INDUSTRIES 



from whom it passed afterwards to Lord Ravens- 

 worth and other notable men who formed the 

 partnership known as the ' Grand AUies.' About 

 this time, the coal-mines of Lumley Park are re- 

 ferred to as amongst the most important in the 

 north, and producing the best coal, which was 

 shipped at Sunderland. Towards the end of the 

 seventeenth century the number of those work- 

 ing and selling coals who were not members of 

 the Hostmen's Corporation of Freemen, or the 

 ' Non-Freemen,' as they were called, had become 

 so great, and they exercised so considerable an 

 influence, that the hostmen were obliged to 

 grant them some measure of recognition, and 

 from this time onwards there appears to have 

 been keen competition between the two parties. 



The seventeenth century witnessed several 

 important technical changes in the mining for 

 coal. In 1618 we first hear of boring for coal, 

 and in 1692 we learn that Thomas Wake com- 

 menced to make various bore-holes near Ryton 

 and Wylam. Water was at this time one of the 

 gravest troubles, and in many places some form 

 of machinery was introduced for draining the 

 pits, apparently a chain-pump worked either by 

 horses or water-wheel being employed. Tram- 

 lines were in use in several places, although in 

 many pits carts and horses were still employed. 

 The existence of fire-damp was clearly recognized, 

 and also the fact that it could be fired by a light 

 or an accidental spark. It is probable that the 

 comparative immunity from accident caused by 

 fire at this period was due to the fact that work- 

 ings never seem to have extended far from the 

 shafts themselves, and it would appear probable 

 that in most cases the old-fashioned bell pit was 

 still in use. The coal trade of the Wear de- 

 veloped very considerably during the seventeenth 

 century. 



It has been seen that it was comparatively in- 

 significant at the commencement of that period, 

 but soon after the opening of the eigh- 

 teenth century the Wear was exporting about 

 175,000 tons of coal as against some half million 

 exported from the Tyne. At this time the 

 price of coals in Newcastle was about lis. per 

 chaldron, say about 4s. per ton, and about i8j. 

 per chaldron, or about Js. per ton in London. The 

 next century was destined to witness the com- 

 mencement of a series of changes which pro- 

 foundly afEected the whole of the coal trade in 

 general, and among others had a lasting effect 

 upon the county of Durham. It has been seen 

 that one of the great difficulties to be contended 

 with in this county was the influx of water in 

 the pits. It was about the year 1 7 1 o that New- 

 comen invented his steam-engine, the first one 

 having apparently been erected at a coal-pit in 

 Staffordshire in the year 17 1 2. It is said that 

 the first steam-engine in the north of England 

 was erected about the year 1 7 1 4 at a place called 

 Washington Fell, for a colliery upon the River 



Wear, and the next at Norwood, near Ravens- 

 worth Castle ; it is, however, doubtful whether 

 these engines were erected as early as the date 

 above given. In 1724 a Mr. John Potter of 

 Chester le Street advertised himself as an agent 

 for the erection of these engines, and it appears 

 that about this period numerous engines were em- 

 ployed, so much so that a list drawn up by Mr. W. 

 Brown, of Throckley, gives no less than thirty- 

 two of them, having cylinders up to 72 in. in 

 diameter, as being employed in pumping at various 

 pits in the county of Durham. The same year 

 (1769) was the date of James Watt's great in- 

 vention of the independent condenser, but it 

 would seem that the Watt engine did not dis- 

 place the later Newcomen engines erected in the 

 north of England at any very rapid rate. Very 

 shortly after the application of the steam-engine 

 to coal-mining came another invention of almost 

 equal importance to the coal trade : in the year 

 1735 Abraham Darby succeeded in smelting pig- 

 iron by means of coal. Although the manufac- 

 ture of coke was known, as has been seen, long 

 before this time, it is doubtful whether Darby 

 was acquainted with it. He appears to have 

 commenced by attempting to treat pit-coal in the 

 same way as the charcoal burner treated wood, 

 building a hemispherical pile, which he in this way 

 coked. The coke thus made worked perfectly 

 well in the blast furnace, and from this time on- 

 wards the use of coal in the manufacture of iron 

 was an established fact. It can easily be under- 

 stood that these two inventions helped each other 

 forwards by their mutual interdependence, and at 

 the same time proved a powerful factor in develop- 

 ing the coal trade, which in a sense was a common 

 bond between them. During the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, the increased demands for coal caused other 

 methods of coal-mining to be adopted. Under- 

 ground roads appear to have been laid out and 

 working in pillars commenced. The first account 

 of attempting to win the pillars in a colliery is 

 stated to have been due to Edward Smith at 

 Chartershaugh on the Wear in 1738. The same 

 person also appears to have used some simple form 

 of flue for producing artificial ventilation, which 

 became a necessity now that colliery workings 

 became more complicated. It is worth recording 

 that the commencement of the eighteenth century 

 witnessed the publication of the first book devoted 

 to coal-mining, called The Compleat Collier, or 

 The Whole Art of Sinking, Getting, and Work- 

 ing the Coal Mines, &c., as now used in the 

 Northern Parts, especially about Sunderland and 

 Newcastle. There is a certain amount of evi- 

 dence that the practice to which this book re- 

 ferred was that of the River Wear, and the little 

 book shows that there was a considerable amount 

 of crude knowledge of mining at that time. It 

 seems that at the period at which the author 

 writes pits were sunk of square form, timbered 

 with wood until the stone head was reached. 



327 



