 essential particulars from his three-tube lamp. The 
 plan of the new lamp was not drawn by Mr. Wood, but 
 
CHAP. XVL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 175 
 
 by a "Mr. Henry Smith, clerk to Robert Watson, 
 plumber in Newcastle/' It was ordered on the 19th 
 or 20th of November, and was made and delivered to 
 Mr. Stephenson in a few days. 
 
 In the new lamp the air was admitted through a 
 series of apertures below, and it escaped through aper- 
 tures above. This lamp was tried in the Killing worth 
 Mine on the 30th of November, " and found to be per- 
 fectly safe and to burn extremely well." On the 5th of 
 December it was exhibited and experimented upon, 
 with fire-damp, before a general meeting of the Literary 
 and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-on-Tyne. We 
 are told that at this meeting Mr. Wood attempted to 
 explain the rationale of the lamp, but was unable to do 
 so; whereupon Mr. Stephenson stepped forward and 
 described it " down to its minutest details." The 
 account given by a gentleman who was present at the 
 meeting (Mr. J. H. H. Holmes) is somewhat different 
 
 " Mr. Stephenson," he says, " undoubtedly claims great merit 
 
 if the invention produced was from his own genius The 
 
 principle of this lamp is its being supplied with air through 
 small perforations at the bottom, which, when in pure atmo- 
 spheric air, enables the light to burn something similar to the 
 
 radiance of a rushlight In regard to this lantern having 
 
 been tried in a mine six weeks previous to its appearance at the 
 meeting, I must express some doubts, as it certainly did not 
 wear the appearance of so old a practitioner, and as Mr. 
 Stephenson appeared totally ignorant of the manner in which 
 the air and gases operated upon the light. Nothing was heard 
 or said of it previous to the private meeting before spoken of 
 
176 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 (held on the 28th of November), which was exclusively for the 
 purpose of taking into consideration the methods of lighting 
 collieries." 
 
 There is a lamp now in the possession of the Literary 
 and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-on-Tyne, which 
 is stated to be the identical lamp exhibited at the above 
 meeting. If it be so, it is not in the same condition as 
 it then was ; e.g., the lamp exhibited had a conical glass, 
 and no trimmer : the lamp now in the possession of the 
 society has a cylindrical glass, and the Davy trimmer. 
 
 After what has been already stated, it seems unneces- 
 sary to enter into the question of priority of invention. 
 It must be evident, we imagine, that in every particular 
 Mr. Stephenson was anticipated by Sir Humphry Davy ; 
 while any improvements subsequently made, based upon 
 the chemical discoveries of Davy, however ingenious and 
 useful they may be, cannot be regarded as original 
 inventions. 
 
 The discovery which Sir Humphry Davy had made, 
 that explosion would not pass through small apertures 
 and tubes, was only a stepping-stone to still higher 
 achievements; and before the close of the year 1815 
 he gave to the world the -wire-gauze lamp. This was 
 the last, the most splendid, the crowning triumph of 
 his labours the "metallic tissue, permeable to light 
 and air, and impermeable to flame." 
 
 The first " Davy lamps " as the gauze lamps were 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 177 
 
 named after their illustrious inventor were sent to the 
 North of England in the beginning of January, 1816, 
 and, after a few preliminary experiments, were tried in 
 Hebburn Colliery by Mr. Matthias Dunn and the Rev. 
 J. Hodgson, with the most excellent results. 
 
 By no one was the invention more eagerly welcomed 
 than by Mr. Buddie ; no one was a better judge of its 
 inestimable value. "I first tried it," he s#ys, "in an 
 explosive mixture on the surface, and then took it into 
 a mine ; and, to my astonishment and delight, it is 
 impossible for me to express my feelings at the time 
 when I first suspended the lamp in the mine, and saw 
 it red-hot ; if it had been a monster destroyed, I could 
 not have felt more exultation than I did. I said to 
 those around me, ' We have at last subdued this 
 monster.' " 
 
 A few months later Sir Humphry Davy accompanied 
 Mr. Buddie into some of the fiery mines of the north 
 to see his lamp in actual use. " Sir Humphry was 
 delighted," says Mr. Buddie, " and I was overwhelmed 
 with feelings of gratitude to that great genius which 
 had produced it." 
 
 Mr. Buddie remonstrated with Sir Humphry for not 
 securing the invention by a patent, from which he 
 might have derived an income of five or ten thousand 
 a year. "The reply of this great and noble-minded 
 man," he says, was "'No, my good friend, I never 
 thought of such a thing ; my sole object was to serve 
 
 H 
 
178 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 the cause of humanity ; and if I have succeeded, I am 
 amply rewarded in the gratifying reflection of having 
 done so/ " 
 
 No sooner had the immense value of the Davy lamp 
 become manifest, than the coal-owners determined to 
 present Sir Humphry with a substantial token of their 
 admiration and gratitude. To this Mr. R. W. Brandling 
 demurred, bringing forward the claims of Mr. Stephen- 
 son, and requesting that an investigation should first 
 be made to ascertain who was the real inventor. This 
 proposal was submitted to a meeting of the coal-owners 
 and negatived. The same meeting, however, voted one 
 hundred guineas to Mr. Stephenson, as an acknowledg- 
 ment of his labours in the same direction. 
 
 The presentation to Sir Humphry Davy was made at 
 a dinner held at the Queen's Head, Newcastle, on the 
 25th of September, 1817, Mr. J. G. Lambton presiding. 
 It consisted of a service of plate worth 2,500/. 
 
 Mr. Stephenson's friends, being dissatisfied, com- 
 menced a subscription on his behalf. The amount 
 collected, added to the previous sum voted by the coal- 
 owners, reached the handsome total of about 80 01. 
 This, together with a silver tankard, was presented to 
 Mr. Stephenson by Mr. Brandling, at a public dinner 
 held in the Assembly Rooms, Newcastle, in January, 
 1818. 
 
 . The claims of Dr. Clanny were long overlooked. He 
 received the gold and silver medals of the Society of 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 179 
 
 Arts ; but it was not till as late as 1846 that steps were 
 taken to procure for him some public acknowledgment 
 of his labours in the cause of humanity in connection 
 with colliery explosions. An appeal having been made 
 on his behalf, a purse of gold was collected, which 
 together with a silver salver, was presented to him at 
 the Athenaeum, Sunderland, on the 3rd of February, 
 1848. 
 
 The invention of the safety-lamp was regarded 
 by Dr. Gray as a sufficient reason for dissolving the 
 Sunderland Society for the Prevention of Accidents 
 in Mines. 
 
 The share which the Rev. J. Hodgson had had in the 
 steps which led to the invention of the safety-lamp was 
 no small one. It was he who, braving the displeasure 
 of the affluent Brandlings, had vividly portrayed and 
 laid before the public eye, in his little pamphlet on the 
 Felling explosion, the awful spectacle presented by a 
 colliery devastated by " whirlwinds of tempestuous fire," 
 and aroused the attention of the humane to the perils 
 to which the workers in fiery mines were exposed. The 
 assistance he had given in forwarding the invention 
 afforded him some solace even in his last illness. 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy in after life always dwelt 
 with peculiar satisfaction and delight upon the inven- 
 tion of his safety-lamp. "I value it," he used to 
 say, "more than anything I ever did. It was the 
 result of a great deal of investigation and labour ; 
 
 N 2 
 
A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvi. 
 
 /, if my directions be only attended to, it will save 
 the lives of thousands of poor labourers. I never was 
 more affected than by a written address which I 
 received from the working colliers, when I was in the 
 North, thanking me, in behalf of themselves and their 
 families, for the preservation of their lives." He used 
 also to exhibit to his friends with great delight the 
 service of plate which had been presented to him. 
 
 /s~ Not only has the safety-lamp been instrumental in 
 saving thousands of lives, but it has also enabled 
 
 I untold millions of tons of coal to be rescued from the 
 
 \ bowels of the earth, which without its aid would have 
 been irrevocably lost. It rendered possible the entire 
 removal of the pillars of coal, great part of which was, 
 formerly left underground in fiery mines. It led to the 
 re-opening of many collieries which had been abandoned 
 after having been worked out as far as was practicable 
 by means of candles and steel mills. Walker Colliery; 
 which had been abandoned in 1811, was re-opened in 
 1818 by the aid of the Davy lamp, and has continued 
 working to this day. Great part of the formerly 
 relinquished workings in Wallsend, Willington, Percy 
 Main, Hebburn, Jarrow, Elswick, Benwell, &c., as well 
 as several collieries on the river Wear, were recovered 
 and resumed work by its aid. 
 
 /*" The introduction of the safety-lamp did not put 
 
 j an end to colliery explosions ; though few indeed 
 
 ) are traceable to it, notwithstanding the many thousands 
 
CHAP, xvi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 181 
 
 of wire-gauze lamps, of various forms, which subse- 
 quently came into daily use. Difficulties there are 
 even with its aid; but, in the case of deep mining, 
 what vastly greater, what insuperable difficulties would 
 have existed, had science not armed the miners with 
 the wonderful insulated lamp, which warns them of the 
 presence of their invisible enemy, and protects them 
 from its power. 
 
 The dates cited in the above narrative can, we think, be 
 established beyond the possibility of controversy. It is perhaps 
 almost unnecessary to remark that both Dr. Clanny and Mr. 
 Stephenson subsequently adopted the Davy wire gauze in their 
 lamps, but for which vital improvement they would long since 
 have been laid aside. 
 
V 
 
 182 A HISTOKY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvn. 
 
 & 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 EXTENDED USE OF THE STEAM-ENGINE ; THE LOCO- 
 MOTIVE J STEAMBOATS. INTRODUCTION OF GAS- 
 LIGHTING. 
 
 " Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd Steam ! afar 
 Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car." 
 
 DARWIN. 
 
 WE have seen that the chief use to which the steam- 
 engine was put for a long period subsequent to the 
 date of its first invention was to draw water from 
 coal and other mines ; then it came to be applied 
 indirectly to draw the coal out of the pits through 
 the medium of the double water-wheel ; and soon 
 after the invention of the double-acting engine by 
 Watt it began to come into general use applied directly 
 to the shaft of the drum, or rope-roll, and quickly 
 superseded the previous circuitous arrangement. The 
 last of the double water-wheels employed drawing 
 
* / 
 
 V A r 7| r - ->\ 
 V ^A>77"5 
 
 CHAP. XVIL] IN GKEAT BRITAIN,. 183 
 
 coal in the North of England were at Chopwell 
 Colliery, and the A pit, Greenside, near Ryton; one 
 of which was abandoned in 1800, and the other in 
 1808. 
 
 In the beginning of the present century a further 
 extension of the use of the steam-engine began to 
 be thought of. At this time the conveyance of coal 
 on railways was performed entirely by horses, excepting 
 in cases where conditions existed favourable to the 
 employment of self-acting incline -planes, when the 
 loaded waggons in descending were made to haul up 
 the ascending empty ones. Hence the railways were 
 made merely of sufficient strength to bear the weight 
 of the loaded coal-waggons. On most of them wooden 
 rails were still used, but the employment of cast-iron 
 rails was making steady progress ; and in a few cases 
 light bars of malleable iron had been applied on the 
 top of wooden rails with good results. An early 
 railway of the latter description was constructed at 
 Alloa Collieries, on the Frith of Forth, in 1785. The 
 wooden foundation was of a substantial character, con- 
 sisting of broad sleepers about a foot apart, to which 
 were secured the rails, four inches square, in the form 
 known as the "double-way," there being both an 
 upper and an under rail employed. On the top of 
 the upper rail a light bar of malleable iron was laid, 
 Ifths of an inch in breadth, and fths of an inch in thick- 
 ness. Light waggons were used, with cast-iron wheels, 
 
184 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvn. 
 
 twenty-seven inches in diameter, and carrying thirty 
 hundredweight of coal ; a horse's load consisting of 
 three such waggons. This railway was found to be 
 very solid and durable, and for a number of years 
 was acknowledged to be " the most complete in 
 Britain." 
 
 Light malleable - iron rails were also applied at 
 Walbottle Colliery, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, about 
 1805, but being narrow, they were found to cut the 
 periphery of the waggon wheels, in consequence of 
 which they were subsequently taken up. At Lord 
 Carlisle's colliery, on Tindale Fell, rails of this mate- 
 rial gave more satisfaction, being laid down in 1808, 
 and after having been in use for a period of sixteen 
 years they " then appeared very little worse." 
 
 But during the first quarter of the present century 
 when iron rails were employed they were almost 
 invariably of cast-iron. They were usually about 
 four feet in length, and of various sections ; and were 
 dovetailed together at the joints in several different 
 ways. 
 
 At the very commencement of the century a com- 
 bination of circumstances occurred favourable to the 
 application of the steam-engine to the haulage of 
 coal- waggons on railways. Watt's patent for the 
 double-acting engine had then expired; the steam- 
 engine entered on a new phase of its history when 
 JTrevithick discarded the condensing apparatus and 
 
CHAP. XVIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 185 
 
 brought out his high-pressure engine ; while to this 
 was added the gradual improvement of railways, which 
 was going forward in virtue of the substitution of iron 
 for wood in their materiel. Thus it happens that 
 almost simultaneously projects were started for applying 
 the steam-engine to the haulage of railway-waggons, 
 both in the form of travelling engines, or locomotives, 
 dragging the waggons behind them, and of fixed 
 engines hauling with ropes : Trevithick being the first' 
 to attempt the former system in South Wales, and Curr 
 the latter in the North of England. 
 
 As early as the year 1802 far-seeing individuals 
 had begun to speculate upon the "great national 
 importance " which the locomotive engine (patented 
 in this year by Trevithick and Vivian) might event- 
 ually attain to, but many difficulties had to be 
 surmounted before it began to achieve any measure 
 of success. The attempts to employ it on common 
 roads ended in complete failure. On railways for a 
 time it hardly fared much better, chiefly on account 
 of the weakness of the rails. At first a single cylinder 
 and fly-wheel were employed ; but though the engine 
 was equal in strength to many horses, its great weight 
 caused it to be constantly breaking the cast-iron 
 rails, while its great strength was too much for the 
 coupling chains between the waggons, which continually 
 gave way. These discouragements caused Trevithick 
 to abandon the locomotive which he applied on the 
 
186 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvir. 
 
 Merthyr Tydvil railway in 1804, 1 after making only a 
 few trips over the line. 
 
 It was doubtless the apprehension of similar 
 difficulties that led Mr. Blackett, the proprietor of 
 Wylam Colliery, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, to give up 
 the project he had entertained of applying one of 
 Trevithick's locomotives to haul the coal-waggons on 
 the railway between his pits and his staiths at 
 Lemington. A locomotive was actually built for him 
 at Gateshead-on-Tyne, in 1805, but it never left the 
 works. After being exhibited to a number of gentle- 
 men, on a temporary railway laid down in the foundry- 
 yard, it was taken off its wheels and converted into a 
 stationary engine. 
 
 More success was achieved at first in applying the 
 steam-engine to haul with ropes, especially in cases 
 where a double slope could be arranged for, as an 
 engine placed at the summit served the double purpose 
 of hauling up and lowering both the loaded and empty 
 trains. The first to employ fixed engines in hauling 
 waggons was Mr. Curr, who, in 1805, applied one to 
 raise the waggons from the valley at Birtley, near 
 Gateshead, to the high grounds at Black Fell. This 
 was immediately followed by other schemes of a similar 
 
 1 In 1802 the Coalbrookdale Company constructed a locomotive for 
 their railways, but we have no information as to the amount of success 
 attending its working. 
 
CHAP, xvii.] IN GKEAT BRITAIN. 187 
 
 character; and about the same time fixed engines 
 began to be employed underground in hauling the coal 
 from dip workings. 
 
 Horses continued to be used on level railways, 
 especially such as had a slight fall in favour of the 
 loaded waggons. Not unfrequently several different 
 systems were in use on different parts of the same line 
 self-acting inclines for single slopes where available, 
 fixed engines for double slopes, and horses on level 
 parts of the road. 
 
 Mr. Blackett's railway at Wylam was nearly level, and 
 was entirely worked by horses at considerable cost. Up 
 till the year 1808 it was laid with wooden rails, but at 
 this time he reconstructed it, taking up the wooden 
 rails and laying down cast-iron plate-rails. This step 
 was doubtless taken with a view to the employment 
 of a locomotive engine upon it a project which he 
 seems to have keep steadily in view though he did not 
 carry it out in 1805. Having renewed the railway he 
 wrote to Trevithick, in 1809, on the subject of a 
 locomotive, the patent for which, held by Trevithick 
 and Vivian, had still seven years to run. In his reply 
 Trevithick stated that he was engaged in other pur- 
 suits, and having declined the business could render no 
 assistance. Mr. Blackett's project thus received another 
 check. 
 
 An ingenious arrangement for employing the locomo- 
 tive engine in the haulage of coal-waggons on light 
 
188 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvn. 
 
 railways was invented and patented by Mr. John 
 Blerikinsop in 1811. Blenkinsop was a native of 
 Walker, a village situated about two miles to the east 
 of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He was a cousin and pupil of 
 Mr. Thomas Barnes, the viewer of Walker Colliery and 
 the pits belonging to the Brandling family. On the 
 death of Barnes in 1801, or shortly afterwards, 
 Blenkinsop was appointed viewer of the collieries of 
 J. C. Brandling, Esq., at Middleton, near Leeds. These 
 collieries were connected with the town of Leeds by a 
 railway three or four miles in length, on which the coal 
 waggons were conveyed by horses. Having conceived 
 that the haulage of the coal might be effected more 
 economically by means of a locomotive engine, 
 Blenkinsop devised a scheme for the purpose. His 
 invention consisted in the use of a rack-rail, fixed in the 
 centre of the railway, or forming part of the rails on 
 one side ; and the locomotive was arranged to drive a 
 pinion wheel working in the rack-rail, thus propelling 
 itself and the load attached to it. The application of 
 the rack enabled a comparatively light engine to haul a 
 heavy train of waggons. 
 
 Blenkinsop employed the then celebrated firm of 
 engineers, Messrs. Fenton, Murray, and Wood, to con- 
 struct locomotive engines for him. His engines were 
 provided with two steam cylinders working cranks at 
 right angles to each other. This was a great improve- 
 ment on Trevithick's engine, a regular and steady 
 
CHAP. XVIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 189 
 
 action being obtainable from it without the use of a 
 cumbersome fly-wheel. 
 
 The first of Blenkinsop's engines commenced working 
 on the railway from Middleton Collieries to Leeds in 
 June, 1812. Thousands of people assembled to witness 
 the trial of the new and strange machine, which was 
 " crowned with complete success." From this time 
 Leeds was regularly supplied with coal by means of 
 the steam locomotive. 
 
 Regarding his engines and their performances 
 Blenkinsop stated, in reply to Sir John Sinclair, that 
 an engine with two eight-inch cylinders weighed five 
 tons, and drew twenty-seven waggons, weighing ninety- 
 four tons, on a dead level, at three and a half miles per 
 hour, or fifteen tons up an ascent of two inches in the 
 yard (1 in 18) ; when lightly loaded it travelled at ten 
 miles an hour ; did the work of sixteen horses in twelve 
 hours, and cost 400/. 
 
 Blenkinsop's locomotive was a success from the first, 
 and established the fact that the haulage of waggons 
 on level railways might be performed more economically 
 by steam-engines than by horses. It was the most 
 efficient of the early locomotives, but there were several 
 obstacles in the way of its extended use, viz., the patent 
 royalty, the cost of the engine, and the necessity of 
 having a special form of railway. 
 
 No sooner had Blenkinsop shown that steam locomo- 
 tion was practicable, than a rush of inventors followed 
 
190 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvn. 
 
 in the same line, and a number of patents were 
 immediately taken out for various forms of locomotive 
 engines to suit the railways of the period. The Messrs. 
 Chapman constructed an engine intended to pull itself 
 along by means of a chain ; WUliani__^Hedley, the 
 viewer of Mr. Blackett's colliery at Wylam, devised an 
 engine to work on ordinary railways, the driving-wheels 
 of which he proposed to arm with a double row of 
 projecting teeth to bite into the ground, and thus 
 give the engine a grip of the track ; William Brunton, 
 of Butterley Ironworks, Derbyshire, invented a locomo- 
 tive, termed by him the " Mechanical Traveller," which 
 was designed to push itself forward by means of legs, or 
 levers, projecting behind. 
 
 The only one of these schemes that came to anything 
 was Hedley's. By a series of experiments which he 
 made Hedley found that he could obtain sufficient 
 hauling power simply from the adhesion of the wheels 
 of the locomotive to the rails, without any other 
 accessory ; and to him is due the merit of being the 
 first to employ smooth-wheeled locomotives in the 
 regular haulage of coal-waggons. His locomotive was 
 known as the " Puffing Billy." It commenced working 
 in 1813, and from this time locomotives continued to 
 be employed in the haulage of the waggons on the 
 Wylam railway. 
 
 Hedley's first engine had only one cylinder and a 
 fly-wheel, and was rather unsteady in its working and 
 
CHAP. XVIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 191 
 
 difficult to manage; but it established the fact that 
 locomotives with smooth wheels might be successfully 
 employed on any railway approaching to a dead level. 
 As at first constructed, however, its superiority to horses 
 in point of economy was not very decided. 
 
 A circumstance more favourable to the introduction 
 of steam locomotion in the North of England was the 
 arrival of one of Blenkin sop's two-cylinder engines from 
 Leeds, to work on the Kenton and Coxlodge Eailway. 
 The first trial of this engine took place on the 2nd of 
 September, 1813. The event excited great interest 
 and was witnessed by " a vast concourse of spectators." 
 The engine was very highly approved of, and its 
 complete success anticipated. It was designed to haul 
 sixteen loaded waggons, of an aggregate weight of about 
 seventy tons, at a speed of three and a half miles an 
 hour. 
 
 About the same time another of Blenkinsop's loco- 
 motives was placed upon the railway at Orrell Colliery, 
 Wigan ; and from a letter of Blenkinsop's, dated 26th 
 March, 1814, we learn that the engines at Leeds, New- 
 castle, and Wigan, were all " giving the greatest satis- 
 faction," and were performing their work at one-sixth 
 of the cost of horse-power. 
 
 Immediately after Blenkinsop's locomotive had been 
 started on the Kenton and Coxlodge Railway, it was 
 determined to adopt steam locomotion on the Killing- 
 worth Railway, which was situated in the immediate 
 
192 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP.XVII. 
 
 vicinity, and Mr. Stephenson accordingly set about the 
 construction of an engine. Following the design of 
 Blenkinsop's engine, he adopted a cylindrical wrought- 
 iron boiler, with an internal wrought-iron fire-tube 
 passing through it; two vertical cylinders of eight 
 inches diameter and two-feet stroke, placed one in front 
 of the other on the top of the boiler, and partially let 
 into it; with cross-heads and connecting-rods to work 
 the propelling gear. At this point, however, he deviated 
 from Blenkinsop's plan, and avoiding the patent arrange- 
 ment of pinion and rack-rail, he adopted smooth wheels, 
 as Hedley had done. After being about ten months in 
 making, the first trial of the engine took place on the 
 25th of July, 1814. Two days later it was tried on a 
 piece of road, with edge-rails, ascending about 1 in 450. 
 It dragged after it, exclusive of its own weight, eight 
 loaded carriages, weighing altogether thirty tons, at 
 the speed of four miles an hour, and after this time 
 continued to work regularly. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Mr. Stephenson, in conjunction with 
 another Killingworth engineer named Dodds, introduced 
 a modification in another engine which was built, aban- 
 doning the spur-gearing and attaching the connecting- 
 rods directly to the driving-wheels. This arrangement 
 was patented by them in 1815. It was a simplification, 
 but was not productive of unmixed good at the time. 
 A chain was employed to couple the axles together, but 
 great inconvenience arose from its liability to stretch 
 
CHAP. xvii. ] IN^ GREAT BRITAIN. 193 
 
 in the course of working, which occasioned the driving- 
 wheels to slip more or less at every stroke of the pistons, 
 and caused a great loss ^of power. Mr. Wood estimated 
 the loss from this source at about thirty per cent, of 
 the power of the engine. This defect was obviated in 
 Blenkinsop's engine, the spur-gearing and rack-rail 
 being completely tied together by wheel-work, so that 
 no slipping could take place the object, indeed, for 
 which the arrangement was invented. 
 
 For many years the smooth-wheeled locomotive made 
 little headway ; the weakness of the railways, and the 
 immature character of the mechanism of the engine, 
 being great drawbacks to its use. In 1816 a locomo- 
 tive engine was purchased at Newcastle by Mr. Buddie, 
 to work on the railways at Whitehaven Collieries, but 
 its weight was found to be too much for the cast-iron 
 rails, and after being tried for some time its use was dis- 
 continued. Another was procured from Mr. Stephenson 
 in 1819, to work on the Duke of Portland's railway from 
 Kilmarnock to Troon, in Scotland ; but it, like the one 
 above-mentioned, proved a failure, probably owing to 
 the same cause. 
 
 The first railway on which locomotives were applied 
 to any extent was the Hetton Colliery Railway. This 
 important colliery, situated near the village of Hetton- 
 le-Hole, in- Durham, was commenced to be opened out 
 in the year 1819, and required the construction of a 
 line of railway to convey the coal to the shipping-places 
 on the River Wear, some eight miles distant. Mr. 
 
 o 
 
194 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvn. 
 
 Stephenson, who still held the position of engineer to 
 the Grand Allies, and resided at Killingworth, succeeded 
 in obtaining the appointment of consulting engineer on 
 the new line, his brother, Robert Stephenson, being 
 resident engineer. The railway was commenced in 
 1819 and completed in 1822, and was constructed 
 in accordance with Mr. Stephenson's ideas, and laid 
 with a form of cast-iron rail designed and patented by 
 himself and Mr. Losh, of Walker Ironworks, some years 
 before. As the character of the country to be traversed 
 precluded the construction of a level railway, it was 
 necessary to employ various forms of hauling power. 
 The line was opened for traffic on the 18th of Novem- 
 ber, 1822, the machinery employed to work it consisting 
 of "five of Mr. George Stephenson's patent travelling 
 engines, two sixty-horse power reciprocating engines, 
 and five self-acting incline planes." The ill-success 
 of the locomotives will be adverted to hereafter. 
 I Though railways had been employed for conveying coal 
 / in the colliery districts for upwards of one hundred and 
 i fifty years, little or nothing had yet been done towards 
 putting the invention to any other use. With two 
 trifling exceptions the lines of railway were all in the 
 hands of private companies; the exceptions being the 
 small public railway constructed by Mr. Jessop at 
 Loughborough, in Leicestershire, in 1789 ; and the 
 railway from Merstham to Wandsworth, through 
 Croydon, in Surrey, opened in 1803. 
 
 From the beginning of the present century the advo- 
 
CHAP. XVIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 195 
 
 cates for the employment of railways for purposes of 
 ordinary traffic rapidly increased in number, and many 
 lines were projected. At first it was proposed to con- 
 nect large towns with each other by their means, but 
 soon more comprehensive schemes were brought forward. ,^ 
 One of the most earnest advocates for the general use "ju 
 of railways was Thomas Gray, a native of Leeds, who, 
 
 " :< 'tfVf 1 
 
 in 1820, published a pamphlet entitled Observations on 
 a General Iron Railway, or Land Steam Conveyance, to 
 supersede the necessity of Horses in all Public Vehicles, 
 &c. Gray proposed to employ Blenkinsop's locomotives 
 to work the railway, and suggested the construction of 
 "the first link" between the towns of Manchester and 
 Liverpool. 
 
 Nothing came out of Gray's project for some years, 
 but in the meantime a public company was formed to 
 construct a railway between Stockton and Darlington, ** 
 to open out the coal district of the south of Durham. 
 This was a longer and more important line than any 
 yet made. An Act of Parliament was obtained in 
 1823 ; and Mr. Stephenson, having obtained the appoint- 
 ment of engineer, left Killingworth to superintend its 
 construction. 
 
 We have seen that in some instances light malleable- 
 iron rails had been already employed on the top of 
 wooden ones with satisfactory results, but previous to 
 1820 they were only used very sparingly and in short 
 lengths of two or three feet. In this year the use of 
 
 o 2 
 
196 A HISTOftY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvn. 
 
 rails of malleable iron received a great impulse from 
 the invention of the process of rolling them in lengths 
 of about eighteen feet. The process was invented and 
 patented by Mr. Birkenshaw, of Bedlington Ironworks, 
 Northumberland ; and from this period the use of rails 
 of cast iron began to decline, and malleable-iron rails 
 to take their place. These, however, were still made 
 of a light section, weighing at most about 28 Ibs. 
 per yard. 
 
 The great superiority of the new material led Mr. 
 Stephenson to recommend the adoption of malleable- 
 iron rails on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, but 
 on account of their extra cost it was decided to lay only 
 one-half of the line with* malleable-iron and the other 
 half with cast-iron rails. 
 
 The country through which the railway passed ad- 
 mitted of the construction of a more level line than 
 that at Hetton Colliery, it being necessary to employ 
 only one fixed engine, while the remainder of the 
 road admitted of being worked either by means of 
 locomotive engines or horses. It was accordingly 
 decided to apply both to the work of haulage. The 
 line was opened for traffic on the 27th of September, 
 1825 ; and one locomotive was added after another till 
 four were in use, three of which were supplied by Mr. 
 Stephenson, and the fourth by Mr. Robert Wilson of 
 Newcastle, while the surplus traffic was carried on by 
 means of horses. 
 
CHAP. XVIL] IX GREAT BRITAIN, 
 
 Even at this time the superiority 
 wheeled locomotive engine to fixed engines and 
 was by no means decided. At Hetton Colliery three 
 of the locomotives had actually been abandoned after 
 some years' trial, and fixed engines substituted ; and in 
 1827 it was a matter of consideration whether the two 
 remaining locomotives should not likewise be taken off 
 the line, and their places also be filled by reciprocating 
 engines. Neither on the Stockton and Darlington 
 Railway do the locomotives appear to have given any 
 measure of satisfaction ; indeed the idea of their 
 abandonment, in favour of horses, is stated to have been 
 seriously entertained in 1827. 
 
 For a considerable number of years no improvement, 
 of any importance, had been effected in the locomotive. 
 Its rate of speed was ordinarily about four or five miles 
 an hour, and its load about thirty or forty tons in > 
 summer, and much less in winter. The first individual ' 
 to introduce a number of novel and highly successful 
 alterations in its mechanism was Timothy Hackworth, 
 an ingenious mechanic who had had considerable 
 experience in the building of locomotives. Hackworth 
 was a native of Wylam, and had aided in the construc- 
 tion of the locomotives there ; for a short period he 
 acted as superintendent of the engine factory esta- 
 blished at Newcastle-on-Tyne by Mr. Stephenson and 
 Mr. Pease ; and after the opening of the Stockton and 
 Darlington Railway he was appointed manager of the 
 
198 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvn. 
 
 working department on the new line. He was well 
 acquainted with the weak points of the locomotives 
 then in use, and was impressed with the conviction that 
 they were susceptible of great improvement. Having 
 obtained the sanction of the railway directors, he set 
 about constructing an engine, after his own design, in 
 1827. Departing from the usual plan of having the 
 cylinders connected to different shafts, he placed them 
 on opposite sides of the boiler, and applied the con- 
 necting rods to the same axle-tree ; at the same time 
 he adopted the return fire-tube, which was used by 
 Trevithick and Hedley, in lieu of the straight flue 
 employed in Blenkinsop's and Stephenson's engines ; 
 and by contracting the orifice through which the 
 exhaust steam entered the chimney, he greatly in- 
 creased the force of the steam blast and effected a more 
 vigorous combustion in the furnace, thus obtaining a 
 greater command of steam. The locomotive in which 
 the above improved arrangements were first combined 
 was named the "Royal George," and was the most 
 efficient and powerful engine which had yet been built. 
 Hackworth's improvements introduced a new type of 
 locomotive, and aided to a considerable extent in the 
 establishment of the locomotive system. From this 
 time Blenkinsop's and George Stephenson's engines 
 went out of date, and in all the new locomotives the 
 cylinders were placed at the sides of the boiler, and 
 applied to drive the same axle. 
 
CHAP. XVIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN 199 
 
 The locomotive engine and the railway system, how- 
 ever, were not established upon a firm foundation until 
 after the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester 
 Railway, of which also Mr. Stephenson was engineer. 
 On this line malleable-iron rails alone were used, 
 though those first laid down were of a very light 
 section. Even at the date of the completion of this 
 line much difficulty was experienced in deciding upon 
 the hauling power to be adopted ; but as it was evident 
 that horse-power was inadequate to cope with the 
 expected traffic, the choice lay between locomotives 
 and fixed engines. 
 
 The events which brought about a decision in 
 favour of locomotives are well known. By the happy 
 Combination of the multitubular boiler and the steam - 
 blast, Mr. Robert Stephenson succeeded in producing, in 
 the" " Rocket," an engine far superior to any previously 
 built, both in point of speed and efficiency. The 
 necessity for adopting a heavier form of rail, and heavier 
 engines, was at once apparent. The railway was relaid 
 with heavy rails at considerable cost ; heavier locomo- 
 tives were built ; and from this time the superiority of 
 the railway system to every other mode of conveyance 
 was placed beyond question. The building of railways 
 commenced in earnest soon afterwards in nearly every 
 part of the country ; and the two Stephensons, father 
 and son, rose rapidly to fame and fortune as the first 
 railway engineers in the kingdom. 
 
200 A HISTOKY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XVIL 
 
 Another use of the steam-engine, which dates from 
 the beginning of the present century, and which gave a 
 powerful impulse to the trade of the country, and par- 
 ticularly to the coal trade, was its application to 
 propelling boats. From the time of the invention of 
 the double-acting engine by Watt, the solution of the 
 problems of steam locomotion and steam navigation 
 advanced pari passu ; and it is a singular coincidence 
 that in the same year and the same month that the 
 first locomotive engine commenced to work regularly 
 at Leeds, the first successful steam-boat in Europe was 
 launched by Henry Bell on the Clyde, the date of both 
 events being June, 1812. Within a few years from this 
 time the application of steam-boats to tow vessels into 
 and out of harbours put an end to the custom, hitherto 
 pursued, of closing the northern collieries for two 
 months during the winter season. 
 
 In addition to the direct and indirect advantages 
 
 accruing to the coal trade from the extended use of the 
 
 steam-engine, other circumstances conspired at this 
 
 time to impart a powerful stimulus to the trade. 
 
 The increased demand for iron, for railways and other 
 
 purposes, gave a great impulse to the iron manufacture, 
 
 which again reacted on the coal trade. Besides, a new 
 
 / and important demand for coal sprang up at this 
 
 j^ I period from another source. In the first era of its 
 
 v history the mineral had been employed only as a source 
 
CHAP. XVIL] IX GREAT BRITAIN. 201 
 
 of heat ; after the invention of the steam-engine it had 
 become available as a source of power; now a com- 
 mencement was made to utilise it as a source of light. 
 The idea of lighting towns by means of coal gas, con- 
 veyed from a central point through iron pipes, was at 
 first ridiculed by many as an impossibility. One 
 member of a Parliamentary Committee is stated to 
 have experienced much difficulty in grasping the idea 
 of "a light without a wick." But it was soon ascer- 
 tained that the project was neither impossible nor 
 impracticable, and town after town became rapidly 
 supplied with its establishment of gas-works, gas-pipes, 
 and gas-lamps; and the means of obtaining a cheap, 
 brilliant, and easily managed light, were placed at the 
 command of every householder. 
 
 Thus it happened that, from various causes, the coal 
 trade entered upon a period of greater activity than 
 ever at the beginning of the present century. Accord- 
 ing to the most reliable estimates, the total production 
 of coal in the country in 1800 was about ten millions 
 of tons per annum. In 1830 it was estimated to have 
 risen to twenty millions of tons : the metropolis alone 
 consuming two millions of tons, in the conveyance of 
 which from the northern collieries a fleet of fourteen 
 hundred boats was employed. 
 
 The opening up of the interior of the country, which 
 had been partially effected by means of canals during the 
 latter part of the eighteenth century, went on with much 
 
202 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvii. 
 
 greater rapidity after the general introduction of railways 
 began. Great facilities for the transport of coal were 
 thus presented to all the mining districts, and the way 
 paved for the prodigious development of the coal and 
 iron industries which has since taken place. 
 
CHAP. xvm. J IN GREAT BRITAIN. - 203 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 DEEPER AND MORE DIFFICULT WINNINGS. 
 
 "The results deducible from Smith's discovery afford another 
 pregnant example of the economic application of purely theoreti- 
 cal principles, which in their first conception seemed but little 
 connected with the furtherance of our material prosperity.'* 
 PROF. A. C. RAMSAY. 
 
 IN the south-eastern portion of the county of 
 Durham the coal-measures are overlapped and con- 
 cealed by a more recent and unconformable formation 
 belonging to the Permian system, and known as the 
 Magnesian Limestone. The depth at which the coal 
 lay, added to the unpromising character of the surface, 
 had hitherto presented an effectual barrier to the 
 development of this part of the coal-field. Coal had 
 been worked at Ferryhill, under the covering of lime- 
 stone, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, 
 but the seam appears to have been of inferior quality ; 
 and it had become the universal opinion of the mining 
 engineers of the north that the coal deteriorated when 
 
204 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvm. 
 
 it passed under the limestone rock a belief which 
 had taken the form of the dictum " No coal under 
 the Magnesian Limestone." 
 
 In remarkable contrast to this were the views of 
 Dr. William Smith, who for many years had been 
 industriously engaged in mapping out the surface rocks 
 in various parts of the kingdom, and tracing their 
 relative positions in fact working out the great idea 
 he had conceived that the rocky strata preserved an 
 unvarying order like the leaves of a book ; and that 
 though some were occasionally wanting, none were 
 ever found out of their true place in the series. This 
 was only rendered possible by means of the important 
 discovery he had made that each rock formation con- 
 tained organic remains peculiar to the era in which it 
 had been deposited, which gave an infallible clue to the 
 identification of the strata belonging to it wherever 
 found. Smith was thus laying the foundation of the 
 modern science of geology. 
 
 In the course of his practice as an engineer and 
 mineral surveyor, Smith accidentally met with Colonel 
 Braddyll, in London, which led to his being employed 
 by that gentleman, in 1821-2, to make a survey of 
 some estates belonging to him in Lancashire, Cumber- 
 land, and Durham. The interest which Smith felt in 
 the properties in the two former counties was altogether 
 inferior to that with which he scrutinised the estate 
 in Durham. This included the village of Haswell, and 
 
CHAP. XVIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 205 
 
 comprised seven hundred acres of poor land, situated on 
 the Magnesian Limestone, and regarded as of little value 
 by Colonel Braddyll's agents. The proprietors of 
 adjoining estates shared the same opinion, few of them 
 believing that their properties had any other than 
 surface value. Smith, however, at once saw that the 
 limestone was an unconformable cover to the coal- 
 measures ; and having traced the course of these, and 
 estimated the thickness of the limestone, he inferred 
 that the best seams of coal would be found at an 
 attainable depth at Haswell. 
 
 No immediate steps were taken to open out the coal 
 in Colonel Braddyll's property, but within a few years 
 sinkings through the limestone were effected elsewhere, 
 and the correctness of Smith's inductions abundantly 
 verified ; and this extensive area, hitherto regarded as 
 of no value, became the scene of the winning of some 
 of the largest, deepest, and most costly collieries that 
 had yet been opened out. 
 
 The work of piercing through the limestone, to the 
 coal-measures beneath, was in some cases attended 
 with extraordinary difficulty and cost. This was partly 
 occasioned by the open character of the rock itself, 
 w r hich, being intersected by numerous large fissures, 
 discharged vast quantities of water into the shafts; 
 but a still more formidable difficulty presented itself 
 in most cases when the bottom of the limestone 
 was reached. Here, at the break between the two 
 
206 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XVIIL 
 
 unconformable formations, a bed of loose sand existed, of - 
 'varying consistency and thickness, but always yielding 
 great feeders of water, to penetrate through which was 
 at times a task of immensely greater difficulty than 
 cutting the hardest rock. 
 
 Foremost among the deep sinkings made through 
 the Magnesian Limestone, alike in point of time, depth, 
 and boldness of conception, was the famous pit put 
 down by the Messrs. Pemberton at Monk wear mouth. 
 Sinking was commenced in May, 1826, and notwith- 
 standing great difficulty and discouragement, the works 
 were pushed forward in a spirited and determined 
 manner. The progress, however, was slow, and it was 
 not till August, 1831, that the first unequivocal 
 stratum of the coal formation was reached. This con- 
 sisted of a seam of coal one and a half inches in 
 thickness, found at the depth of 344 feet from the 
 surface. The thickness of the covering of limestone 
 was 325 feet, and the stratum of sand, at the breach 
 between the Permian formation and the coal-measures, 
 was five feet thick. At the bottom of the limestone 
 the feeders of water amounted to 3,000 gallons per 
 minute, but this was soon dammed back by a casing of 
 cast-iron tubbing, which was carried from the little 
 seam of coal above mentioned to within seventy-eight 
 feet from the surface. 
 
 For a considerable distance into the coal-measures 
 the undertaking appeared very unpromising, as a 
 
CHAP, xviii.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 207 
 
 greater thickness of barren strata was pierced than 
 had ever been encountered previously. A new feeder 
 of water was met with at the depth of 1,000 feet, 
 requiring fresh pumps and a fresh outlay of money. 
 In the eyes of most men the prospects of the enter- 
 prising adventurers seemed dark indeed; by many of 
 the coal-owners the project was denounced as hopeless. 
 But the Messrs. Pemberton boldly persevered, sinking 
 deeper and deeper, until in February, 1834, their 
 pluck was rewarded by the shaft reaching a seam of 
 coal of considerable thickness and value at the depth 
 of 267 fathoms from the surface. This seam was 
 found to be identical with the Bensham seam of the 
 Tyne, or Maudlin seam of the Wear, and the shaft 
 was afterwards carried down further to the still more 
 valuable Hutton seam, which was sunk to in April, 
 1846, at a depth of 287 fathoms, or 1,720 feet from 
 the surface. The winning of this colliery is stated to 
 have cost about 100,OOOZ. 
 
 In the meantime a number of other sinkings had 
 been carried down through the limestone. The first 
 attempt made at Haswell, by the Haswell Coal Com- 
 pany, was abandoned, after an expenditure of 60,000/., 
 on account of the stratum of quicksand encountered 
 by the shaft, at the bottom of the limestone, proving 
 twenty fathoms thick. The second attempt was more 
 fortunate. By means of boring, a spot was found free 
 from quicksand, and here a shaft was sunk which 
 
208 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvm. 
 
 reached the Hutton seam in March, 1835, after five 
 years' labour, at a depth of 155 fathoms. 
 
 Coincidently with the above sinking another was 
 made in the northern part of the same township by 
 Colonel Braddyll and partners (the South Hetton Coal 
 Company), which, after piercing fifty-seven fathoms 
 of limestone and five fathoms of sand, reached the 
 Hutton seam, at a depth of 180 fathoms, in 1833. 
 
 A few years later the same company, being desirous 
 to increase their powers of producing coal, commenced 
 to open out another colliery, at Murton, which proved 
 one of the most difficult and costly winnings ever 
 effected. In the beginning of 1838 two pits, each 
 fourteen feet in diameter, were begun, and carried 
 forward simultaneously, at a spot where it had been 
 ascertained by boring that the limestone was seventy- 
 six fathoms thick, and the sand below from five to 
 six fathoms. The feeders of water encountered in 
 piercing the limestone were successively tubbed off, 
 so that immediately previous to the bed of sand being 
 reached the shafts were free from water. On the 26th 
 of June, 1839, when one of the shafts approached the 
 top of the quicksand, the sand-feeders burst upwards 
 through four feet of strong limestone which intervened ; 
 and before the pumps could be heaved up they were 
 all choked, and ten feet of sand deposited in the 
 bottom of the pit. 
 
 It having been found that the engine power at this 
 
CHAP. XVIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 209 
 
 shaft was unable to make any impression upon the 
 water, several large bore-holes were made through the 
 bottom of the other shaft, then close upon the sand, 
 in order that the united engine power of both pits 
 might be applied. By this means water was drawn at 
 the rate of 4,678 gallons per minute, but no sensible 
 impression was made on the feeders, so that the further 
 progress of the sinking was effectually prevented. 
 
 Nothing daunted by the extraordinary difficulties 
 which had presented themselves, the indomitable ad- 
 venturers determined to redouble their efforts. A 
 third shaft, 16 feet in diameter (being- larger than 
 any hitherto sunk), was commenced, and fitted with 
 an unprecedented force of engine power two pumping 
 engines, and two winding engines, adapted also to 
 pump, being erected upon it. The new pit was 
 pushed forward with all expedition, and in six months 
 was completed to the depth of 73 fathoms. 
 
 The total engine power now available, in the three 
 shafts, consisted of three pumping engines, and six 
 winding engines ; working twenty-seven columns of 
 pumps ; and supplied with steam from thirty-nine 
 boilers. 
 
 When all preparations had been made, the sinking of 
 all three shafts through the sand was commenced 
 simultaneously. The engines drew 10,000 gallons of 
 water per minute. The scouring action of the sand 
 and water on the buckets and working-barrels greatly 
 
 P 
 
210 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xvm. 
 
 impeded the work ; the buckets being frequently worn 
 out at the end of two or three hours. For some time 
 the cost of the leather required for buckets amounted 
 to III. os. per hour three tan-yards being kept in 
 operation to supply it. At length, however, the energy 
 of the adventurers was rewarded by all the shafts being 
 successfully carried down through the sand, and the 
 whole of the water effectually stopped back by cast-iron 
 tubbing. The two original pits were then continued 
 downwards, and on the 15th of April, 1843, the Hutton 
 seam was reached at the depth of 248 fathoms. The 
 cost of this sinking is stated to have been from 
 250,000/. to 300,000/. ; of which 30,000/. was due to 
 the expense incurred in piercing the quicksand. The 
 large shaft, however, afterwards proved invaluable for 
 purposes of ventilation. 
 
 A number of other sinkings were carried down 
 through the Magnesian Limestone about the same 
 time ; Shotton Colliery was won in 1841 ; Castle Eden 
 Colliery in 1842; Trimdon Colliery in 1843; followed 
 by other important winnings at Seaham, Ryhope, &c. ; 
 but in none of these cases were the difficulties en- 
 countered so formidable as in the sinking at Murton. 
 
CHAP. xix. j IN GREAT BRITAIN. 211 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 INVENTION OF CAGES, AND IRON-WIRE ROPES. 
 
 FOR a long period after the use of double water- 
 wheels, in raising the coal out of the pits, was 
 superseded by the direct application of the steam- 
 engine in other respects the machinery employed in 
 this work had undergone little or no alteration in the 
 North of England collieries the coal continued to be 
 drawn to the day in the ancient corf, or basket, made 
 of hazel rods ; and the ropes or cables employed, 
 whether round or flat, were invariably made of 
 hemp. 
 
 As the pits increased in depth, the size of the corves 
 had been enlarged until they commonly carried five or 
 six cwts. of coal ; and iron " bows " had been substi- 
 tuted for wooden ones. It many cases too it had 
 become customary to draw two or three corves at a 
 time, attached to the rope one above the other at short 
 distances apart. But they were still swung loosely up 
 
 p 2 
 
212 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xix. 
 
 and down the shafts, and suffered great damage from 
 striking against each other, or against the sides of the 
 pit, in ascending and descending. At times these 
 collisions resulted in the empty corf being carried 
 back again to the surface, perched on the top of the 
 ascending full one. The only improvement in the 
 drawing of the corves consisted in dividing the shaft 
 by a timber brattice throughout its whole length, thus 
 providing separate passages for the ascending and de- 
 scending loads. This effectually put a stop to direct 
 collisions, but did not alleviate the damage sustained 
 against the sides of the pit. 
 
 The use of corves was attended with many other 
 inconveniences. Being high, they were difficult to fill 
 at the hewer's working place. At the junction between 
 the branch railways and the horse roads they required 
 to be lifted from the small trams on to the horse rolley 
 by means of a crane. They were unwieldy to handle, 
 both at the top and bottom of the shaft ; they required 
 endless repairs ; while the largest quantity of coal that 
 could be drawn by an engine, in twelve hours winding 
 did not exceed 300 tone. 
 
 Under the corf system, the arrangements for lowering 
 and raising the men and boys were of the most unsafe 
 and primitive description. Their security depended 
 entirely on the tenacity with which they clung to the 
 ,rope. The general practice, in ascending and descend- 
 ing, was for two men to sit each with a leg in a loop of 
 
CHAP, xix.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 213 
 
 ^^ 
 
 the chain ; and frequently five or six boys would cling 
 to the rope, one above another, trusting their lives to 
 their capability of holding fast while the rope traversed 
 a distance of 1,600, or even 1,800 feet. So inured were 
 the boys to this hazardous mode of travelling, that it 
 was regarded by them as " fine fun." Mr. Buddie 
 relates an instance of a little fellow, who, in descending 
 a pit 100 fathoms deep, fell fast asleep on the way, with 
 his arms clasped round the rope, and in this condition 
 was brought back to the top again, when he was pulled 
 off by the banksman, and even then was only awakened 
 by a slap. 
 
 Though the ingenious arrangements introduced by 
 Mr. Curr at Sheffield, in the latter part of the eighteenth 
 century, for raising the coal in carriages, were found to 
 answer very well in shallow collieries, they were not suf- 
 ficiently matured to admit of their application in deep 
 ones. The carriage being suspended at the end of the 
 rope, it was scarcely possible to raise more than one at 
 a time ; and the mechanism for landing the load at the 
 surface was somewhat clumsy and tedious. 
 
 An improved arrangement had come into use at some 
 of the collieries in the south, where the carriage, 
 instead of being suspended, was drawn sitting on a 
 platform. It appears to have been introduced in con- 
 nection with the balance-tub system of winding the 
 carriage sitting on the top of the water cistern. The 
 arrangement was simple and efficient, admitting of 300 
 
214 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xix. 
 
 or 400 tons being drawn in a day, from a depth of fifty 
 or sixty fathoms. Its use, however, appears to have 
 been limited to raising one carriage at a time, under 
 the peculiar circumstances above mentioned. 
 
 Matters were in this state when the subject of 
 improvements in winding arrangements was taken 
 up by Mr. T. Y. Hall, and a series of experiments 
 commenced with a view to the disuse of corves, which 
 resulted in the abolition of the ancient system and 
 the invention of a new and immensely superior one. 
 Mr. Hall was a native of Greenside, near Ryton. In 
 his early youth he went through an unusual amount 
 of drudgery as a common pit boy. Subsequently he 
 served an apprenticeship under his father and Mr. 
 Buddie, at Towneley, Whitefield, and Crawcrook Col- 
 lieries. From thence he removed in 1826 to take the 
 management of North Hetton Colliery; and after 
 holding this position for a period of four years he 
 was appointed manager of South Hetton and Blackboy 
 Collieries. 
 
 It was at South Hetton Colliery, the sinking of 
 which to a depth of 180 fathoms was completed, as 
 we have seen, in 1833, that Mr. Hall first attempted 
 to employ substitutes for the wicker-work corves. 
 His earliest experiment, made in the summer of this 
 year, consisted in fitting up one of the shafts with 
 large iron tubs capable of carrying 1| tons of coal 
 each. To steady the tubs, and prevent them suffering 
 
CHAP, xix.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 215 
 
 or causing damage by oscillation, the compartments 
 in which they travelled were cleaded round with 
 timber, thus presenting a smooth passage only slightly 
 larger than the size of the tub. In the underground 
 workings small wheel carriages were employed to 
 convey the coal between the working places and the 
 pit bottom, where the contents of four carriages were 
 emptied into a tub and so drawn to the surface. 
 
 This arrangement, however, was open to a number 
 of serious objections, and after it had undergone about 
 six months' trial, and its superiority to corves was 
 doubtful, the owners of the colliery employed Messrs. 
 Nicholas Wood and George Johnson to report upon 
 the system. These gentlemen accordingly visited the 
 colliery early in 1834, and inspected Mr. Hall's new 
 arrangements, but with the result of being led to 
 report unfavourably of them. Several drawbacks were 
 urged against the system, viz., the difficulty of properly 
 screening the contents of the large tubs ; the im- 
 possibility of discriminating between the colliers who 
 sent clean and those who sent dirty coal ; and the 
 breakage of coal attendant upon the emptying of the 
 carriages into the tubs at the pit bottom. 
 
 Mr. Hall being dissatisfied with the condemnation 
 of his system requested two other engineers to examine 
 into the matter, who in their report, dated April 10th, 
 1834, recommended that a further trial should be given 
 to it. The owners of the colliery accordingly did not 
 
216 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xix. 
 
 interfere ; but soon afterwards Mr. Hall, in pondering 
 over the objections urged against the system by Messrs. 
 Wood and Johnson, succeeded in devising another plan, 
 whereby they were entirely obviated. This was to 
 substitute a cage, or chair, for the iron tub, in which to 
 draw the carriages themselves to the surface with 
 their contents. 
 
 No time was lost by Mr. Hall in making trial of 
 his new scheme. Another shaft was prepared for 
 the reception of cages. Passages for them to travel 
 in" were closely cleaded with timber, in a manner 
 similar to that employed in guiding the large iron 
 tubs. The bottoms of the cages were provided with 
 short pieces of rail, which constituted a connecting- 
 link between the railways underground and those on 
 the surface, and afforded great facility for running the 
 carriages on and off the cages at the top and bottom 
 of the shaft. 
 
 The cage system was brought into operation in 
 December, 1834, but shortly afterwards Mr. Hall left 
 South Hetton Colliery to undertake the management 
 of collieries in the vicinity of Ryton, which he had 
 leased conjointly with Messrs. Buddie and Potter, and 
 for some reason the new system was temporarily 
 discontinued after his departure. But Mr. Hall, being 
 convinced of the great value of the invention, at once 
 proceeded to apply it in a more mature form at the 
 Glebe pit, Woodside, near Ryton. Here, shoes and 
 
CHAP, xix.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 217 
 
 guide-rods were adopted, in lieu of the cleaded passages 
 previously employed ; keps also were applied to rest 
 the cages upon during the process of changing the 
 carriages ; and the immense superiority of the new 
 system was quickly felt, from the circumstance that 
 the pit was able to draw twice as much coal as was 
 possible under the old arrangement. 
 
 A beautiful model of a pit-shaft, fitted up on the 
 cage and guide system, was made in the year 1835 
 by the late Mr. Thomas Sopwith, F.R.S., which, after- 
 being exhibited at the Polytechnic Exhibition at 
 Newcastle, was presented in 1853 to the Museum 
 of Practical Geology, London. 
 
 The value of Mr. Hall's system was soon recognised. 
 Numbers of persons visited the Glebe pit to see it 
 in operation; and the success which attended it led 
 to its speedy adoption at one colliery after another. 
 From this time the use of the ancient corves rapidly 
 declined, and the employment of cages and carriages 
 soon became general. 
 
 The change was productive of many highly important 
 advantages. Leaving out of view the economy effected 
 by it, it need only be mentioned that the men and 
 boys could be lowered and raised with immensely 
 greater comfort and safety ; while the rapidity with 
 which the winding could be carried on enabled the 
 output of the collieries to be more than doubled. 
 
 In addition to the introduction of the cage and 
 
218 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xix. 
 
 guide system, Mr. Hall also effected a great improve- 
 ment in the underground roads, by substituting light 
 malleable-iron edge-rails and flange-wheels for the 
 cast-iron tram-plates and sharp wheels previously 
 employed between the horse roads and the working 
 faces. Thus he completed the improvements which 
 Mr. Curr had begun, and established the system of 
 drawino- and conveying coal in carriages as now 
 universally practised. 
 
 A curious result of the disuse of corves in the 
 northern collieries was that it had the effect of per- 
 manently lowering the price of nuts in the London 
 market. 
 
 The era which witnessed the substitution of cages 
 and carriages for the ancient corves, also witnessed 
 the substitution of ropes of iron-wire for the hemp 
 ropes previously employed. The new ropes were first 
 applied to mining purposes in the Hartz mountains, 
 and were the invention of Mr. Albert, principal officer 
 of the mining administration at Clausthal. The 
 economy of the iron-wire ropes, added to their light- 
 ness and durability, soon led to their extensive use. 
 In 18356 they found their way into collieries in 
 Prussia, and immediately afterwards they were intro- 
 duced into the collieries of the North of England. 
 Here they were first applied in raising the coal in 
 a staple, or underground pit, at St. Lawrence Colliery, 
 
CHAP, xix.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 219 
 
 near Newcastle. An account of these ropes was given 
 by Count Breuner, of Hungary, a chief director of 
 mines, in a paper communicated to the British Associa- 
 tion at the meeting held at Newcastle in 1838. The 
 subject, it is stated, did not appear to attract the 
 attention it deserved at the time, but within a few 
 years afterwards iron-wire ropes had been introduced 
 in various parts of the Great Northern coal-field, both 
 in . working inclines and in raising the coal in the 
 shafts; being usually round in the former and flat in 
 the latter case. Much opposition was made by the 
 pitmen to the adoption of the new ropes for winding, 
 and the dispute ultimately assumed the form of an 
 assize trial at Durham, in July, 1844. This important 
 trial known as the Wingate Colliery Wire Eope 
 Trial decided the question, the evidence adduced 
 fully demonstrating the superiority of the wire ropes 
 to those made of hemp, and from this time the use 
 of the latter rapidly declined. 
 
220 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 INTERVENTION OF THE LEGISLATURE IN MINING 
 OPERATIONS. 
 
 FOR about twenty years after the Sunderland Society 
 had ceased to exist, the subject of accidents in mines 
 received little attention from the general public, and 
 yet perhaps at no time were the collieries in a more 
 unsatisfactory state. Notwithstanding the invention 
 of the safety-lamp, the number of lives lost in the 
 mines had become greater instead of less. 
 
 This arose from a variety of circumstances. The 
 quantity of coal raised, and number of persons employed 
 in the mines, had greatly increased. In all parts of 
 the country the mines were becoming deeper and 
 more fiery. Seams of coal which had previously lain 
 unwrought, on account of their fiery character, had 
 been opened out, and were now being worked by the 
 aid of the safety-lamp. Large numbers of mines also 
 continued to be worked, at considerable risk, with naked 
 lights, either because the miners objected to use the 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 221 
 
 safety-lamp on account of the diminished light which 
 it gave, or because its use was considered to be 
 incompatible with the employment of gunpowder in 
 getting the coal. 
 
 The fact that the efforts of private individuals to 
 compass the safe and efficient working of coal and 
 other mines required to be supplemented by aids of 
 a more comprehensive character, had on several occa- 
 sions been brought into public notice. As early as 
 1797 a far-seeing scheme had been suggested by 
 Mr. Thomas, of Denton, for establishing an office at 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne for the collection and registration 
 of plans and sections of the various collieries in the 
 district, one of the principal objects in view being 
 the prevention of accidents in the future from coal 
 workings unexpectedly encountering unknown and 
 unsuspected excavations filled with water or noxious 
 gases. The subject was revived by Mr. W. Chapman, 
 in 1815, after the great inundation at Heaton Colliery, 
 when seventy-five lives were lost, as already mentioned, 
 by the bursting in of water from some old workings, 
 no plan of which existed a catastrophe which occurred 
 notwithstanding that great precautions were taken to 
 prevent it by a careful system of boring. The scheme 
 suggested by Mr. Thomas only contemplated a volun- 
 tary registration of records in the Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 district, but Mr. Chapman's proposal went much 
 further, 'recommending that such a movement should 
 
222 A HISTORY OF COAL MIXING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 be initiated in all the coal-mining districts, and setting 
 forth that the preservation of plans of abandoned or 
 exhausted workings was a matter worthy of the atten- 
 tion of the Legislature, and should be made compulsory 
 by Act of Parliament. 
 
 The above schemes were both brought forward in 
 papers read before the Literary and Philosophical 
 Society of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and, with a liberality 
 and public spirit deserving of all praise, this society 
 published both papers at its own expense in 1815, but 
 the movement failed to elicit any response at the time. 
 
 The frequency with which explosions, and other 
 accidents, continued to take place in the mines, at 
 last had the effect of forcing the matter under the 
 notice of Parliament ; and on the motion of Mr. Pease, 
 member for South Durham, a Select Committee of the 
 House of Commons was appointed on the 2nd of 
 June, 1835, "to inquire into the nature, cause, and 
 extent of those lamentable catastrophes which have 
 occurred in the mines of Great Britain, with the view 
 of ascertaining and suggesting the means for prevent- 
 ing the recurrence of similar fatal accidents." The 
 necessity for the step which had been taken was 
 forcibly exemplified immediately afterwards by the 
 occurrence of an explosion more disastrous than any 
 that had yet taken place. This happened at Wallsend 
 Colliery on the 18th of June, and occasioned the loss 
 of 102 lives. 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 223 
 
 The committee commenced its labours on the 17th 
 of June, and continued to hold investigations till the 
 30th of July. Many witnesses were examined, con- 
 sisting of mining engineers from all the principal 
 mining districts, scientific gentlemen, &c. It was 
 before this committee that the security afforded by 
 the Davy lamp was first publicly impugned, and one 
 or two instances were adduced in which the lamp 
 appeared to have given rise to explosion. Sir 
 Humphry Davy himself, however, was well aware 
 that under certain contingencies explosion might be 
 communicated through the wire gauze, and warned 
 the miners against exposing the lamp, in an un- 
 protected condition, to a strong current of gas or 
 explosive mixture. 
 
 An interesting account of an experiment made 
 expressly to illustrate this source of danger was given 
 by Mr. Buddie to the committee. It took place at 
 one of the Earl of Durham's collieries, shortly after 
 the invention of the lamp. The experiment was made 
 in the presence of Sir H. Davy and a number of 
 gentlemen. At this colliery the gas issuing from a 
 strong blower in the shaft had been conveyed to the 
 surface, where it discharged itself through a cast-iron 
 pipe. 
 
 " We took a length of hose from an extinguishing engine," 
 says Mr. Buddie, "with the jet-pipe upon it, and attached that 
 to the blower- pipe at the top of the pit ; it was held horizontally 
 
224 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 and the jet was thrown very forcibly out of the nozzle of the 
 pipe ; the blower was sufficiently strong to propel the stream of 
 gas across the engine-house. I well recollect the pipe was held 
 at the entrance of the engine-house, and the jet passed the 
 explosion nearly to the far end of the room, for it was very 
 powerful ; the distance that the blower fired it was from nine to 
 twelve feet, I should think. I held the lamp in the direction of the 
 jet, and not having seen it before, I was not very apprehensive 
 of its firing. It did not fire at first, but as I approached the end 
 of the nozzle-pipe, the gauze became heated red-hot, and passed 
 the explosion. The flame was as long, or longer, than the 
 breadth of the engine-room ; I remember that it burnt the nap 
 off my great coat and spoilt it. This experiment was repeated 
 over and over again. Lord Durham himself was present, and 
 a great many other persons, professional men and others, were 
 present on this occasion. The force of Sir Humphry's remarks 
 at the time was ' Now, gentlemen, you see the nature of the 
 danger to which you are exposed in using the lamp, and I 
 caution you to guard against it in the manner I have shown 
 you. This is to show the only case in which the lamp will 
 explode, and I caution and warn you not to use it in any such 
 case when you can avoid it, without using the shield.' " 
 
 The experience of Mr. Buddie was in direct oppo- 
 sition to the allegations of those who cavilled at the 
 value of the Davy lamp. He informed the committee 
 that during the twenty years that had intervened since 
 the invention of the lamp, there had been from 1,000 
 to 1,500 lamps in daily use in the collieries under his 
 care, and he never knew an explosion to happen from 
 it "not even one solitary instance." At this time 
 the collieries superintended by Mr. Buddie were 
 amongst the most fiery in the kingdom ; but the 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 225 
 
 safety-lamps were tended with great care, and, in 
 accordance with Sir H. Davy's instructions, were 
 cautiously sheltered when being carried in dangerous 
 currents. The necessity for protecting the lamp in 
 this way, however, was not universally known, some 
 mining engineers now learning of it for the first time. 
 
 Among the more novel suggestions made to the com- r- 
 mittee may be mentioned Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney's 
 proposal to exclude fire altogether from the mines J 
 to effect the lighting of the workings by means of ^, 
 reflected light, and the ventilation by means of jets /ft 
 of high-pressure steam ; and that of John Martin, the ^ ' 
 artist, to substitute a large exhausting fan, driven by 
 a steam-engine, in lieu of the ventilating furnace. 
 
 After having taken a large amount of evidence, 
 besides having witnessed a series of experiments 
 with many varieties of safety-lamps in the labora- 
 tory of London University, the committee drew 
 up a report, which they presented on the 4th of 
 September. They regretted, they said, that the results 
 of their inquiry had not enabled them to propound 
 any particular plan whereby mining accidents might 
 be avoided with certainty. They expressed their con- 
 viction that some mines required more shafts than 
 were ordinarily provided; that the use of bratticed 
 shafts was deservedly reprobated ; that the foul and 
 free air-courses were frequently too near to each other, 
 the communications not adequately protected, and the 
 
 Q 
 
226 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 length of the air-courses excessive ; that in some mines 
 lighted with naked lights the use of the safety-lamp 
 ought to be compelled by the owners; that it was 
 essential to have correct maps and plans, &c. They 
 suggested that notice of accidents attended with great 
 loss of life should be transmitted to the Secretary of 
 State for the Home Department, and that some fit 
 and proper person or persons should be appointed on 
 such occasions to attend the inquest and assist the 
 coroner and jury in their investigations. 
 
 They had also seriously considered how far legislative 
 enactments might promote the safety of the miners, 
 but regarded it as impossible then to lay down any 
 precise directions, or to frame any rules of universal 
 application. They thought, however, that great benefit 
 might be anticipated from men of known ability 
 being encouraged to visit the mines, whether in the 
 character of distinguished chemists, mechanists, or phil- 
 anthropists ; that great advantages might be obtained 
 from the establishment of associations in the mining 
 districts similar to the Polytechnic SchooL recently 
 formed in Cornwall ; and that the employment of 
 properly qualified persons, supported by a sufficient 
 number of subordinate overseers, together with the 
 observance of strict discipline in the mines, might be 
 the means of preventing many accidents. 
 
 The labours of the Select Committee of 1835 
 resulted in the collection of mirch interestino* and 
 

 CHAP, xx.] IN GEEAT BKITAIK 227 
 
 valuable information regarding the subject of their 
 inquiry, which, together Avith their comments based 
 upon it, was laid before the House of Commons and 
 the country ; but they did not suggest the adoption of 
 any measures to give force to their recommendations, 
 and nothing further was done in the matter, so that the 
 inquiry, for the time being, proved practically abortive. 
 
 The dangerous condition of the mines, however, 
 continued to force itself into public notice by means 
 of the explosions which occurred from time to time, 
 and in consequence of a heavy explosion which happened 
 in the St. Hilda pit at South Shields in June, 1839, 
 by which fifty-two lives were lost, at the suggestion of 
 Mr. James Mather, made at a public meeting called 
 together to consider the matter, a number of gentle- 
 men immediately formed themselves into a committee 
 to investigate the causes of mine accidents. 
 
 This committee known as the South Shields Com- 
 mittee carried on investigations for a period of three 
 years, taking great pains to acquaint themselves with 
 the subject in a variety of ways, viz. by visiting and 
 making experiments in the mines ; by the examination 
 of good practical pitmen ; by communication with 
 some of the ablest viewers of the country; by corre- 
 spondence with distinguished scientific men ; -and by 
 investigation of the mining laws and regulations of 
 foreign states. 
 
 In 1843 they published their report, a most able 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 and valuable document, the views promulgated in which 
 were in many respects far in advance of the standard 
 of the time. Their opinions, if somewhat pronounced, 
 were on the whole remarkably correct, sound, sagacious, 
 and practical. 
 
 With regard to safety-lamps, they came to the con- 
 clusion that no mere safety-lamp is able to secure fiery 
 mines from explosion, and that to rely upon the safety- 
 lamp is a fatal error ; that the naked Davy lamp, with- 
 out a complete shield, is a most dangerous instrument ; 
 and that the best form of safety-lamp is of the Clanny 
 or Mueseler description, in which the supply of air 
 is derived entirely from the upper part of the con- 
 struction, over the glass shield. 
 
 But that, whether from overmuch reliance on safety- 
 lamps, or other cause, the far more important and 
 safer system of ventilation had been comparatively 
 neglected, and the condition of the ventilation of the 
 fiery mines of the north was of the most dangerous 
 description, caused by too few shafts in proportion to 
 the extent of underground workings, the only remedy 
 for which was more shafts and more air. No new mine 
 they said, should be allowed to be worked unless two 
 distinct and separate shafts had previously been put 
 down, which should be secured by Act of Parliament. 
 
 They were very favourably impressed with the system 
 of ventilating mines by jets of high-pressure steam, 
 as proposed by Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, and strongly 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GKEAT BKITAIN. 229 
 
 recommended its adoption. They also urged th^ 
 employment of the system of draining off gas by means 
 of drifts specially made for the purpose, as introduced 
 by Kyan. They suggested that all collieries should 
 be provided with scientific instruments for ascertaining 
 atmospheric changes and the velocity of the air-current. 
 
 The necessity for the registration of plans and sections 
 of mines they considered sufficiently obvious, and 
 submitted, that from the well-digested arrangements 
 of foreign states some useful suggestions might be 
 obtained in organising a good system in this country. 
 
 They considered that as a rule the education of the 
 chief officers of mines, in respect to scientific attain- 
 ments, was far inferior to the high responsibility of 
 their office, and that as the Legislature already required 
 a systematic professional education in the case of the 
 learned professions, as well as in the army and navy, 
 the same principle should be extended to the mining 
 profession, which is so important to the best interests, 
 of the country, and involves the lives of so many of 
 her people. 
 
 They likewise urged the necessity for the establish- 
 ment of a system of Government inspection of mines, 
 on the principle already acknowledged and acted upon 
 by the Legislature with regard to railways, &c., and 
 applied in the mines on the Continent with great 
 advantage. 
 
 The subject of infant labour in the mines did not 
 
230 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 escape the attention of the South Shields Committee ; 
 but while they had been engaged upon their investi- 
 gation into the causes of accidents, a Royal Com- 
 mission the Children's Employment Commission 
 bad been conducting an inquiry into the state of the 
 mining population with special reference to the employ- 
 ment of young persons in the mines. The information 
 elicited revealed the existence of a state of matters 
 which had been little suspected. Soon after the pub- 
 lication of the report of the Royal Commissioners, 
 Lord Ashley (afterwards Lord Shaftesbury) introduced 
 a measure prohibiting the employment of women and 
 girls underground, and restricting the employment of 
 boys. The measure received the royal assent on the 
 10th of August, 1842, and came into full operation on 
 the 1st of March, 1843, after which date it became 
 illegal to employ any female whatever underground, 
 or any boys under the age of ten years, except such 
 as were already in the pits at the time. This Act did 
 not contemplate subterranean inspection of mines, 
 (indeed Lord Ashley himself regarded this as altogether 
 impossible at that time,) but it provided for the appoint- 
 ment of inspectors to visit mines and collieries to see 
 that the provisions of the Act were observed. In 
 November, 1843, Mr. Seymour Tremenheere was 
 appointed inspector, and his reports were presented 
 annually to both Houses of Parliament until the office 
 was abolished some sixteen years afterwards. 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 231 
 
 From this time mines continued to receive a large 
 amount of attention from the Government, and all 
 the more serious accidents which occurred were made 
 the subject of a special investigation. 
 
 In 1844 a great explosion took place at Haswell 
 Colliery, Durham, by which ninety-five lives were lost. 
 In consequence of a petition from the miners, praying 
 for the appointment of a Commission to inquire into 
 the circumstances, Professors Lyell and Faraday were 
 instructed by the Government to attend the inquest, 
 examine the mine, and draw up a report of the results 
 of their investigations. The visit of these two scientific 
 gentlemen, however, did not prove a success ; though 
 it must be admitted that they undertook the task with 
 reluctance, and advanced their recommendations with 
 great modesty, and with due deference to the opinions 
 of persons more practically conversant with the subject. 
 They confined their attention almost entirely to the 
 ventilation of the goaves, or wastes, which they pro- 
 posed to effect by carrying off the gas into the upcast 
 shaft, or return air-way, through ranges of cast-iron 
 pipes twelve inches in diameter. Their views provoked 
 much adverse criticism, and the plan proposed was 
 condemned by a Committee of the Coal Trade, on 
 account of its impracticability, its cost, and its inefficacy 
 to prevent explosions. It was shown that, exclusively 
 of the Haswell accident, eleven great explosions had 
 occurred in the Northumberland and Durham collieries 
 
232 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP.XX. 
 
 during the preceding fourteen years, and that these, 
 with only one exception of a doubtful character, had 
 all happened in parts of the mines where pillar-working 
 had not commenced, or, in other words, where goaves 
 did not exist. 
 
 Sir Charles Lyell relates an amusing incident which 
 happened during the visit to Haswell. In the course 
 of one of their underground examinations, Faraday 
 asked the overmen how they ascertained the velocity 
 of the air-current travelling through the mine. They 
 said they would show him, which they proceeded to do 
 by igniting a small quantity of loose gunpowder, and 
 observing the time taken by the smoke to pass a given 
 distance. Faraday expressed himself satisfied, but, 
 being surprised at the seemingly careless way in which 
 they handled the gunpowder, he asked where they kept 
 their stock of that material. They told him they kept 
 it in a bag, the neck of which was tied up tight. " But 
 where," said Faraday, " do you keep the bag ? " " You 
 are sitting on it," was the reply ; they having given 
 this soft and yielding seat, as the most comfortable one 
 at hand, to the commissioner. Faraday instantly sprang 
 to his feet, and in the most animated and impressive 
 style expostulated with them for their carelessness, 
 which he said was especially discreditable to those 
 who should be setting an example of vigilance and 
 caution to others. 
 
 From the time that the necessity for a Government 
 
j 
 
 CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 233 
 
 jurisdiction of the mines of this country, similar to that 
 exercised over mines on the Continent, had been 
 urgently recommended by the South Shields Committee, 
 the number of advocates for the intervention of the 
 Legislature, and the appointment of Government inspec- 
 tors of mines, continued to increase. Prominent among 
 these was Mr. Matthias Dunn, who, in his View of* the 
 Coal Trade of the North of England, published in 1844, 
 and in his Review of the Report of Messrs. Lyell and 
 Faraday, published in the following year, cordially 
 supported the proposal as the most likely means to 
 disseminate a knowledge of the best methods of con- 
 ducting mining operations, and to put a stop to 
 dangerous practices. At the same time Dr. John 
 Murray came forward in support of the movement, 
 publishing in 1844, in the form of a pamphlet dedicated 
 to Lord Ashley, a series of letters communicated by him 
 to the South Shields Committee. " I freely and frankly 
 confess," he observes in the dedicatory epistle, " that I 
 utterly despair of any amelioration, unless Parliament 
 interfere." Professor Ansted, in like manner, in a paper 
 read at the meeting of the British Association for 
 the Advancement of Science in 1845, expressed his 
 conviction that no great improvements would ever be 
 effected in the working of collieries without some kind 
 of Government interference. 
 
 A most powerful argument in favour of those f 
 who recommended a comprehensive system of mine ) 
 
234 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 supervision authorised by the Legislature was the fact 
 that great explosions were now becoming general in all 
 the coal-fields. Previous to this time nearly all the 
 great explosions had been confined to the collieries of the 
 North of England, which, being the deepest and most 
 extensive in the kingdom, were exposed to the greatest 
 danger from fire-damp. The spread of the railway 
 system, and the rise of steam navigation, however, 
 were followed by a rapid deepening of the mines of 
 the Midland districts and South "Wales; and from 
 about the year 1845 great explosions ceased to be 
 peculiar to any particular coal-fields, a considerable 
 proportion of them occurring in localities where they 
 had formerly been almost if not altogether unknown. 
 
 The miners too were now looking to the Legislature 
 to assist them amidst the dangers of their occupation ; 
 and nothing having resulted from the investigations 
 of Messrs. Lyell and Faraday, another petition was 
 drawn up and presented to the House of Commons in 
 March, 1845. Much interest in the subject was 
 expressed in Parliament, and it having been repre- 
 sented to the Government that the circumstances 
 connected with mine explosions were still imperfectly 
 understood, another commission, consisting of Sir H. 
 T. de la Beche and Dr. Lyon Playfair, was appointed 
 in August of the same year. These gentlemen were 
 directed to inquire into the conditions under which 
 explosive and other gases in mines are generated ; to 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 235 
 
 ascertain as far as possible the nature and condition 
 of these gases; and the measures, if any, which can be 
 applied in mitigation, if not in prevention, of the evils 
 inflicted through their agency. 
 
 While the commissioners were conducting their in- 
 quiry two serious explosions occurred, one at Jarrow 
 Colliery, Durham, and the other at Eisca in South 
 Wales, and on both occasions special instructions were 
 issued to the commissioners to hold investigations into 
 the attendant circumstances. The examination in the 
 former case was conducted by Dr. Lyon Playfair and 
 Mr. David Williams, and in the latter by Sir H. T. de 
 la Beche and Mr. Warington Smyth. 
 
 The commissioners presented their report on the 1st 
 of June, 1846. After describing the conditions under 
 which noxious gases are evolved in mines, and furnish- 
 ing analyses of various samples of fire-damp, they 
 proceed to discuss measures for the prevention of 
 accidents. They allude to the alleged insecurity of 
 safety-lamps, but express their opinion, that although 
 they may not be absolutely safe under unusual circum- 
 stances, their utility appears sufficiently sanctioned by 
 experience to make them the subject of legislative 
 enactment. They endorse the condemnation of the 
 system of working a colliery by means of a single shaft, 
 the evils of which had recently been witnessed in the 
 case of the explosion at Jarrow ; adding that similar 
 dangers exist where two shafts are in use placed close 
 
236 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 to each other and insufficiently separated, as was the 
 case at Risca. They refer to the great improvements 
 effected in the ventilation of collieries by the employ- 
 ment of ventilating furnaces, more particularly in the 
 North of England, where the further improvement of 
 shortening the air-courses by splitting the air was 
 resorted to ; but state, that while examples of good 
 ventilation might be found in some collieries, particu- 
 larly in certain districts, taken as a whole the general 
 state of the ventilation was very imperfect. With 
 regard to legislative measures, they thought that 
 collieries were worked under such a great variety of 
 conditions that any general system of legislation would 
 be inapplicable; but suggested that this difficulty 
 might be overcome by the subdivision of the kingdom 
 into convenient districts, and the appointment of 
 properly qualified inspectors vested with discretionary 
 powers, so that the needful adjustments to different 
 circumstances might be effected. The necessity of good 
 plans and sections of the collieries they state is suffi- 
 ciently obvious. In conclusion they recommended that 
 the use of safety-lamps in fiery mines should be made 
 compulsory by the Legislature, and expressed their 
 opinion that the evils existing in the collieries might be 
 at least mitigated by a careful and judicious inspection. 
 Near the end of the year 1846, explosions having 
 occurred at Bounds Green New Colliery, near Oldbury 
 in Warwickshire, and at the Burgh Colliery, Coppul. 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 237 
 
 near Chorley in Lancashire, Sir H. T. de la Beche and 
 Dr. Playfair were requested by Government to peruse 
 the evidence taken at the inquests, and to advise 
 whether any further inquiry into the circumstances was 
 likely to be attended with beneficial results. Having 
 done so, they recommended that Mr. Warington Smyth 
 should be authorised to examine and report upon the 
 conditions under which these collieries were worked, 
 the system of ventilation pursued, and the lights 
 employed ; adding, that further experience served to 
 strengthen their opinion previously expressed, that 
 increased safety in working collieries would be obtained 
 if a careful supervision were established by properly 
 qualified persons. From Mr. Smyth's report, dated 
 20th January, 1847, it appears that at the former 
 colliery no efficient system of ventilation existed at all ; 
 while at the latter, blasting the coal with gunpowder 
 was necessitated by the hardness of the seam, a circum- 
 stance which was considered to render the general 
 employment of the Davy lamp impossible. 
 
 Another serious explosion having happened at 
 Ardsley Main, or Oaks Colliery, near Barnsley, York- 
 shire, in March, 1847, by which seventy-three lives 
 were lost, Sir H. T. de la Beche was instructed to 
 proceed there to investigate the cause of the accident, 
 accompanied by any gentleman he thought fit to 
 associate with himself in the inquiry. He and Mr. 
 Warington Smyth accordingly repaired to Barnsley and 
 
238 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 examined into the matter, and they drew up a joint 
 report dated 22nd March, 1847. After giving an 
 interesting account of the circumstances connected 
 with the explosion they animadverted upon the shafts 
 being too near to each other (nine feet apart), the force 
 of the blast having made a breach between them at a 
 weak point ; expressed their disapproval of naked lights 
 being allowed to be used in proximity to a goaf con- 
 taining fire-damp in their opinion the cause of the 
 accident; and reiterated the opinion previously 
 expressed, that "a system of inspection one not 
 over-meddling, but at the same time securing the 
 most effective ventilation and the proper use of lights 
 should be adopted." 
 
 The appointment of inspectors of mines was warmly 
 advocated by Mr. Seymour Tremenheere, who, during 
 the period of four years in which he had acted as 
 commissioner under Lord Ashley's Act, had had many 
 opportunities of acquainting himself with the unequal 
 character of the management of the mines in different 
 parts of the kingdom. In his report for the year 1847, 
 presented during the month of June, Mr. Tremenheere 
 includes a document containing his views upon this 
 subject which had been supplied to the Home Secretary 
 in February preceding. In this he expresses his con- 
 viction that inspection, without compulsory powers of 
 interference, would be unobjectionable and useful, 
 inasmuch as it would diffuse a knowledge of the best 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 239 
 
 plans of ventilation practicable in each district, and 
 lead to many suggestions being made tending to 
 remove known defects, and thereby to diminish the 
 occurrence of fatal accidents ; and also would in many 
 cases act as a stimulus even to well-meaning and 
 benevolent employers, by directing their attention to 
 the best means of providing for the health and safety 
 of the people working in their mines. 
 
 In the above-mentioned document Mr. Tremenheere 
 furnishes extracts in favour of the appointment of 
 inspectors from a petition about to be presented to 
 Parliament by the Miners' Association, a body num- 
 bering some 60,000 members. This petition was laid 
 before Parliament by Mr. Duncombe in May, 1847, 
 and an attempt was made shortly afterwards by the 
 same gentleman to introduce a Bill dealing with the 
 subject, but without success. 
 
 The necessity for legislative measures, however, was 
 not lost sight of by the Government, and Mr. Tremen- 
 heere was instructed to proceed to France and Belgium 
 to make inquiries into the system of mining inspection 
 in those countries. The results of this visit were 
 communicated to the Home Secretary in a report 
 dated December, 1847. In August of the following 
 year, the same gentleman was instructed to proceed 
 to Germany for a similar purpose, and the information 
 elicited was embodied in a report presented to the 
 Home Secretary, dated November, 1848. 
 
240 A HISTOEY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 At this stage of matters a heavy explosion occurred 
 at Darley Main Colliery, Barnsley, on the 24th of 
 January, 1849, by which seventy-four persons perished. 
 Mr. Tremenheere and Mr. Warington Smyth were 
 immediately instructed to proceed to the seat of the 
 catastrophe to investigate the circumstances. Among 
 those examined at the inquest were Mr. Nicholas 
 Wood and Mr. B. Biram (who had been summoned 
 by the coroner to examine the works), Mr. Goodwin, 
 Mr. J. T. Woodhouse, and Mr. Warington Smyth. 
 These gentlemen expressed a strong and unanimous 
 opinion that a system of underground inspection on 
 behalf of the Government ought no longer to be 
 .delayed an opinion which was endorsed by the jury 
 in their verdict. 
 
 The reports of Mr* Tremenheere and Mr. Smyth 
 were presented in February following; and in con- 
 sequence of the agitation which continued to be kept 
 up, a few months later two inquiries bearing on the 
 subject were set on foot. On the 15th of June Messrs- 
 J. K. Blackwell and Professor Phillips were appointed 
 by Government to visit the mines in different parts 
 of the kingdom for the purpose of collecting informa- 
 tion regarding their condition: their attention being 
 specially directed to the state of the ventilation, and 
 the condition of the mines as to the safety of the 
 workpeople ; the chief defects in the modes of carrying 
 on the operations ; and what general improvements 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 241 
 
 and precautions might be suggested in their manage- 
 ment. Three days later (18th of June), on the motion 
 of Lord WharncHffe, a Select Committee of the House 
 of Lords was appointed "to inquire into the best 
 means of preventing the occurrence of dangerous 
 accidents in coal mines." 
 
 The labours of the Lords' Committee were confined 
 to the examination of witnesses, and extended over 
 four or five weeks. On the 26th of July they drew 
 up a highly judicious report based upon the evidence 
 laid before them. They found that the condition of 
 the mines as respects ventilation differed widely, but 
 was for the most part seriously defective. That the 
 greatest destruction of life, however, did not arise 
 from extensive calamities such as explosions, but 
 from the smaller casualties of continual occurrence, 
 occasioning the loss of a few lives at a time a fact 
 which had previously been frequently commented 
 upon. They remark upon the striking unanimity of 
 opinion among the witnesses in favour of Government 
 inspection ; the majority of the witnesses advocating 
 that inspectors should be invested with no direct 
 powers beyond those of entering and examining mines 
 and inspecting plans, and whose duties should extend 
 to recording and reporting, making suggestions, and 
 communicating information to the managers or owners 
 a view in which the Committee concurred, and which 
 they thought might gradually accomplish essential 
 
 K 
 
242 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 improvements in the best manner. They further 
 express their opinion that, taking all the circum- 
 stances into account, "it is the imperative duty of 
 Parliament and the executive to adopt, for the purpose 
 of obtaining such security as is undoubtedly within 
 the reach of precaution, any steps, whether of the 
 nature of inspection or of direct enactment, consistent 
 with the free pursuits of industry and commerce, with 
 the mutual relations in this country between the 
 Government and private enterprise, and with the due 
 recognition of that responsibility imposed upon the 
 owners and managers of mines, which it should be 
 the care of all rather to strengthen than to impair." 
 In concluding their report they allude to the want 
 felt in this country of facilities for acquiring instruction 
 such as is provided by the mining schools and colleges 
 established in the principal mining districts of the 
 Continent, apparently with the most beneficial effects. 
 The task imposed upon Mr. Blackwell and Professor 
 Phillips necessarily occupied some time, and their 
 reports, which were both of a highly able and instruc- 
 tive character, were not laid before Parliament till 
 the 6th of May, 1850. The investigations of these 
 gentlemen served to corroborate the opinions already 
 arrived at by the Select Committee of the House of 
 Lords as to the great inequality which existed in the 
 condition of different mines in regard to safety, and 
 the necessity for a more extended application of the 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 243 
 
 most improved principles, and a better education of the 
 mining population. This, it was pointed out, was all 
 the more essential inasmuch as shallow mines, which 
 were being carried on with comparatively little risk, 
 were certain to become more dangerous as the works 
 were carried to greater depths. Professor Phillips 
 advocated the establishment of mining schools as the 
 means of imparting a due amount of practical and 
 scientific acquirements to the managers of mines ; 
 adding, that for securing the right use of this 
 knowledge in the actual management of the mines, 
 a systematic inspection under the authority of 
 Government appeared desirable. 
 
 Soon afterwards a measure was brought forward by 
 the Government, which met with comparatively little 
 opposition, and was passed on the llth of August, 
 under the title of " An Act for the Inspection of Coal 
 Mines in Great Britain." This Act provided for the 
 appointment of inspectors by the Secretary of State, 
 who were to have power to enter and inspect the 
 works of any colliery, both above and below ground, 
 and to inquire into all matters relating to the safety 
 of the workpeople. It also provided for the making 
 and maintaining of correct plans; for notices of 
 accidents causing loss of life being sent within 
 twenty-four hours to one of her Majesty's Secretaries 
 of State, &c. ; and was to remain in force for a 
 period of five years. In November following four 
 
 B 2 
 
244 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 inspectors were appointed, and two more were 
 added shortly afterwards. 
 
 The great frequency with which explosions continued 
 to occur led to the appointment of a Select Committee 
 of the House of Commons on the 27th of May, 1852, 
 who, after holding a very cursory investigation, drew 
 up and presented a report on the 22nd of June. The 
 subject was again referred to a Select Committee in 
 May, 1853, and the inquiry was continued by another 
 Committee appointed in February, 1854, who pre- 
 sented their final report in June following. While 
 differing in opinion on some technical questions, the 
 Committees were agreed upon the main points at 
 issue, and alike advocated the necessity for improved 
 ventilation, efficient supervision, increased inspection, 
 and better education. In accordance with the further 
 information which had been obtained, the Act of 
 Parliament was modified on its renewal in 1855, 
 seven general rules being added, and provision made 
 for the establishment of codes of special rules applic- 
 able to each colliery. The number of inspectors 
 was also increased to twelve. In 1860 the Act was 
 further amended and made perpetual, and the office 
 of inspector under Lord Ashley's Act was abolished. 
 
 Notwithstanding the oft-repeated condemnation of 
 the system of working collieries by means of a single 
 bratticed shaft, no steps had yet been taken to put 
 an end to the practice. In January, 1862, however, 
 
CHAP, xx.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 245 
 
 the long list of calamities arising from this defective \ 
 arrangement culminated in the great catastrophe at ) , 
 Hartley Colliery, in Northumberland, when two hun-/ 
 dred and four persons lost their lives by the half of 
 the beam of the pumping-engine breaking off and 
 falling down the pit, wrecking the brattice, and destroy- 
 ing the ventilation, and cutting off all communication 
 with the surface. This at length led to the passing 
 of a short Act of Parliament prohibiting collieries from 
 being worked unless provided with at least two means 
 of exit, separated by not less than ten feet of natural 
 strata. 
 
 The operation of the Act of 1860 " for the Regula- 
 tion and Inspection of Mines," was made the subject 
 of inquiry by a Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons appointed for the purpose in 1865, who 
 in their report presented in July, 1867, suggested a 
 number of alterations in the then existing law; but 
 no change was effected till 1872. On the 10th of 
 August in this year the present "Coal Mines Regu- 
 lation Act" received the royal assent, and came into 
 operation in England and Scotland on the 1st of 
 January, 1873, and in Ireland on the 1st of January, 
 1874. No increase was made in the number of chief 
 inspectors, but each of the previously existing inspectors 
 was provided with an assistant. 
 
 The appointment of inspectors of mines by Govern- 
 ment, in 1850, was followed by the opening of the Royal 
 
246 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xx. 
 
 School of Mines, London, in 1851, and by the estab- 
 lishment of the first Mining Institute at Newcastle-on 
 Tyne, in 1852, under the presidency of Mr. Nicholas 
 Wood, originally with the title of "The North of 
 England Institute of Mining Engineers, and others 
 interested in the prevention of Accidents in Mines, 
 and in the advancement of Mining Science generally." 
 Since this period similar institutes have been estab- 
 lished in most of the mining districts, and mining 
 schools, or classes, have been opened at a number of 
 the most important centres Bristol, Wigan, Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne, &c. A School of Mines was organised at 
 Glasgow in 1859, and carried on for a few years by 
 aid of voluntary subscriptions, but it was found 
 necessary to abandon the scheme, as the institution 
 failed to become self-supporting. 
 
CHAP. XXL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 GREAT IMPROVEMENT IN THE VENTILATION OF COL- 
 LIERIES. THE STEAM JET TRIED AND ABANDONED. 
 MECHANICAL VENTILATOES COME INTO EXTENSIVE 
 USE. 
 
 " There is a spirit of intelligent energy now awakened witli 
 reference to this object, from which the best results may hereafter 
 be expected." Report of the Lords' Committee, 1849. 
 
 DURING the course of the present century the ideas 
 entertained regarding the ventilation of mines have 
 undergone a wonderful revolution, and the extraordi- 
 nary volumes of air which now sweep through the 
 best- conducted collieries present a striking contrast to 
 the meagre air-currents of the commencement of the 
 century. The life of Mr. Buddie may be regarded as 
 forming the connecting link between the old regime 
 and the new one ; the system of compound ventilation, 
 or " splitting the air," introduced by him, was the first- 
 step in the direction of improvement, and inaugurated 
 a new era in mine ventilation. 
 
248 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxi. 
 
 Accustomed, however, as Mr. Buddie was in his 
 youth to the insignificant volumes of air which could 
 alone be introduced into the mines under the system 
 of coursing the air in a single current through the 
 whole length of the workings, and having introduced 
 the new system of ventilation rather with a view to 
 overcoming difficulties connected with the use of the 
 ventilating furnace than with the object of obtaining 
 an increased volume of air, it is perhaps not surprising 
 that he continued throughout most of his life to 
 entertain what to us appear inadequate views on the 
 subject. In 1813, in his communication to Sir Ralph 
 Milbanke, president of the Sunderland Society, he 
 observes that the standard air-current employed in 
 the ventilation of the collieries under his care abound- 
 ing in inflammable gas moved through an aperture 
 from thirty to forty feet in area, with a velocity of 
 three feet per second, the volume of air being from 
 5,400 to 7,200 cubic feet per minute. In this standard 
 air-current Mr. Buddie conceived that a maximum of 
 efficiency had been reached, and that in this direction 
 no further improvement could be looked for. Even in 
 1835 the total volume of air employed to ventilate 
 Wallsend Colliery, with three downcast and two upcast 
 pits, only amounted to 5,000 cubic feet per minute. 
 There is little reason to doubt that inadequate venti- 
 lation had much to do with the great loss of life 
 which occurred in the collieries under Mr. Buddie's 
 
CHAP. XXL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 superintendence. His career was a long and distinguisSe 
 one, but notwithstanding his great skill and care, and 
 his indefatigable attention to his duties, no fewer than 
 840 persons are stated to have perished in the pits of 
 which he was viewer. 
 
 It was in the newer collieries of the Wear district 
 where splitting the air was introduced about 1820 
 that a commencement was first made to employ volumes 
 of air vastly greater than had been thought of before. 
 This was effected by enlarging the shafts and air-ways, 
 increasing the number of splits and shortening their 
 run, and constructing more capacious (and sometimes 
 several) furnaces. In many cases also great assistance 
 was obtained from the fires of boilers placed under- 
 ground in connection with steam machinery for hauling 
 the coal, which was coming into common use as a 
 substitute for horses. In 1835, while Mr. Buddie, as 
 we have seen, was ventilating Wallsend Colliery with 
 5,000 cubic feet of air per minute, at Pensher Colliery 
 (where a special shaft had been sunk for ventilating 
 purposes) the aggregate volume of air sweeping through 
 the mine amounted to 51,900 cubic feet per minute ; and 
 at Hetton Colliery at the same time the ventilating 
 current had reached 96,300 cubic feet per minute. 
 
 The movement in the direction of better ventilation 
 having once been initiated, the viewers of the period 
 vied with each other in introducing larger and larger 
 volumes of air into the mines, and the above figures 
 
250 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XXL 
 
 were soon left behind. In a statement of the quantities 
 of air circulating through some of the most important 
 collieries in the North of England in 1850, we find 
 Hetton with 190,000 cubic feet, South Hetton and 
 Murton with 132,895 cubic feet, and Wallsend with 
 121,360 cubic feet per minute. 
 
 Within ten or twelve years later the ventilating 
 currents at Hetton Colliery underwent a further 
 enormous augmentation. The ventilating power em- 
 ployed consisted of four furnaces and three boiler fires 
 at Hetton, two furnaces and two boiler fires at Elemore, 
 and one furnace and six boiler fires at Eppleton ; and 
 the quantity of air passing through the pits reached 
 the vast total of 450,000 cubic feet per minute. 
 
 Among notable instances of furnace ventilation at 
 the present time we have South Hetton and Murton 
 Collieries, with three furnaces and twelve boiler fires, 
 emitting from 380,000 to 440,000 cubic feet; the deep 
 pit at Rosebridge, Wigan, giving, with two furnaces, 
 235,000 cubic feet; and Wynnstay Colliery, North 
 Wales, with a single furnace, 200,000 cubic feet per 
 minute. 
 
 Though furnaces still present the most powerful 
 means of obtaining large volumes of air in the case 
 of deep and dry upcast pits, their use is not free from 
 a number of serious drawbacks. Unless fed with fresh 
 air direct from the downcast pit there is a certain 
 amount of risk of their giving rise to explosion; and 
 
CHAP. XXL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 251 
 
 if they be not securely isolated from the surrounding 
 strata there is danger of their setting fire to coal seams 
 in their vicinity. Considerable difficulty also exists 
 in executing repairs in the furnace drifts and upcast 
 shafts; while the volumes of smoke poured into the 
 shaft render a furnace upcast a very objectionable 
 passage for the men to traverse in entering or leaving 
 the mine. In addition to this, the operation of re- 
 lighting the furnace and restoring the ventilation after 
 an accident has occurred is a task of much anxiety 
 and no small danger. These and similar considerations 
 have served as a powerful stimulus to the application of 
 other methods of effecting the ventilation of coal mines. 
 The experiments made by Mr. Buddie at the com- 
 mencement of the century were considered to have 
 established the superiority of the furnace over the 
 substitutes which he attempted to employ in lieu of 
 it, but the desirability of excluding fire as much as 
 possible from collieries yielding inflammable gas, con- 
 tinued to lead to various proposals with this object 
 being brought forward from time to time. Mr. Golds- 
 worthy Gurney's scheme for employing jets of high- 
 pressure steam, and Mr. John Martin's proposal to 
 employ a large exhausting fan, both laid before the 
 Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1835, 
 have been already adverted to. These suggestions met 
 with little approval at the time from the mining 
 community, but no long period elapsed before the 
 
252 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxi. 
 
 idea of employing substitutes for the furnace began to 
 be more favourably entertained. The steam jet was 
 strongly recommended by the South Shields Com- 
 mittee in their report published in 1843, and a few 
 years afterwards it came to be actually applied to the 
 ventilation of mines, the first trial of it being made 
 by Mr. T. E. Forster, at Seaton Delaval Colliery, 
 Northumberland, in 1848. 
 
 Mr. Forster was led to adopt the steam-jet system 
 of ventilation from having witnessed some experiments 
 at the Polytechnic establishment in London, in June, 
 1848, with which. he was favourably impressed. In 
 November following he applied it in an upcast pit 
 where two boilers already existed having a greater 
 steam-producing capacity than was required for the 
 work they had to perform. 
 
 At first the new system promised to be a success, 
 and the favourable accounts of it given by Mr. Forster 
 led to its being adopted at a number of other collieries, 
 viz., Belmont, North Hetton, Us worth, Norwood, &c. 
 But at Seaton Delaval the jet apparatus was applied 
 under peculiar circumstances, there being four downcast 
 pits supplying air to one upcast, and it was not found 
 to give such good results at other places. 
 
 The question of the comparative merits of the steam 
 jet and the furnace excited much interest among mining 
 engineers, perhaps more particularly on account of 
 the emphatic approval of the former by the Select 
 
CHAP. XXL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 253 
 
 Committee of the House of Commons in 1852. The 
 subject was widely discussed and experimented upon, 
 and formed the topic of the first papers read before 
 the North of England Institute in 1852-3. But the 
 numerous elaborate and exhaustive experiments which 
 were made at this time, particularly by Mr. Nicholas 
 Wood, served to establish the undoubted superiority of 
 the furnace both as regards efficiency and economy, 
 and the short-lived popularity of the steam jet speedily 
 came to an end. 
 
 While steam-jet ventilation was undergoing its trial 
 in the north, a more important innovation on furnace 
 ventilation was being introduced in South Wales. 
 This consisted in the employment of mechanical ven- 
 tilators driven by steam-engines. These had been 
 in use for a considerable time on the Continent, 
 particularly at the collieries in Belgium, but their 
 regular employment in this country only commenced 
 in 1849, in the early part of which year one of Struve's 
 air-pump machines, and one of Brunton's revolving 
 fans, were erected simultaneously at collieries in 
 Glamorganshire. The former, as first applied at 
 Eaglesbush Colliery, near Neath, consisted of two 
 double-acting airometers, each twelve feet in diameter, 
 and having a stroke of from four to six feet. The 
 latter consisted of a horizontal fan twenty-two feet 
 in diameter, running on a vertical spindle, and placed 
 
254 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxi. 
 
 over the top of the upcast shaft; the first machine 
 being erected at Mr. Powell's Gellygaer Colliery. 
 
 During the next few years the use of mechanical 
 ventilators gradually extended. A number of Struve's 
 and Brunton's machines, of various sizes, were built at 
 different collieries in Wales ; and in 1852 a form of 
 straight-vaned fan resembling Brunton's, but having 
 the axis horizontal, was introduced by Mr. James 
 Nasmyth; the first being applied at one of Earl 
 Fitzwilliam's collieries, near Rotherham. This fan was 
 only six feet in diameter, but larger sizes were built 
 by Nasmyth shortly afterwards; one being erected 
 at Abercarn, in Glamorganshire, about 1853-4, with 
 a diameter of 13J feet and a width of 3 feet, followed 
 by a still larger one built for Earl Fitzwilliam. A 
 fan having tangential blades was invented and patented 
 in 1853 by Mr. Biram (viewer to Earl Fitzwilliam), 
 who in the course of the next three or four years 
 applied various fans to ventilate collieries at Elsecar. 
 
 The utility of mechanical Ventilators was brought 
 before the North of England Institute of Mining 
 Engineers in 1858 by Mr. J. J. Atkinson, Inspector 
 of Mines a gentleman whose valuable papers con- 
 tributed from time to time to the Transactions of 
 this Institute served to throw much light on the 
 subject of mine ventilation in a paper entitled "On 
 the comparative consumption of fuel by ventilating 
 farnaces and ventilating machines, when used to 
 
CHAP, xxi.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 255 
 
 ventilate mines." In this paper Mr. Atkinson adduced 
 statistics exhibiting the superiority of machines in 
 point of economy. As yet no mechanical ventilators 
 had been applied in the Great Northern coal-field, 
 but their introduction took place soon afterwards, an 
 open running fan, similar to those at Elsecar, being 
 erected at Tursdale Colliery, Durham, about 1860. 
 
 From this time large numbers of mechanical ven- 
 tilators of various types came into use. The Guibal 
 fan, with spiral case and flexible shutter (the invention 
 of M. Guibal, of Mons), was patented in 1862, and 
 introduced at Elswick Colliery, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 about 1864, and came so rapidly into favour that 
 within ten or twelve years no fewer than two hundred 
 were at work at collieries in different parts of the 
 kingdom. The Schiele fan, brought forward imme- 
 diately after the Guibal, and of the same type, has also 
 come into extended use. Waddle fans, open at the 
 periphery and without any exterior casing, have like- 
 wise been erected at many collieries. Among other 
 machines of different forms which have been applied 
 to a smaller extent, may be mentioned Lemielle's 
 feathering fan, Nixon's horizontal air-pump piston 
 machine the revolving drum machines of Cooke, and 
 Root's machine resembling in principle the pneumatic 
 wheels of M. Fabry used at collieries on the Continent. 
 
 The fear formerly entertained of interruptions to the 
 ventilation being occasioned by mechanical ventilators 
 
256 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxi. 
 
 breaking down, was gradually dispelled as their ap- 
 plication was extended, and they were proved by 
 experience to be capable of performing their work 
 with regularity, economy, efficiency, and safety. Of 
 late they have come to be regarded with more and 
 more favour, and are being so largely introduced as 
 almost to promise ultimately to supersede furnaces 
 altogether. The rapidity with which they have 
 recently been adopted is forcibly exhibited by the 
 evidence of some of the witnesses examined by the 
 Royal Commissioners now inquiring into the subject 
 of accidents in mines. Thus Mr. Ralph Moore, in- 
 spector of mines for the eastern division of Scotland, 
 stated that the number of fans in use in his district 
 had increased from one in 1873 to upwards of ninety 
 in 1879. Similar testimony in regard to the fan 
 gradually superseding the furnace was afforded by 
 various witnesses, who expressed a remarkable una- 
 nimity of opinion in favour of the change. 
 
 Of the three forms of fan most commonly used in 
 this country, viz., the Guibal, the Waddle, and the 
 Schiele, the latter is rarely made of a greater diameter 
 than sixteen feet, and is made to revolve with great 
 velocity; while the Waddle and the Guibal are con- 
 structed of all sizes up fco fifty feet diameter; the 
 latter being frequently from twelve to fifteen feet in 
 breadth, and capable, of producing a ventilating current 
 of upwards of 200,000 cubic feet per minute. 
 
CHAP, xxii.] IN GKEAT BEITAIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RECENT INVENTIONS, EXPERIMENTS, AND 
 IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 NOTABLE among the improvements effected of recent 
 years, in the winning and working of collieries, may be 
 mentioned the system of sinking through heavily 
 watered strata invented by Messrs. Kind and Chaudron, 
 which, after being successfully applied in many difficult 
 cases on the Continent, has lately been introduced into 
 this country. The system consists in boring out the 
 shaft from the surface, until the watery strata have 
 been pierced, and -a suitable foundation obtained on 
 which to place the cast-iron tubbing. The tubbing, 
 composed of rings the full size of the shaft, is then 
 lowered into position, and by means of an ingenious 
 stuffing-box arrangement at the bottom, packed with 
 moss, a water-tight joint is formed as soon as it rests 
 upon the bed prepared for ifc. The water contained in 
 the shaft is then removed, and sinking in the dry 
 measures carried on after the ordinary fashion. 
 
 ,s 
 
258 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxn. 
 
 By the aid of the above system, sinkings have been 
 effected at Cannock Chase, in Staffordshire, and at 
 Whitburn, in Durham, under circumstances in which the 
 usual methods were found inadequate to contend with 
 the great quantities of water encountered. Instead of 
 being a hindrance, the water in the shaft assists in the 
 process of boring, and its quantity is immaterial, inas- 
 much as it is never removed from the shaft until the 
 exterior feeders have been effectually dammed back. 
 The difficulties at Whitburn were even more formidable 
 than those encountered at Murton. The influx of 
 water into the shafts amounted to nearly 12,000 gallons 
 per minute, and the attempt to sink by ordinary 
 methods was abandoned as impracticable. The Kind- 
 Chaudron system was then brought into play, and with 
 such success, that when the first pit was completed 
 through the watery strata, the water which found its 
 way into it only amounted to a little over one gallon 
 per minute. 
 
 In the fittings of shafts a variety of innovations have 
 been made within the last twenty or thirty years. The 
 wood guides at first employed have in many instances, 
 more especially in particular districts, been superseded 
 by tightly-stretched iron-wire ropes, or by rolled iron 
 rails of various sections ; while since the increased 
 abundance and lessened cost of steel, consequent upon 
 the invention of the Bessemer process, this material, on 
 account of its superior strength and lightness, has come 
 
CHAP. XXIL] IN.GREAT BKITAIN. 259 
 
 to be employed to a considerable extent, in lieu of iron, 
 in the construction of winding ropes and cages, as well 
 as for numerous other purposes. 
 
 The general introduction of guides and cages was 
 followed by the invention of many forms of " safety 
 cages," designed to suspend themselves upon the guides 
 in the event of the rope breaking. Among the earliest 
 was that of Mr. Fourdrinier, of Staffordshire, patented in 
 1847. Between the years 185464, in particular, much 
 attention was given to the subject, and safety-cages, on 
 different principles of action, were applied in practice to 
 a considerable extent, e.g. White and Grant's, Owen's, 
 Aytoun's, Knowles', Calow's, &c. It is admitted that 
 several accidents were prevented by their use ; but, on 
 the other hand, mischief was occasionally caused by the 
 suspending apparatus coming into play when not wanted, 
 and it was sometimes found to be out of order when 
 wanted ; so that their success was at best equivocal, and 
 their popularity gradually waned. They are now little, 
 if at all, used in the collieries of this country, it being 
 considered preferable, where winding is carried on with 
 rapidity, to place reliance upon ropes of the best 
 material, carefully tended, and not over-long run. 
 
 The use of " safety-hooks " for the prevention of 
 over- win ding is regarded with more favour. These are 
 designed to disconnect the qage from the rope, and sus- 
 pend it at the same time, on its being drawn within 
 dangerous proximity to the pulleys. Various forms, 
 
 s 2 
 
260 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxn. 
 
 invented by Messrs. Bryham, Ormerod, Walker, &c., 
 are now extensively employed at many of the deepest 
 and most important collieries. 
 
 A method of counterbalancing the weight of the 
 winding ropes, by suspending a " tail rope " below 
 the cages (which was made the subject of a patent, by 
 Burrows, in 1856), has of late years been making its 
 way into use, and is found to be simple, inexpensive* 
 and effective. 
 
 A new form of winding apparatus, the invention of 
 Herr Koepe, engineer to Messrs. Krupp and Co., in 
 which the counterbalance rope forms an essential fea- 
 ture, has been employed for some years on the Continent, 
 and more recently in this country. It consists in sub- 
 stituting for the drum usually employed, a large pulley, 
 having a wooden rim with a deep groove in it. The 
 winding rope merely passes round the pulley, thus 
 forming with the counterbalance an endless - rope 
 arrangement, broken only by the cages, which constitute 
 links between the upper and lower loops, the apparatus 
 being at all points in perfect equilibrium. 
 
 It is obvious that without additional precautionary 
 measures, both cages would fall to the bottom in the 
 event of a breakage of the rope taking place, but this 
 danger is overcome by the employment of safety-ropes, 
 which, under ordinary circumstances, run freely in the 
 shaft, but serve to suspend the cages on an accident 
 occurring to the main winding rope. The Koepe system 
 
CHAP. XXIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 261 
 
 has been in use for some time at Bestwood Colliery, 
 Nottingham, where it is stated to have given every 
 satisfaction. 
 
 In the haulage of the coal carriages along the main 
 underground roads, horses have to a great extent been 
 superseded by machinery, usually consisting of wire 
 ropes, of iron or steel, or chains, worked by steam- 
 engines placed either at the surface or in the mine. 
 In the case of level or undulating roads, tail ropes, 
 endless ropes, and endless chains, are variously em- 
 ployed, to effect the haulage of the carriages, in both 
 directions, to and from the workings. 
 
 In some instances compressed air, supplied from 
 machinery at the surface, has been applied to the work- 
 ing of hauling engines placed at different points in the 
 mine. This agent was first applied at Govan Colliery, 
 near Glasgow, in 1849, to actuate an underground 
 winding engine, the machinery being supplied by 
 Messrs. Kandolph, Elder, and Co. More recently, air- 
 compressing machinery has been erected at a number 
 of collieries for haulage and other purposes. But 
 though the system was attended with considerable 
 success, and was applicable in situations where the use 
 of steam was inadmissible, it involved a greater outlay 
 of capital, and an increased tear and wear of machinery, 
 which added to the loss of power in compressing the 
 air, makes it unable to compete with other methods in 
 point of economy under ordinary circumstances. 
 
262 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxn. 
 
 Some attempts have been made to apply small loco- 
 motive engines to the work of underground haulage. 
 In Messrs. Lishman and Young's arrangement, which 
 has been in use at Bunker Hill Colliery, Durham, for 
 some years, compressed air stored in a tank is the 
 motive power employed ; but this class of machine can 
 scarcely be considered to have as yet passed beyond the 
 experimental stage. 
 
 The invention of a machine for performing the most 
 laborious and monotonous part of the work of the 
 collier that of holing or undercutting the coal has 
 exercised the ingenuity of inventive minds for a very 
 long period, and more particularly within the last 
 twenty years, since Messrs. Donisthorpe, Firth, and 
 Ridley's machine demonstrated the practicability of the 
 scheme. This machine, patented in 1861, and consisting 
 of picks driven by compressed air, was applied at West 
 Ardsley Colliery, near Leeds, and successfully performed 
 the work of undercutting the coal. It was subsequently 
 improved by its inventors, and remained in use at 
 West Ardsley many years, and was only discontinued, 
 we believe, on account of difficulties with the workmen. 
 A similar machine (Firth's) is still at work a,t Hetton 
 Colliery, Durham, where it has been at work since 1863. 
 
 Other coal-cutting machines, in great variety, have 
 since been brought forward, consisting for the most part 
 of slotting or planing machines, and rotary saws, or 
 cutters, actuated by compressed air. Among those of 
 
CHAP, xxii.] IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 263 
 
 the latter description, Messrs. Winstanley and Barker's 
 machine, the Gartsherrie ( or Baird's) machine, and one 
 or two others have been applied to a considerable extent 
 in practice, and with a fair measure of success. But the 
 superiority of the machines to the ordinary method of 
 getting the coal by manual labour has not been so 
 decided as to lead to their extended use. 
 
 During the long interval that has transpired since 
 the invention of the Davy lamp, innumerable varieties 
 of safety-lamps have been produced, founded upon the 
 principle of security discovered by Sir Humphry Davy. 
 Of these, the Clanny, Stephenson, and Mueseler lamps 
 (the latter the only form of safety-lamp allowed to be 
 employed in the mines of Belgium), are the most ex- 
 tensively used in this country next to the " Davy." In 
 the Clanny and Mueseler lamps a cylinder of thick 
 glass takes the place of the lower part of the cylinder 
 of wire gauze, which enables them to afford a superior 
 light ; while these lamps, in common with the " Stephen- 
 son," become readily extinguished in the presence of 
 fire-damp a circumstance which causes them to be 
 preferred in collieries subject to sudden " outbursts " of 
 inflammable gas. In point of simplicity, however a 
 matter of no small consequence in an instrument of 
 the kind the original " Davy," in the form in which 
 it left the hands of its inventor, has never yet been 
 excelled, and still affords the best means of discovering 
 the presence of fire-damp. To guard the lamp more 
 
264 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxn. 
 
 effectually against currents of explosive mixture, the 
 plan of enclosing it completely in a case, partially con- 
 structed of glass (being in fact only a further extension 
 of the shield principle suggested by Sir Humphry 
 Davy), has been lately introduced. This form of lamp, 
 known as the " tin can safety-lamp," is now extensively 
 used in the Durham collieries, and according to the 
 recently-published preliminary report of the Royal 
 Commissioners, this simple expedient transforms the 
 Davy lamp, " from an instrument of the utmost danger, 
 in a rapid current, into one of great security." 
 
 In one or two instances, as at Pleasley Colliery, 
 Nottingham, Eisca Colliery, in South Wales, and 
 Earnock Colliery, Lanarkshire, the electric light has 
 been introduced underground, but only by way of 
 experiment, and chiefly in the lighting of main 
 roads. Whether insulated electric lamps will event- 
 ually supersede the safety-lamps at present in use is 
 a problem which awaits solution in the future. 
 
 For purposes of signalling on engine planes, and in 
 some cases also in the shaft, electricity has already 
 been in use for a number of years. 
 
CHAP. XXIIL] IN GKEAT BEITAIN. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 MODERN MINING. MEASURES OF SAFETY AGAINST 
 EXPLOSION. 
 
 THE deep sinkings approaching to 300 fathoms made 
 in the Great Northern coal-field, at Monkwear- 
 mouth, Seaham, Ryhope, &c., about the middle of 
 the present century, have been followed by a still 
 deeper range of sinkings, in which the pits of the 
 Lancashire and Cheshire coal-field have taken the lead. 
 Here the Astley deep pit at Dukinfield reached a 
 depth of 350 fathoms in 1858 ; at Kosebridge, Wigan, 
 a depth of 408 fathoms was attained in 1869; and 
 more recently the new winning at the Ashton Moss 
 Colliery, Audenshaw, near Manchester, has been carried 
 down considerably further, the " Great Mine " coal 
 having been sunk to on the 5th of March, 1881, at 
 the depth of 448 fathoms. 
 
 Coincidently with the deepening of the mines, a 
 continual enlargement of the shafts has been going on ; 
 and while at the commencement of the century a 
 
266 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XXIIL 
 
 diameter of 12 feet was considered a suitable size for 
 pits of 100 fathoms depth, at the present day the 
 Lancashire pits are being made 16 or 18 feet in 
 diameter, to work the coal lying at depths of from 200 
 to 400 fathoms, and in a few instances even larger 
 sizes have been adopted. 
 
 The improvements in the mechanical engineering of 
 collieries have more than kept pace with the in- 
 creasing depth of the mines, and by means of powerful 
 winding engines (reaching at times as much as 1,500 
 horse-power), acting directly on drums from 15 to 30 
 feet in diameter, coals are drawn at many important 
 collieries at the rate of 100 tons or more per hour : 
 the cage, with its load of four, six, or eight carriages, 
 containing two or three tons of coal, travelling in the 
 quickest part of its run at the speed of a mile per 
 minute, or equal to that of an express train. Thus 
 outputs of from 1,200 to 1,800 tons of coal per day are 
 in many cases obtained from a single shaft. 
 
 Hence, though the depth of the mines is continually 
 increasing, the quantity of coal drawn is likewise 
 increasing from year to year, until the recently pub- 
 lished returns for 1881 show the vast production of 
 154,184,300 tons per annum ; the collieries giving 
 employment to nearly half a million of persons. 
 
 Though an important move in the direction of 
 greater safety in working coal mines was made when 
 the single bratticed pit was abolished, and two separate 
 
CHAP. XXIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 267 
 
 shafts substituted for it, much of the security obtainable 
 from this arrangement is lost when the two shafts, as is 
 usually the case, are sunk in close proximity to each 
 other. It has been forcibly urged, from time to time, 
 by the most eminent authorities, that the greater the 
 distance between the downcast and the upcast, the 
 more chance of escape is afforded to the pitmen in case 
 of accident. On the other hand, it is contended that 
 to place the shafts a long distance apart would in- 
 volve a still further delay in the already long period 
 required to open out deep collieries. This difficulty 
 might of course be overcome by the employment of a 
 third shaft, but a still better arrangement, now some- 
 times adopted, in the case of extensive royalties, is to 
 connect together a pair of downcast and a pair of upcast 
 shafts, the latter each provided with a ventilator so 
 placed as to be applicable to exhaust either from one 
 or both pits. When these pairs of pits are made of 
 ample size, and situated as far apart as possible, this 
 arrangement seems to leave little to be desired in point 
 of efficiency and safety, so far as shafts are concerned. 
 
 That large volumes of air suitably distributed through 
 the workings of a mine constitutes the main factor in 
 reducing to a minimum the risk of explosion, is a 
 matter which will probably be generally admitted. But 
 the importance of employing capacious shafts to effect 
 this is perhaps underrated. Hence it sometimes occurs 
 that a considerable proportion of the ventilating power 
 
268 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxm. 
 
 is expended in forcing the air-current at a high velocity 
 through shafts of inadequate area, thus reducing to a 
 large extent the quantity of air which, under better 
 auspices, might be made available for the ventilation of 
 the workings. 
 
 The desirability if not absolute necessity of excluding 
 blasting with gunpowder from fiery mines, has from 
 time to time been strenuously insisted upon. When the 
 safety-lamp was first introduced, its use was considered 
 to be incompatible with the employment of gunpowder 
 in coal getting. On this plea, for example, Mr. Buddie 
 continued to work Jarrow Colliery with naked lights, 
 and in 1834 a sudden discharge of inflammable gas 
 occurred, and an explosion inevitably ensued. At the 
 present day, in many instances, blasting is continued 
 (under certain restrictions) in mines where safety-lamps 
 are exclusively employed. Whether under any restric- 
 tions such an arrangement is consistent with reason is 
 a point regarding which much diversity of opinion 
 exists. To record minute variations in the rise and fall 
 of the barometer and thermometer, to examine and 
 securely lock safety-lamps with the utmost atten- 
 tion and care, and at the same time to admit into the 
 recesses of the workings the great open flame of gun- 
 powder, seems to savour of what is usually described as 
 straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. That 
 blasting has to answer for a long catalogue of explosions 
 is a fact which will scarcely be disputed. 
 
CHAP, xxni.] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 269 
 
 Much attention has been directed of late to the 
 probability of coal-dust playing an important part in 
 propagating indefinitely the flame arising from a small 
 local explosion, whether of gunpowder or fire-damp- 
 Herein it is supposed lies the secret of the mysterious 
 violence which has characterized some explosions, which 
 have occurred under circumstances where it appeared 
 almost impossible to account for the presence of a 
 volume of fire-damp sufficient to produce the results. 
 Explosions in which dust is supposed to be almost, 
 if not altogether, independent of fire-damp, are con- 
 sidered to have their origin in the blast of a charge of 
 gunpowder, which raises the dust and ignites it at the 
 same time ; more especially when the full force of the 
 gunpowder is expended in blowing out the stemming or 
 tamping, and producing what is termed a " blown-out 
 shot." The same results, it is stated, may also be pro- 
 duced by the occurrence of a small local explosion of 
 fire-damp in a dry and dusty mine. Should this be so, 
 another powerful argument against the continuance of 
 blasting in fiery mines will have been added to the list 
 of those already existing; while, at the same time, 
 there appears to be a necessity for the adoption of 
 measures of precaution, whether by watering the roads 
 or otherwise, to check the raising of the dust, in order 
 that local explosions may be prevented from developing 
 into general ones. 
 
 Various substitutes for gunpowder have been 
 
270 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. XXIIL 
 
 suggested, such as compressed air cartridges, water 
 cartridges, &c., and more recently the use of caustic 
 lime. A process resembling the latter method was 
 employed by miners in breaking up rock previous to 
 the introduction of blasting powder. Should any 
 system of effecting this, without the production of 
 flame, be found suitable for application in practice, 
 another highly important step towards increased safety 
 against explosions will have been achieved. 
 
 The liability of coal mines to be suddenly inundated 
 by great volumes of gas instantaneously liberated, either 
 from the seam in course of working, or from a con- 
 tiguous fiery seam, was long regarded with incredulity 
 even by many well-informed persons. The actual 
 existence of such a danger, however, is now too well 
 established to admit of a doubt, and in some cases 
 precautionary measures are adopted to guard against it. 
 When these " outbursts " of gas proceed from the seam 
 being worked, they appear for the most part to be 
 connected with small fissures running in a direction 
 nearly parallel to the cleavage of the coal. Such out- 
 bursts have occurred at a number of collieries on the 
 Tyne, as Jarrow, Walker, and Hebburn, and have in 
 some instances forced a passage through a considerable 
 thickness of coal. To guard against casualties from 
 this cause, borings are sometimes kept in advance of 
 leading excavations driven across the cleavage of the 
 coal, a precaution which can be rendered still more 
 
CHAP. XXIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 271 
 
 effectual by insulating such exploring drifts from the 
 main body of the workings, and supplying them with a 
 ventilating current of their own. 
 
 In like manner when discharges of gas from the floor 
 are to be feared, proceeding from fiery seams lying 
 underneath, borings downwards at intervals are now 
 made in some of the collieries in the midland districts, 
 and large quantities of gas are sometimes liberated by 
 this means ; and in addition to such precautions, ventila- 
 tion by mechanical means, the employment of safety 
 lamps of the self-extinguishing type, or of adequately 
 protected Davy lamps, the abolition of shot-firing, or its 
 restriction to the utmost possible extent, are being 
 recognised as essential to safety, in the case of mines 
 so situated. 
 
 After all has been done that can be done to reduce 
 the risk of explosion, by ample and unceasing ventila- 
 tion, good arrangements, careful and unremitting 
 vigilance, the use of safety-lamps that will not pass 
 explosion in a rapid current, even supplemented by the 
 abolition of shot-firing and the elimination of venti- 
 lating furnaces, certain contingencies remain which 
 may at any time lead to disaster, unless, indeed, accumu- 
 lations of gas can be effectually prevented from taking 
 place. But apart from the possibility of the air-current 
 being rendered temporarily explosive by a sudden out- 
 burst of gas, this may be brought about in a variety 
 of other ways, as by derangement of the ventilating 
 
272 A HISTORY OF COAL MINING [CHAP. xxm. 
 
 machinery, falls of stone obstructing the air-way, or 
 damaging stoppings, or forcing out gas from the goaves, 
 &c. ; while a safety-lamp wilfully tampered with or 
 accidentally damaged, or even a spark from a miner's 
 pick, may supply the materials of ignition before the 
 danger has been discovered. 1 It therefore is of the 
 utmost consequence in laying out the workings of a 
 fiery mine, to adopt such arrangements as will confine 
 the fatal effects of explosion within the narrowest pos- 
 sible limits. This consideration has been urged with 
 sufficient frequency by those best conversant with the 
 subject, but want of attention to these warnings has, it 
 is to be feared, too often resulted in great sacrifice of 
 life, which might have been in part at least prevented. 
 
 That the large proportion of lives lost is not due to 
 the immediate ignition of the gas, or to the blast of the 
 explosion, but to its secondary consequences, in destroy- 
 ing doors, stoppings, and crossings, has been pointed 
 out again and again. It is not the flame, but the after- 
 damp, and suspension of ventilation, that usually bring 
 about the great havoc of life attendant upon explosion, 
 the proportion of deaths due to the latter being at times 
 as high as seven-eighths of the whole. Hence the neces- 
 sity of dividing the workings into separate and distinct 
 panels, or districts, protected by barriers of solid coal, to 
 
 1 Several instances are recorded of explosions having been caused by 
 a flash, of lightning. 
 
CHAP. XXIIL] IN GREAT BRITAIN. 273 
 
 prevent, as much as possible, the effects of an explosion 
 from spreading into contiguous parts of a mine, and of 
 so fortifying all stoppings and crossings as to make 
 them able to withstand the force of a blast, in order 
 that derangements of the ventilation may be rectified 
 with the least possible delay. 
 
 Considering all the circumstances, it is perhaps too 
 much to expect that the time will come when explosions 
 in coal mines will entirely cease to occur ; but the 
 spread of education and intelligence, and the growth of 
 facilities for obtaining a knowledge of the means best 
 calculated to promote the safety of the miners, are 
 sufficient to encourage the hope that, in the future, 
 mining operations may be attended with less risk and 
 loss of life than has hitherto been the case. With the 
 earnest wish that this may hereafter be attained, the 
 writer would bring to a close his endeavour to elucidate 
 the history of coal mining in this country. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR. 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL. 
 

 
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