INDUSTRIES 



and laboured from time to time therein 

 according to the custom of the manor. 1 



In 1586 he granted the governors of St. 

 Bees Grammar School liberty to take forty 

 loads of coals at his coal pits, in the parish 

 of St. Bees, for the use of the school. 



In the St. Bees Grammar School leases of 

 1608 the tenants covenanted to permit the 

 governors and their successors to get coals in 

 the demised premises ; but there is no record 

 of any advantage having been taken of the 

 covenant until 1650, when the governors 

 demised their pit or bearmouth within the 

 closes called Stephen Ridding, 8 in the parish 

 of St. Bees, with liberty to dig for coal 

 therein, for the term of four years at the 

 yearly rent of 3. In 1664 the governors 

 demised to other lessees Stephen Ridding Pit, 

 to hold the same from the first day that 2O 

 tons of coals should be there gotten for the 

 term of seven years, at the yearly rent of 3. 

 The colliery was surrendered in 1679. 



The copper works at Keswick, built in 

 1567, used coal which was supplied from 

 Bolton Colliery ; * and according to the ' State 

 Papers ' the owners of those works were com- 

 plaining in 1568 about the great difficulty in 

 procuring coal. 



Whitehaven. Whitehaven must occupy by 

 far the most prominent place in any account 

 of the Cumberland coal trade, because of the 

 extent and importance of its collieries, which 

 owe their great development to the Lowther 

 family. 



After the dissolution of the monasteries 

 the manor of St. Bees remained in the pos- 

 session of the Crown till 1553, when King 

 Edward VI. granted the priory of St. Bees, 

 with the manor and rectory, to Sir Thomas 

 Chaloner. It was sold by his son to Thomas 

 Wybergh, who mortgaged it, in 1600, to the 

 Lowthers, into whose hands it eventually 

 came. 



Sir Christopher Lowther, the founder of 

 the Whitehaven branch, died in 1644, and 

 was succeeded in the estates and baronetcy 

 by his infant son Sir John, who on his attain- 

 ment of manhood began to develop the coal 

 mines at Whitehaven with great energy and 

 enterprise. His efforts were directed in the 

 first place to acquiring as much land as he 

 possibly could in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of his inheritance, in order to form an area 

 sufficiently large for his mining projects ; and 

 afterwards to the improvement of the harbour 



1 Report of Commissioners on Cumberland Charities, 

 1819-37. 



' Two-and-a-half miles from Hemingham. 



3 Robinson's M?/. H'ut.sfCumb. W Westmorland. 



of Whitehaven, so as to facilitate the export 

 of coal. 



On 24 March, 1669 (21 Chas. II.), he 

 obtained from the king a grant of 150 acres 

 of land between high and low water marks 

 near Whitehaven. 4 In 1678 (30 Chas. II.) 

 Sir John Lowther obtained from the Crown a 

 further grant of land between high and low 

 water marks near Whitehaven, 5 after a rival 

 but unsuccessful claim had been set up thereto 

 by the Earl of Carlingford and others. 



The first coal worked by Sir John Lowther 

 was from the outcrops of the Yard, Burnt, 

 and Prior Bands, along the western side of 

 the St. Bees valley, in the locality called How- 

 gill, between Greenbank and Ginns. 



The Yard Band was a seam lying above 

 the Bannock Band. Burnt Band was the 

 original name of the Bannock Band, and 

 the Prior Band was the original name of the 

 Main Band. 



The first workings from the outcrops of 

 the seams would naturally be much impeded 

 by surface water ; and to overcome this 

 difficulty at Howgill Colliery would be Sir 

 John Lowther's object in driving a level or 

 watercourse from Pow Beck. This level 

 was, about 1663, commenced near the old 

 Copperas Works, Ginns, and driven due 

 west until it intersected the Burnt or 

 Bannock Band, in which it was continued 

 along the level course of that seam in a 

 southerly direction, to the east of Monkwray. 

 It was afterwards extended to Knockmurton 

 Pit, near the southern boundary of the ceme- 

 tery a total distance of about 1,800 yards. 

 It is still known as the Bannock Band surface 

 water level, and is used for draining the out- 

 crop water into Pow Beck. 



North of Whitehaven harbour, Mr. Robert 

 Bigland had worked, prior to 1668, coal under 

 the Duke of Somerset's Bransty estate ; and 

 from that year to 1696, Sir John Lowther 

 worked the Bransty Colliery for the supply of 

 coals to Bransty salt-pans. The band of coal 

 worked there was 22 in. thick. 



The only existing details of Sir John 

 Lowther's first collieries south of Whitehaven 

 are contained in two wages books relating to 

 the Greenbank Colliery and Three Quarters 

 Band Collieries for 1675. According to an 

 account of wages and disbursements for the 

 week ended 14 April, 1675, it appears that 

 five haggers were employed at Greenbank at 

 a fixed wage of 8^ct. a day, and that the 

 darg was 21 burthens, of which eight were 



4 History and Laws of the Foreshore and Seashore, 

 by Stuart A. Moore, barrister-at-law, p. 4 1 5 . 

 8 Ibid. p. 418. 



35'9 



