A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



equivalent to a ' ton.' Four ' bearers ' con- 

 veyed the coals to the bearmouth at a fixed rate 

 of ]\d. a day each. There the coals were 

 turned into a bank, whence they were either 

 carted or taken by pack-horses to the harbour 

 at a cost of is. a ton. 



The Greenbank corf contained about z\ 

 cwt. of coal. In addition, ten other men 

 were employed underground, so that the whole 

 crew of this seventeenth century pit, including 

 a bankman above-ground, numbered 20. 



The selling prices of coal then were : To 

 ships, 3*. per ton (including leading) ; country, 

 2J. per ton ; and tenants, is. ^.d. per ton. 



At the ' Three Quarters Band Colliery,' 

 undoubtedly one of the earliest pits at Howgill, 

 there were four baggers paid at a fixed wage of 

 8^d. a day each, three trailers at 7\d. a day 

 each, and two winders and one bankman who 

 received 3*. zd. a day amongst them. 



Up to 1679 several pits had been sunk at 

 the Howgill Colliery. In that year the 

 Woodagreen Pit was sunk near the Ginns. 



At this time the coals were carted from the 

 pits to the harbour, and copper tokens were 

 issued to the carters as a method of checking. 

 The tokens used at Whingill in 1679 have 

 been described by the late Chancellor Fer- 

 guson. 1 



In 1680 Mr. Christian appears to have 

 been one of the principal workers of coal in 

 the neighbourhood of Whitehaven. He held 

 leases of Mr. Anthony Benn's coal in Hensing- 

 ham, Mr. Thomas Skelton's coal at Corkickle, 

 Mr. Fletcher's Whingill Colliery, and other 

 royalties in Moresby and Distington. 



In 1680, coal was shipped at Whitehaven 

 from the Howgill, Greenbank, Whingill, 

 Wray, and Scalegill pits. 



It had then become the practice to staith 

 the coals near the harbour when the ships 

 could not or would not take them. 



Sir John Lowther's object in staithing may 

 be gathered from the following letter written 

 by him from London on 28 August, 1680, to 

 Mr. Tickell, his agent at Whitehaven : 



As to staithing my intentions are not to staith a 

 coal when y e ships doe take, but my single design 

 is y' Dublin may not complain of dearness of coales 

 in winter or spring as they did last year, for w* be- 

 twixt y" imployment of ships in y c cattle trade, 

 and a stop ther was of Moresby coales, they were 

 30;. y e tun at Dublin. 



The coals from Moresby were shipped at 

 Parton and entered into keen competition 

 with the Whitehaven coals in the Dublin 

 market. Whilst Sir John Lowther, in 1680, 



was improving Whitehaven harbour, Mr. 

 Fletcher conceived the idea of doing likewise 

 at Parton. He attempted to build a pier and 

 harbour there, near low water mark, upon the 

 land that had been granted to Sir John 

 Lowther by Charles II., whereupon Sir John 

 exhibited a bill in the Court of Exchequer 

 against Mr. Fletcher and others 



setting forth the ill consequences of such an attempt 

 to the Revenue, to trade, to the Rights of Sir John 

 Lowther, and of persons who have settled in 

 Whitehaven, and to the interest and benefit of the 

 county in general, and after the defendants' 

 answers, upon a full hearing of the matter, the 

 Court prohibited the said Mr. Fletcher by a per- 

 petual Injunction. 2 



In 1682 a violent explosion occurred at 

 Mr. Christian's colliery at Priestgill near 

 Hensingham, by which one man was killed 

 and six injured. The flame and smoke from 

 it could be seen half a mile off. 



Hitherto the coals appear to have been 

 conveyed from the Whitehaven pits to the 

 harbour in sacks, carried on the backs of 

 horses, and there emptied into the ships. Dur- 

 ing 1682 Mr. Gale advocated the construction 

 of a ' coalway ' to the Woodagreen Pit to 

 enable ' carts and wains ' to be drawn with 

 greater facility and to obviate the use of sacks 

 in loading the vessels in the harbour. This 

 intended road was described as a ' causeway ' 

 bounded on each side with wood balks on 

 which the cart-wheels would run. Such a 

 cartway was constructed during the following 

 year and proved to be a great improvement on 

 the old mode of transport, which however was 

 still continued from the more distant pits. 



During 1685 Sir John Lowther introduced 

 at his Whitehaven pits an engine, the ' cog 

 and rung gin,' 3 and the ' wind engine ' for 

 raising water from the mines. The latter was 

 a windmill with six sails, working one or 

 more chain pumps which were not uncom- 

 mon in the north of England at that time. 



In 1685 Mr. Christian found a 'Three 

 Quarter ' coal in Corkickle, adjoining Sir 

 John's Flatt property, and sank two pits close 

 to the boundary. The seam was 24 in. 

 thick. The coal therefrom was got by Mr. 

 Christian's four Newcastle haggers at a cost of 

 I zd. a ton, and could be led to the harbour at 

 a further charge of jd. a ton. The output of 

 coal was 10 tons per day. 



Denton, in his MS. ' Perambulation of 

 Cumberland and Westmorland, 1687-8,' thus 

 refers to Whitehaven : ' The vessels there are 



1 Cumb. and Westm. Antiq. and Arch. Soc. Trans. 

 xv. 392-416. 



2 Broad sheet preserved in Lincoln's Inn. 



3 Annals of Coal Mining, by R. L. Galloway, p. 

 168. 



360 



