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SOUTH Durham is the pit-land par excellence of the North. Upwards of
104,500,000 tons of coal per annum are raised in England. The
figures are so startling that one is in danger of omitting some of
them. Out of this prodigious quantity the coal-field of South Durham
contributes 15,300,000, The only other district that can boast a
yield at all approaching this is that which comprises North Durham,
Cumberland, and Northumberland. South Durham therefore, we repeat,
is the pit-land par excellence of the North, the Black Indies of
England. Here Coal is king. He rules the country with a grand
omnipotence. His subjects are a powerful and prosperous community.
Thirty-seven thousand of them are actually engaged about the
monarch's royal person, in the mines and on the banks. These are at
work night and day getting and sending to all parts of the world the
black diamonds which have done so much to augment the commercial and
political power of Great Britain. Beyond this mining army, King Coal
may count his subjects by thousands and tens of thousands. Indeed,
all that northern land swarms with them. Upon his beneficent
government depend the crowds of men who are engaged in the iron
trade. The furnaces, beacons of these latter days that light up the
darkest nights—they get their radiance from King Coal. Yon ships
riding proudly in the Northern Seas—they come to the black monarch's
kingdom for freight. King Coal keeps whole fleets in his service.
Merchants, clerks, shopkeepers, traders, labourers, hangers-on in
all the populous towns, are maintained by his rough and ready
majesty. Not even the proud and sombre city of Durham, with its
silent streets and its ancient towers, could exist without an
approving nod from the monarch of pit-land.
You may think from this brief introduction that South Durham is a
land of coal-heaps, pit-fires, and furnaces. Let us hasten to
dissipate this libellous reflection upon the natural beauties of the
famous northern county. We could show you plains almost as fair
under summer suns as those of Enna, where the playful Proserpine
first caught the wicked eye of Pluto. Durham has hills and dales and
woods and streams and rivers fit for the midnight revels of Queen
Mab and all her host. There are bits of sea-coast here and there
that might serve for the assemblage summoned by Ariel in Prospero's
island. The Wear on its way to the sea babbles through woods and
meadows, by ancient halls and castles, worthy of a painter's dream.
Now and then, it is true, a pit-stream, black and grimy and heavy
with coal washings, rushes into the clear waters and blackens them
for miles, like a protest from King Coal against pleasures and
beauties not of his own creation. But the river rolls on amongst a
world of woodland loveliness, carrying with it the music of bells,
the voices of village children, the cheery greeting of fisherman and
tourist, until at last its waters meet the salt-sea tide ; and then
the river, big with its new alliance, rises and swells in regal
might and joins the sea, bearing into the ocean scores of
newly-built ships which have been launched from the banks, as the
river rolls on to Sunderland's famous harbour,
A wonderful country is this pit-land of the North, wonderful in a
hundred ways; but more particularly in respect of its mines and
miners. It is our intention in these papers and sketches to tell you
all we know about the one and the other, The coal-mine represented
in our first picture is a sketch of the Seaham Colliery, which is
situated about a mile and a half from Seaham Harbour. It is one of
the largest collieries in the North of England, employing about 1100
persons, and raising 1,600 tons of coal daily.
Our illustration depicts the scene above-ground and under-ground,
showing the working of one of the most important pits. Panting of
engines, rushes of steam, rattle of ropes, roar of loading and
unloading of coals, make up a community of sounds befitting the
above-ground portals of the mine. There are two shafts or pits, each
14 feet in diameter; one the down-cast, for the air to go down, the
other the upcast, for the air to return after ventilating the pit.
The principal vein of coal lies at the depth of 1700 feet, and
averages 4 feet 5 inches in thickness, There are five other veins,
but the lowest seam is the one principally worked. One of the
shafts, it will be seen, is divided into two equal parts. In each
division, two cages fixed in wooden slides or conductors are worked,
each cage carrying four tubs or boxes, each holding eight and a half
tons of coal. There are three winding condensing engines for raising
the coal from the mine, having the power of 150 horses.
The rope-roll, upon which the rope winds, is 22 feet in diameter, and the
weight which the engine has to raise each time from the bottom of
the pit is eight and a half tons. In the up-cast shaft, wire rope
grinders are used, the heat being too great for wood. At the bottom
of the pit a man called an on-setter takes the empty tubs out of the
cage, replacing them with full ones; then a boy, called a driver,
with horse, takes from six to twelve tubs at a time from the bottom
of the shaft into the flat or station, where he exchanges the
empties for full tubs, as shown in the engraving. This part of the
underground road is from six to seven feet high, and at a distance
of about fifty yards there are sidings or double roads, where the
drivers pass each other. This applies to the pits on the left hand.
In the farther one on the right, which may be called the No, 3 pit,
the distance to the farthest flat is 1900 yards. Here the putters
(boys driving small ponies in a height of about 4 feet 6 inches)
take empty tubs to the hewers who are digging out the coal, and
return with full tubs to the flat.
The hewer is generally a strong robust fellow. He works from 5 am. until
11 am., when his marrow, or partner, '-looses (relieves) him, and
continues his work until 5 pm making six hours' shift, or six
consecutive hours' work at a time, and getting in each shift (a
period of six hours) four and three-quarter tons of coal. In deep
mines the coal is got entirely by hack or pick, tools better known
to the general reader as pick-axes', but in shallower mines the coal
is frequently blasted down with gunpowder. As the hewer excavates
the coal, about every two feet, a piece of timber is placed
horizontally across the place, and an upright piece on either side,
forming a framework to support the roof. The inefficient propping of
headings has in many mines been a great source of accidents from the
falling in of roofs. The deputy, whose duty it is to fix the timber,
visits each working place twice daily; his first visit being in the
morning before the hewer goes in, to see that the place is clear of
fire-damp (the most terrible of all the miner's enemies), and to see
that the place is safe in all other respects and fit for working.
The small vignette in the first cut, showing an aperture with a
horse coming through, is a trapdoor for the purpose of forcing the
air around the face of the workings. In mines where the safety-lamps
are not exclusively used, explosions of fire-damp have often
occurred through these doors being left open, thus impairing the
ventilation and giving an opportunity for the dangerous gases to
accumulate, A boy, called a "trapper," is stationed at the door for
the purpose of opening and shutting it after those who pass through.
In the early days of mining, and indeed not very many years ago in
some districts, this work was frequently done by a girl, whilst much
of the labour of the on-setter and the putter was done by women.
The companion vignette in our picture, the one on
the left, shows the ventilating furnace. It is a large open fire
on|bars, standing in an area of 10 feet by 8, In the Seaham Colliery
there are two of these fiery ventilators placed near the bottom of
the up-cast shaft. They are in the constant charge of a fireman, and
nine tons of coal are burnt at each furnace every twenty-four hours.
Besides these, there are five boiler-fires going into the same
up-cast, giving a temperature of 280 degrees and a ventilating
current of 203,000 cubic feet per minute in the down-cast, and
286,000 cubic feet in the up-cast, the natural heat of the mine
being 74 degrees. Barometers are fixed at the top and bottom of the
pit, registered daily by the officer in charge of the mine. Should a
sudden fall of the barometer occur, it is immediately reported to
the deputies in charge of each district, who keep a strict watch
lest fire-damp should appear from the light state of the atmosphere.
Explosions of fire-damp have invariably occurred during periods of
marked atmospherical change. The difference of pressure between the
top and bottom of the pit is 1.6 inches. The coal, after being
brought to " bank," by which is meant to the top of the pit, is
poured into a screen, the bars of which, are 5 eighths of an inch
apart, separating the small from the round. After a series of
screenings and pickings, three kinds of coal are loaded in trucks
and waggons for their destination inland or by sea to England's
continental and other customers, We are indebted to Mr. Thompson,
the courteous viewer of the colliery,for these facts and figures
concerning the Seaham mines.
The harbour and town near which Seaham Colliery is situated afford
an example amongst many of the remarkable results which have
attended the development of the great mineral district of Durham,
Forty years ago the town and port of Seaham Harbour were not
created. The harbour was commenced in 1828, on a lonely bit of coast
altogether uninhabited. The docks now afford accommodation for 300
ships, and in 1861 the population numbered 8,437, The docks were
opened in 1831, and one day in the August of that year the Lord
Seaham sailed into the harbour and loaded the first cargo of
Stewart's Wallsend coals. Since that time the coal trade of the port
has grown and increased enormously. The story of West Hartlepool
close by is even far more remarkable than this, and the more so that
the conception and creation of the place may be said to have been
the work of one man, Ralph Ward Jackson, who is the acknowledged
father of West Hartlepool, and who now represents it in Parliament,
its first member, elected under the Derby Reform Bill, We may here
remark on the absurd enthusiasm of those Free Traders who attribute
everything to Free Trade, and nothing to the natural development of
our national resources. No thoughtful man doubts that the principles
of' Free Trade are sound, but standing in the midst of this vast
coal-field of the North, we are tempted to ask if Free Trade has
done anything like so much for England, as coal has done ? However
early in the world's history coal may have been discovered, it is
fairly urged in M. Simonin's " La Vie Souterraine," that the true
history of coal dates from the eighteenth century, and may be said
to be connected with the history of modern civilisation and English
progress. The Steam Engine had its birth amongst the coal pits, the
result to a great extent of the exigencies of mining.
In truth, King Coal is your only monarch, He supplies the universal
motive power; propels the machinery of all the world's workshops;
turns the wheels of miles of railway trains, that go to and fro over
the earth, never resting, day nor night; he gives our ships a power
that defies wind and tide; supplies the worker in metallic minerals
with a fire that reduces his most stubborn ore; and out of the
essence of darkness he compounds a sure and certain substitute for
moonlight in all our towns and cities. Whilst no achievement seems
too great for the modern monarch, he can descend with grace and
ease, like a true gentleman, to the small observances of social
life. Feeding the flames of a thousand mighty furnaces, King Coal at
the same time lights up the hearth of the poorest cottage, and warms
the tender toes of the gentlest lady. While he blackens hill and
dale with smoke, and darkens the tide of the fairest river, he
generates and gives forth to the intelligent chemist colours that
shall dye the most delicate silks and satins to deck the whitest and
softest shoulders. Verily he is the Grand Monarch, and South Durham
is his throne.
TBB NIGHT SHIFT
Behold the pit-heap, or bank, in the evening, shortly before the
night-shift men descend the mine to work through the long night when
most Christian people are in bed asleep. The men go down at six
o'clock in the evening. Half an hour before this time, they
generally meet on the pit-heap for a chat by the fire. They call
this gossip “a crack." The men whose features are so effectively
brought out by the fire-light are realities. The portraits will be
recognised at Seaham. Two of them particularly are well-known
indi-viduals and they have their prototypes in most collieries. The
old man raising his fist to clench an argument, is great upon pit
work and pit management. He is a shifter (you will understand the
term presently), and in that capacity he has had a long and varied
experience. Man and boy he has lived half his life in the mine, and
he could tell you many a thrilling story of narrow escapes from the
dangerous chances that beset the pitman's life. He speaks with a
strong northern accent, but with a quaint eloquence. In times of
agitation men of this calibre who are fond of
talking, and who generally possess considerable native art, exercise
an important influence upon their fellows. For weal or woe,
whichever way their opinion is influenced they go with all their
might and main. Seated in front of the fire, swinging his Davy lamp
between his knees and smoking a pipe, is another shifter well-known
at the colliery. He is quietly listening to the elder collier and
cogitating a reply; but it is easily to be seen that nothing will
shake the admiration for the speaker which gleams in the admiring
glance of that young man nearest the patriarchal pitman.
This evening chat on the bank before going below, is a pleasant
incident in the lives of these simple and hardworking men. It is
their club-chat; their after-dinner cigar; their peep at the papers;
their bit of intellectual social intercourse. This little interim
between comparative rest and positive work is enjoyed with peculiar
zest. The crude thoughts that come and go in the firelight, often
serve to occupy the more intelligent of the toilers during the
night, and shorten the way home when daylight glimmers like a
distant star down the dark yet familiar shaft.
The man who is smoking will lay down his pipe presently, for he may
not take it into the mine, and then the pleasant half-hour win be at
an end. What is a shifter ? you ask. His duties are to repair
timbers and cut the floor of the mine, so as to give sufficient
height for the tubs, where it has "hoven" or swollen during working;
thus making the pit ready for the hewers who come on for the
day-shift. This work has necessarily to be done during the night,
when the pit may be said to have stopped working. The length of the
night-shift is eight hours; so that in summer these men leave the
pit in the bright fresh air of early morning, sometimes having bits
of pretty country lanes and fields in their way. In winter they come
out of the dark mine to the darker morning, making the world to them
one long winter night, their only sun the pit fire, their only star
the flicker of the Davy lamp.
The three boys on the right are " putters " sharing an apple. Their
mothers generally put one or two into their "bait poke," as they
call the little bag in which they carry their provisions. Their work
is to " put" the coals from the night-shift hewers who go into the
pit to fill the tubs left empty when the pit stopped work. The men
in the back-ground in a sitting posture are in the cage about to
descend the mine. As the reader will have understood by our previous
picture, the cage is fixed in grooves and fills one half the shaft,
which is divided into downcasts and upcasts, thus reducing the
dangers of ascent and descent to a minimum. Some mines even in the
present day are descended by means of corfes or tubs swinging from
side to side as they go up and down, to the peril of which is added
the further danger of collision between the tub of coals ascending
and the tub of human life descending. We call to mind in the Clay
Cross districts of Derbyshire, a pit at which as a boy it was our
delight to watch the deputy go swinging down the rough and reeking
shaft, standing at the edge of a coal box, and protecting himself
now and then from bumps at the sides with his extended arm. In those
days women worked in the mines; but that barbarism is happily only a
matter of history now. In the darkest days of coal-mining, women
called "coal-bearers " in Scotland, used to carry the coals in sacks
on their shoulders, mounting a long series of ladders, which were
the only means of communicating between the bottom and the bank.
Forty years ago they used to go into the salt mines of Hungary,
Beaudant, the mineralogist, relates, in a cluster of ropes' end
loops, like several swings fastened to a master rope. For that
matter, in times of peril, we have seen the miner descend with
nothing but a rope and his own strong limbs and brave heart to
support him; but there is no reason why he should not be protected
as much as possible in his goings up and down, and we are bound to
acknowledge that in the present day he has the benefit of every
possible thought and invention for his safety.
On the cross timber over the men in the cage, you will notice what
is called a " counter." This is for keeping a rough account of the
coals that are drawn to bank. It is in charge of the banksman, who
takes the full tubs out of the cage and replaces them with empty
ones. The correct account is kept by the token man, whose duty it is
(after the banksman has emptied the tub into the screens and taken
the " tokens" from the hewer and putter and hung them up on a hook)
to collect the tokens and place them to the credit of the hewer and
putter. He gets these in this way. Each hewer and putter fastens the
token to a staple at the bottom of the tub in the inside; it is a
piece of tin half an inch square, with a number upon it, and a cord
about six inches long with a loop at the end to attach it to the
staple in the tub. Most of the workmen are paid by contract, either
by score of twenty-one tubs each, or by piece-work. The "notice" on
the upright timber near the cage has reference to certain
regulations for ascending and descending the mine.
The management of a colliery is beset with “rules and regulations”
they fill pages of thick pamphlets which are issued to agents as
well as to the men. The latter subscribe their names to the rules
with which they are provided, and there are serious pains and
penalties attendant upon any breach of the accepted laws, A general
in the field has often not more serious responsibilities resting
upon him than the viewer at a large colliery. Indeed he may be said
to be the chief of an army; and what is more, is in command of an
army constantly at war. Mr. Bristow's version of Simonin's book puts
this thought into most fitting language:—" It is not without reason
that the art of mining borrows some of its terms from the art of
war; that in France a year's work is called a campaign, the
different under-ground working places posts, a gang of miners a
brigade, or squadron in England, a crew or shift—while in Cornwall
the under-ground manager is called a captain, and the store-keeper a
purser. Is it not said that they attack the coal, and is not the
mine itself the collier's field of battle? Is it not there that in
his struggles against all dangers he may be said to combat them foot
to foot? The four elements of the ancients, earth, air, fire and
water – all conspire against him.
In charge of this army of King Coal is the Viewer, the general who
understands all the dangers of men, and whose constant duty it is to
take precautions for their safety, as well as to promote the success
of their underground expeditions in a pecuniary and commercial
sense. As a stimulus to faithful services on the part of the
captains, lieutenants and ensigns, premiums are offered and
regularly paid for unflagging attention to its good results. Out of
a long list of these prizes we select a few from the Seaham rules:-Per Year
£ s d
-
To each overman whose sketches are neatly
And fully kept, upon each bill day 1s = 1 6 0
-
To each overman in whose pit there shall have
been no “Accident” in each pay 1s = 1 6 0
-
To each overman whose pit receives a good
Report from the viewer, each bill day 2s = 2 12 0
. These are followed by premiums of similar amounts for increases
reckoned by percentage, in the quantities of coal raised, and for
decreases in cost, and the whole is closed by a formidable fine of
from £1 to £5 from each overman in whose pit any fatal accident
shall occur.
We are tempted to transcribe a large proportion of the rules. They
tell the story of responsibility completely, and carry out the idea
of an army with its attendant chiefs. The ninth section of the
rules, however, will be sufficient for our purpose. Nothing can give
a better notion to the general reader of the serious nature of
colliery management than the following official
INSTRUCTIONS TO RESIDENTS AND UNDERVIEWERS.
1, To be down the pit every day. To see that the orders and
instructions of the chief viewer are fully and properly carried out.
at once to remedy any neglect or defect, and also to report the same
to the chief viewer. Not to be absent from the office nor from home
all night, except with the knowledge of the chief viewer.
2. To be at the colliery office from two o'clock to five each day.
3. To make all surveys and levelling and to keep up the
working-plans and levels.
4. Places intended for main waggon ways to be levelled once each
month, and levellings kept up in the office: also to try marks on
once each fortnight,
5. To visit every place in each pit once every month; to travel a
main return once every fortnight.
6. In pits worked exclusively with safety-lamps, always to use a
safety-lamp from the shaft, and never use a naked light, except for
surveying &c, when a safety-lamp must be in advance; and in other
pits always to use a safety-lamp in advance when the pit is off, and
always in the waste.
7. To measure off the whole of the yard work with the overman on
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, previous to bill day; also to
agree with each workman as to consideration, &c.
8. To go down the pit every Thursday night before bill day, to see
all the stonemen, and carefully examine their work and prices.
9. To measure the quantity of air in each pit, with the master
masterman, once each fortnight
10. To examine the report of the overman and other officers every
night, before sending them to the chief viewer or his
representative.
11. To write a daily report of the state of the pits to the viewer
every night, and enter the same in report book.
12 To have personal communication with the overman, and master
wasteman, and master shifter every day.
13. To see that the "daily reports" from the various charge-men are properly entered into the report books.
14, To see that all the minute books and sketches are regularly and
properly kept up.
15 To receive from each foreman on the works a written report of the
state of his department, &c, during the day, and to forward the
same, with any remarks that may be required, to the chief viewer,
16. To measure the air in all the splits, and in the shaft, once
each quarter-year, and enter quantities in ventilation book.— March
30, June 30, September 30, and December 31.
17. To examine each shaft once every year (December 31), and enter
report on the same in "Shaft Report Book?" also enter undercharge-shaftman's
report each month.
18. To travel through every part of the return air courses in each
pit once every year, and enter reports of the same in " Waste
Report Book,"
19. To keep up to date all necessary "Score Book," "Cost
of Working Books," &c in the office.
20 To attend strictly to the various regulations issued by the
viewer. The underviewer is responsible for those being properly
carried out by every one on the works. He is responsible for all
work done in the pits and shafts, and also for the safety of all
persons in the pits.
A tolerably heavy load of responsibility this, for men to carry
about with them from day to day, it must be admitted. The wonder is
that the rules are obeyed so well; not that breaches occur and
accidents crop up to make the application of war terms more apropos
by the addition of occasional returns of "killed and wounded."
Whilst we have been thinking all this out the men in the cage have
gone down to their work, the boys have eaten their apples, the
talkative shifters have taken their turn in the cage and are at
their nightly duties. The moon has risen on pit-heap and mountain,
on cottage and palaces, the pit-fire smoulders at the bank, the
timbers stand out in the two lights gaunt and strange; the white
notice paper newly posted looks like a ghastly face. The whole scene
is changed with the disappearance of the men who are down in the
deep galleries of the mine working out their nightly sorties in the
breach that com-mands the great black walls of the citadel which is
to be conquered and won.
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