A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



years, paying yearcly to the sayd late K. his heyrcs 

 and successors for the sayd Coalemynes within the 

 sayd Mannor of Colne eleven shillings" and for the 

 sayd coalemyne within the sd forest of Trawden, at 

 the Annunciation and Michaelmass by even and 

 equall portions as by ye sayd Letters patents may 

 appeare. 



On the presentation of the above quoted certi- 

 ficate of Mr. Darnell, the petitioners granted the 

 petition of Anthony Freston and John Hobart 

 on 21 October, 1652. 



With regard to Wigan an interesting notice 

 of the working of a colliery there in 1600 is 

 still in existence, showing us that coal of two 

 kinds was mined, worth \d. and 2d. per load 

 respectively.^' In November, 16 19, Bishop 

 Bridgeman, rector of Wigan, gave permission 

 to Peter Piatt of Wigan, chandler, to drain the 

 water from his coal-pit near the mill-gate into 

 the street for a short time, to see if that would 

 enable him to get rid of the water and work the 

 pit.^' Later in the century Roger North and 

 Bishop Gibson mention the lordship of Sir Roger 

 Bradshaw at Haigh, near Wigan, as famous for 

 yielding cannel coal. What struck them par- 

 ticularly about it was the bright light it gave 

 when burnt and the facility with which it could 

 be formed into various kinds of vessels, such as 

 sugar-boxes, spoons, and candle-sticks.^' The 

 same point is referred to by an anonymous 

 writer in 1701." 



In Haigh, near Wigan, in the lands of Sir Roger 

 Bradshaw, are mines of coal, good not only for fiiel, 

 but for making candlesticks, boxes, spoons, salt-sellers, 

 etc., they have met with good acceptance and are both 

 useful and lasting. 



During the eighteenth century the Lancashire 

 coalfields continued to develop, largely assisted 

 by improvements in the means of water trans- 

 port. In 1720 the River Douglas was rendered 

 navigable, so as to afford a cheap outlet for the 

 coal measures of Wigan. About the same time 

 the Mersey and Irwell were made navigable as 

 far as Manchester. Later the Sankey Canal, 

 which provided Haydock coalfield with a water- 

 way, and the Bridgewater Canal, which assisted 

 the development of the Worsley mines, were 

 built. At this time coal mining was steadily 

 increasing everywhere in Lancashire ; neverthe- 

 less contemporary references are entirely restricted 

 to Wigan. Of these by far the most interesting 

 is that of Dr. Richard Pococke, who was 



" From the petition of Freston and Hobart we 

 learn that 5/. was paid in respect of the coal mines 

 in Colne Manor and 6s. for those in Trawden. 



" Folkard, Industries of Wigan, 1 1 . 



" Folkard, 10. 



"Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining (ser. l), 88. 



" The Ncto Description and State of Engl. (Lond. 

 1701), p. 83. 



^ Dr. Richard Pococke, Travels through Engl during 



358 



travelling in 1 751, and who wrote the follow- 

 ing account on 8 June of that year : — '*' 



We crossed the moors towards Wigan and came 

 to the Canal Coal Pits ; they told me they were 

 forty yards deep. The work is called a delft or mine, 

 the vein a drift, which is about three feet thick and 

 dips from north-west to south-east about a yard in 

 twenty. What is above the drift they call the top 

 stone, which is of a lighter black colour than the 

 bottom stone. They find some copper mundich in 

 the coal and the drift is something broke by a stone 

 running across, which they call a fouU. The water 

 is pumped up and goes off by a channel on that side 

 of the hill, which is called a souk, and they do not 

 look on it as unwholesome. They are much troubled 

 by what they call fiery air. They know when it 

 rises by the smell, and send down a person with 

 a candle to try it ; if it is dangerous they see a blaze 

 from the candle near half a foot long. One man was 

 burnt with it that he died, and it raised blisters on 

 his body. When it is very bad they let down a 

 candle by a rope to set fire to the fiery damp as they 

 call it. As the vein is about a yard thick, so the 

 coals rise about two feet, and six inches long, and at 

 most four feet in girt. This they sell for ^d. a 

 100 wt ; that which is broken they sell for a shilling 

 the load which weighs iioowt. When first they 

 open a pit they let down a round iron grate full of 

 fire to draw out the damp by setting it on fire. The 

 people are let down to the work by a rope. This 

 coal is probably in all the rising ground, which is not 

 of great axtent. They work it now from the north 

 at Kirkle to the south-east about as far as Endley 

 Mill, and from the west at Ince to Dr. Kendrick's 

 pit eastward in the same parish. 



Referring to the cannel coal of Wigan some 

 twenty years later, Pennant says : — '^ 



It is found in beds of about three feet in thickness, 

 the veins dip one yard in twenty ; are found at great 

 depths with a black bass above and below and are 

 subject to the same damps fiery and suffocating as the 

 common coal. 



Another writer gives us information of a 

 different character about this coalfield. In the 

 year 1802 cannel coal was sold in the Wigan 

 district at ^d. per hundredweight at the pit's 

 mouth.'^ A reference to the duke of Bridge- 

 water's coal mine at Worsley occurs in the papers 

 of an American refugee writing in 1777 : — '' 



A hundred men are daily employed and each turns 

 out a ton a day ; the miners' wages are zs. and the 

 labourers' about is. Price of coal at the pit, two 

 pence per hundredweight, at the quay, threepence 

 halfpenny and at the door, fourpence halfpenny. 



i7So> '75i> and later years (Camden Soc, 1888), 

 i, 206. 



'^ Tour in Scotland, 1772, quoted in Galloway, 328. 



" Rev. Richard Warner, Tour through the Northern 

 Counties of Engl. 1802, quoted in Folkard, Industries 

 of Wigan, 13. 



^ G. A. Ward, Journal and Letters of an American 

 Refugee in Engl, from 1775 to 1784 (New York, 

 1842), quoted in Earwaker's Local Gleanings, i, 259. 



