INDUSTRIES 



coal was first used as fiiel.^ It is highly probable 

 that the first coal used in this coalfield consisted 

 of the rounded lumps of coal washed up on 

 the beach from the seams that outcrop along 

 the sea-shore in Northumberland, and that these 

 were collected ^ and used as fuel, just as they are 

 used to-day by the poorer fishing folk along the 

 Northumbrian coast. It could not be very long 

 before the outcrops of similar material in the 

 valleys of the Derwent and other rivers also 

 attracted attention, and these coal seams would 

 then have been attacked and gradually followed 

 downwards, thus forming the commencement 

 of the industry of coal-mining. It is probable 

 that the coal picked up along the shores was 

 originally known as ' sea-coal,' and that which was 

 dug out of the ground as ' pit-coal,' the words 

 * sea-coal ' and ' pit-coal ' that so frequently occur 

 in documents of the seventeenth century showing 

 apparently that the two terms bore somewhat 

 different meanings at one time, although the 

 material described by them was also recognized 

 as being identical. 



One of the difficulties of determining the real 

 beginning of the use of coal lies in the indis- 

 criminate use of the word ' carbo ' to designate 

 both charcoal and mineral coal. The notices 

 preserved in the Boldon Book of the smiths at 

 Wearmouth and Sedgefield and of the colliers at 

 Escombe who in Bishop Pudsey's time were 

 bound to provide coal {carbonem) for the making 

 of plough-shares, relate more probably to charcoal 

 fuel, as is certainly the case in the almost parallel 

 though rather later record in the register of 

 Worcester Priory of the holding of one John the 

 collier who was to make each coke of coal for 

 id? There is however no doubt that the rich 

 and powerful bishops of Durham in their capacity 

 as counts palatine favoured the development of 

 coal-mining in their principality at a very early 

 period, and it is to this fact that we owe the 

 greater completeness of the records of the industry 

 in this part of the country as compared with 

 other portions of Great Britain. 



There is good reason to believe * that coal 

 from the neighbourhood of Plessey in Northum- 

 berland was shipped to London quite early in the 

 reign of Henry III, and already in 1256 complaints 

 were made that the approaches to Newcastle 



' For evidence of its use in Durham during the 

 Roman period see Hodgson, Hist, of Northumb. (i 8 1 2), 

 ii, 17. 



' Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining, i, 21. Cf. the 

 Charter of Adam de Camhous to Newminster Abbey 

 about 1236. ' Et dedi et concessi eisdera monachis 

 ut caplant algam maris ad impinguendam eandem 

 terram,et viamad libere ducendum earn super praedictas 

 terras, et ad carbonem maris capiendum, ubi inventus 

 fuerit a praedictis terminis usque Blithe et versus mare 

 quantum ad praedictas terras pertinet.' Chart, de Novo 

 Monaster io (Surtees Sec. Ixvi), 55. 



' Galloway, op. cit. i, 14, 15. 



* Ibid. 29 et seq. 



2 32 



were rendered dangerous after nightfall ' by 

 derelict or unfenced coal-workings. In the next 

 reign it was found by inquisition ^ that the pros- 

 perity of the same town had during the past 

 century been enormously increased by traffic in 

 coals. For the working of coal in the Palatinate 

 during the thirteenth century there is less evidence, 

 probably in great measure owing to the reckless 

 destruction of the archives of the see, but as 

 early as 1 243 we find an entry on a roll ' of Pleas 

 of the Crown before the justices appointed by 

 Bishop Nicholas Farnham that in Darlington 

 ward, Ralf the son of Roger Wlger had been 

 drowned 'in quodam fossato carbonum maris* 

 probably a derelict coal-pit. The use of the term 

 fossatum is worth notice, and probably indicates 

 an open-cast working. In northern England, as 

 in the Forest of Dean, open-cast workings and 

 bell-pits marked the first development of mining, 

 though in Northumberland and Durham the pit 

 and adit stage had been reached in certain localities 

 by the middle of the fourteenth century, if not 

 before. It is hardly probable that the coal- 

 mining industry of Durham during the thirteenth 

 century was comparable in extent with that of 

 the neighbouring county of Northumberland, to 

 which the history of the early export trade un- 

 doubtedly belongs, but with our fragmentary 

 sources of information no exact estimate can be 

 formed. It is not until the year 1274-5 that a 

 specific reference to the profits of the bishop's 

 coal-mines is found in the accounts of the See. 

 References at a much earlier date to mines 

 generally may have covered mineral coal as well 

 as lead and iron, but as to this no certainty is 

 attainable. During the vacancy however con- 

 sequent upon the death of Bishop Robert Stichill, 

 the accountant who answers for the issues of 

 the bishopric of Durham from 20 August 

 2 Edward I to 12 November of the following 

 year includes ^34 71. ^d. from the farm of the 

 fisheries, with the mines of coal and brew-houses 

 {hracinagiis) for the same time.' Rather more 

 than twenty years later we learn from the Great 

 Roll of Receipts of Bishop Anthony Bek that a 

 regular profit was being derived from a coal-mine 

 in the ward {quarterio) of Chester,^ while the 

 increasing recognition of the value of the new 

 fuel is probably indicated by the composition of 

 1303 made by the same bishop with his great 

 manorial freeholders when he was obliged to 

 confirm to them the right of taking certain 

 minerals in their several lands.'" 



' W. Page, Assize R. NoMumb. (Surtees Soc. 

 Ixxxviii), 34, 103. 



* Misc. Inq. Chan, file 40, No. 25. 



' Assize R. (P.R.O.), 223, m. 4. 



' Pipe Roll, 2 Edw. I. 



° Two payments of I 2/ .6d. at two terms are entered. 

 See BoUon Bk. (Surtees Soc. xxv), App. p. xxviii. 



'° ' Et que chescun preigne mine de charbon [et] 

 de ferre en sa terre severale.' Reg. Pal. Dun. (Rolls 

 Sen), iii, 62. 



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