INDUSTRIES 



other than the Forest Mine Courts. The latter 

 session we find also constituted the Honourable 

 Matthew Morton, Thomas Gage, John Wynd- 

 ham, Richard Machen, William James, and 

 Christopher Bond, free miners, ' out of the due 

 and great respect, honour, and esteem borne 

 towards them.' We need not call in question 

 the truthfulness of such protestations ; but, 

 doubtless, had these miners perceived the incon- 

 sistency of such admission, they would not have 

 so readily dispensed with the ancient regulations 

 which restricted the fellowship of the mine to 

 those who had worked therein. They were 

 well intended at the time, but long afterwards 

 weakened in a legal point of view the free 

 miners' rights. 



Only two years intervened between the 

 holding of the court just mentioned, and the 

 one which followed it at the Speech House. 

 On this occasion certain previous orders were 

 cancelled, and in their stead it was determined 

 that no one living beyond the hundred of 

 St. Briavel's should convey any coal out of the 

 forest unless he belonged to the forest division 

 of the county and carried for his own private 

 use. A penalty of ^5 was imposed upon any 

 person under twenty-one years of age carrying 

 ore or coal. All traffic in coal, either up or 

 down the Wye, was to stop at Welsh Bicknor, 

 between which and Monmouth Bridge no coal 

 was to be pitched. At Monmouth fire coal was 

 to be sold at gs. the dozen bushels, smith's coal 

 at 8s. y and lime coal at 51. dd. Above Lydbrook 

 on the Wye fire coal was to be sold at 8*. the 

 ton or the dozen barrels, smith's coal at 6*., and 

 lime coal at 3*. One free miner was not to sell 

 any fire coal to another under 51. per ton of 

 21 cwt. 1 



Nine years passed before another full Mine 

 Court is recorded. On this occasion (1728) we 

 find no less than nine gentlemen of the neigh- 

 bourhood admitted to free mining privileges.* 

 The distance of 300 yds., which by a former 

 order in 1692 protected every pit from interrup- 

 tion, was now enlarged to 500 yds., and further 

 the giving away of coals was prohibited under 

 fine of 5.' 



The fifteenth of the series of orders, enacted 

 by that Mine Law Court, occurred in 1737. 

 Owing to the injury which it was considered 

 foreigners had done to the free miners by carry- 

 ing coal out of the forest for merchandise, it 

 was decided that for the future no such carrying 

 should be allowed, except to certain persons named, 

 under penalty of $ or property to that amount. 

 More outsiders were admitted to the fellowship, 

 and a rule was made that a foreigner's son, born 

 in the hundred and seeking to become a free 

 miner, was to serve by indenture an apprentice- 

 ship of seven years.* 



1 Nicholls, Forest of Dem, 66. ' Ibid. 66, 67. 



' Ibid. 69 ; Award of D tan Forest Commrs. 13. 



The sixteenth order of the same court was in 

 1741, when the following business was trans- 

 acted. A $ penalty was laid upon all miners 

 who should send or carry any coals to Hereford 

 or Monmouth by the Wye, except lime coal at 

 the New Wears at 41. the dozen bushels. A 

 similar fine was imposed upon any inhabitant of 

 the Forest division of the county who should 

 presume to carry coal otherwise than for his 

 own use ; so also no miner was to work more 

 than two pits at one time, or to carry coal for 

 any person not a free miner; neither could he 

 sell fire coal or stone coal charks under 7*. a 

 dozen bushels, or 5*. if smith's coal, at ReJ- 

 brook, which if refused there a ' forbid ' should 

 be declared until the former coal was accepted. 

 This order further enacted that if coal were 

 found in any bargeman's boat and he refuse to 

 say from whom he had it, a general ' forbid ' 

 should be declared that no miner serve him with 

 any more. A free miner was briefly defined to 

 be 'such as have lawfully worked at coal a year 

 and a day.' A foreigner selling coal at Hereford 

 for less than 131. per ton was to be summoned, 

 or abide the consequence of a general forbid. 

 Should there be at any time more than a 

 sufficiency of coal for the trade on the Wye, the 

 barge owners were to employ the service of 

 the miners or be fined according their wages. 4 



We now arrive at the seventeenth or last 

 order issued at the Mine Law Court. It dates 

 22 October, 1754, and records the election, as 

 free miners, of no less than twenty-two gentry 

 and notables. 5 As Mr. Nicholls remarks : 



So full a list of persons of influence and position as 

 this order exhibits, lending their names to the free 

 miners' society, indicates the existence of consider- 

 able importance in that body ; and yet this was 

 the last court having forty-eight free miners on 

 the jury, whose proceedings have been preserved, 

 the fact being that they failed to agree in their 

 verdicts, and then gentlemen refused to attend, 

 owing, it is said, to the violent disputes and quar- 

 rels arising between foreigners possessed of capital, 

 who now began to be admitted to the works, and the 

 free miners. It is also reported that the decisions of 

 the court were seldom observed, no Act of Parliament 

 having passed to render them valid. The former 

 protective distance between one mine and another 

 was increased from 500 to 1,000 yards of any levels. 

 The order concludes with directing that ' the water 

 wheel engine at the Arling Green, near Broadmoor, 

 be taken to be a level to all intents and purposes.' 

 This machine was evidently the first of its kind 

 erected in the Forest, as was also the steam engine 

 which superseded it, each manifesting the improve- 

 ments going on in the method of working the 

 mines. 



According to a paper examined by Mr. Mushct, 

 and referring probably to the year 1720 or 1730, 

 the iron-making district of the Forest of Dean 

 contained ten blast furnaces, six in Gloucester- 



' Nicholls, Forest of Dean, 70. 



Ibid. 71. 



229 



