SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



as elsewhere. Even agriculture felt the thrill, and the people of Durham set 

 to work to inclose their wastes and to improve the breed of their cattle 

 and sheep until the Durham ox became proverbial. Even the power of 

 the sea was defied in the cause of agriculture, and between 1740 and 1808 

 1,400 acres of excellent corn-land were secured from Saltholm and Billingham 

 Marsh at the mouth of the Tees.^ 



But this revolution was not accomplished without heart-burning or 

 distress. Much of the land of Durham being copyhold or leasehold, the 

 development of mining led to the awkward question of the bishop's and 

 chapter's right to lease minerals under such ground. The protagonist in the 

 struggle was Gilbert Spearman of Tanfield Western Leigh near the Whickham 

 mines. He owned both freehold and copyhold land in the time of Bishop 

 Talbot (1721-30), whose son-in-law, Dr. Exton Sayer, was Spearman's pet 

 aversion. Sayer obtained a lease to work the coal under Spearman's land, 

 but making all allowances for Spearman's anger, the behaviour of Sayer was 

 decidedly disingenuous. The story is told in great detail in Spearman's 

 Inquiry into the Ancient and Present State of Durham^ which was published in 

 1729, when Spearman lost his case, and in revenge began a campaign for the 

 abolition of the Palatinate, and the enfranchisement of copyhold and lease- 

 hold lands. 



Spearman laboured with great ingenuity to prove that the Durham copy- 

 holder had a right to the minerals according to custom, but there is no doubt 

 that he was quite wrong, although he personally suffered great hardship. We 

 know little about the ancient system of working coal in Durham, but all we 

 do know tells against Spearman's view. We find the bishop leasing mines of 

 coal and iron ore and lead.^ The master of St. Edmund's Hospital had to 

 obtain a licence to dig and carry coal on the several soil of the hospital at 

 Gateshead,' and we find that the bishop reserved all mineral rights and way- 

 leaves in making a grant of 89 acres of forest waste in upper Weardale to 

 Sir Ralph Eure.* It is true that all these references belong to the fifteenth 

 century, but all entries referring to coal on the Chancery Rolls and elsewhere 

 correspond. 



We can, however, trace the lord's rights to minerals far back into the 

 fourteenth century, and probably earlier. Hatfield's Court Rolls disclose that 

 the tenants at Whickham found it profitable to carry the coal of the lessees 

 to Newcastle, and their charges were regulated by the bishop's council.^ 

 From various sources we learn that they received compensation for damage 

 done by the lessees, and it is clear therefore that they did not own the 

 minerals.* As a matter of fact, they were not allowed to dig for coal 

 without a licence from the lord.'' It is sometimes objected that the tenants* 



' Bailey, Gen. View of the Agric. ofDur. 223. In the nineteenth century land-reclamation has been carried 

 on with great success on the banks of the Tees and Wear, and especially on the Tyne. The low-lying lands 

 are ' holms ' on the Tees, ' batts ' or ' haughs ' on the Wear, and ' haughs ' on the Tyne and Derwent. 



' Dur. Curs. No. 38, m. 20a'. ; ibid. No. 33, m. 5 </, ' Ibid. No. 42, m. 13. 



* Langley's Survey (under Escombe), 32 (/. ; cf. similar lease of Wolsingham Parkin Dur. Curs. No. 37, m. 12. 



'Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 132 a'. We learn from Dur. Curs. No. 31, m. 5 a'. that Bishop Hatfield 

 appointed commissioners to find workmen and carriers for his coal mines of Whickham and Gateshead, with 

 power to punish by imprisonment or otherwise if they see fit. 



° Dur. Curs. No. 12, fol. 179 ; Bp. Half eld's Survey (Surtees Soc. xxxii), 97 ; Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees 

 Soc. Ixxxii), 91. 



' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 117. 



2 241 31 



