A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



when they were continued in a circular shape. 

 When much water had to be passed through, a 

 method of tubbing, by means of water-tight 

 frames covered with wooden staves like those of 

 a tub, was employed, and it would seem that 

 these were tolerably successful. Pits were, of 

 course, small, namely, about 6 ft. in diameter, 

 but even so some of them seem to have descended 

 to depths of 300 or 400 ft. The underground 

 workings consisted of roads driven in the coal at 

 right angles to each other, consisting, as at present, 

 of bords which were driven comparatively wide 

 across the cleat of the coal, whilst the head ways 

 were driven narrow at right angles to the former. 



At the time that this author wrote only the 

 coal that was got in these working places appears 

 to have been extracted, no attempt having been 

 made at all to remove the pillars, and probably 

 the method of transporting the coal underground 

 was by wheelbarrows or sleds. Hoisting was 

 performed in large baskets known as corves, which 

 were probably drawn up by means of a whim gin 

 or windlass worked by horses. In the commence- 

 ment of the eighteenth century, when workings 

 became more complex, and the number of people 

 engaged in one and the same mine greater, we 

 first meet with records of serious accidents, due to 

 explosions of fire-damp. The first of these appears 

 to have occurred in October, 1705, when over 

 thirty individuals lost their lives. In 1 708 another 

 explosion took place at Fatfield in the parish of 

 Chester le Street, where the loss of life was even 

 greater. In 1 7 10 an explosion took place in 

 Bensham Colliery, whereby seventy-six people 

 lost their lives, and in 1763 another explosion at 

 Fatfield Colliery is recorded. It must have been 

 soon after the latter period that Spedding's Steel 

 Mills were first used in this part of the country, 

 they having been invented some time previously 

 in the Whitehaven district. 



The manufacture of coke in the county of 

 Durham appears already to have assumed some 

 importance in the second part of the eighteenth 

 century, but the coking was probably carried on 

 in practically all cases in open piles. The earliest 

 mention of a coke-oven appears to be in the 

 year 1763, and Jars, in his Voyage Metallurgique^ 

 gives a drawing of so-called ' kilns erected at 

 Newcastle for reducing coal to cinders and 

 coakes.' About the year 1770 wooden screens 

 seem to have been introduced for screening coal. 

 In 1788 it is stated that 61,300 tons of pig- 

 iron were made throughout England, of which 

 48,200 tons were smelted with coke and the rest 

 with charcoal. According to the Hornsby MS. 

 in the possession of the duke of Northumberland, 

 printed amongst the Surtees Papers, the export 

 of coal during the seventeenth century increased 

 very rapidly ; the export in the year 169 1 is given 

 as 693,000 tons, whilst in 178411 already exceeded 

 1,000,000 tons. In the year 1800 the vend 

 Aotn the Tyne amounted to 685,280 chaldrons 



(11,816,000 tons), and that from the Wear to- 

 303,459 chaldrons (804,000 tons). 



The end of the eighteenth century was 

 characterized by the increasing use of iron in all 

 departments of colliery working. Rails were 

 still for the most part made of wood, though in 

 places cast-iron plates had been employed, laid on 

 top of the wooden rails. Cast-iron wheels were 

 replacing wooden ones as early as 1753, and there 

 is a record of cast-iron rails being used in the 

 year 1797. Iron beams (for beam engines) were 

 beginning to replace the wooden ones that were 

 still very largely in use, although before the end 

 of the eighteenth century cast-iron beams up to. 

 16 in. in diameter were obtainable. It has been 

 seen that beam engines had come extensively into, 

 use for pumping, and before the end of the cen- 

 tury attempts had been made to use steam-engines 

 for drawing coals as well as for pumping water. 

 Cast-iron was first employed for the tubbing of 

 shafts about the year 1759. Just about this 

 time, the old practice of cutting a coal seam up 

 into small pillars was abandoned in favour of the 

 method of leaving larger pillars, which were to 

 be subsequently won. In the latter half of the 

 century gunpowder began to be used in the 

 stonework of the collieries, sinking of shafts, in 

 the driving of cross-measure roads, but was not 

 used in coal until a much later date. In 1800 

 the vend of coal for the Tyne was about 

 1,600,000 tons, and for the Wear about 

 800,000 tons. These two ports still appear to 

 have been the only ones from which coal was 

 exported in the county of Durham. 



Coke-ovens were now in pretty general use, 

 and were worked largely along the outcrops of 

 the Brockwell Seam at Cockfield, Woodland, 

 and other places in the southern part of the 

 county of Durham, the coke made being used by 

 founders and brewers. Previous to the end of 

 this century women had ceased to be employed 

 in the mines of the county of Durham. No. 

 doubt the rapid development in the uses of steam 

 had much to do with the increased demand for 

 coal that took place about this time. Steam 

 navigation had already been shown to be suc- 

 cessful on an experimental scale, and Richard 

 Trevithick had built his first locomotive in 1804. 

 It was very soon after this that George Stephen- 

 son, who was engineer to the Killingworth Pit, 

 and also engineer in charge of all the machinery 

 of the various pits worked by the Grand Allies, 

 commenced to work out the problem of steam 

 locomotion, being encouraged in his efforts by his 

 employers, and especially by one of them, namely. 

 Lord Ravensworth. As is well known, his first 

 locomotive was completed in the year I 814, and 

 was used for drawing coals along the colliery rail- 

 way. This was followed in 1822 by the Hetton 

 Railway, near Sunderland, a line of 8 miles long, 

 built to convey coals from the Hetton Colliery to. 

 the banks of the Wear. Finally, in 1825, the 



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