Coal as we all know is solid fuel but millions of years ago the World had no coal reserves. So where did it come from? Here is a simple explanation. 345 to 280 million years ago, the world was mostly covered with a luxuriant vegetation which grew in swamps. A large number of these plants were types of fern, and some were as big as trees. This vegetation died off and became submerged under water. It gradually decomposed and as it decomposed, the vegetable matter lost oxygen and hydrogen atoms, it left a deposit which contained a high percentage of carbon. Peat was formed first, but over the years layers of sand and mud settled, from the water, over some of the peat. Pressure from the layers above, the movements of the earth's crust, plus at times volcanic heat, compressed and hardened the deposits. Through this process coal was formed. Coal has been many things to many people over the years, some became very rich, others have given their lives mining it. A few Facts. In some areas of Britain, evidence has been discovered that indicates stone-age inhabitants collected and used coal. Flint axes have been found embedded in layers of coal in excavations at Monmouthshire and Stanley in Derbyshire. Excavations frequently turn up the remains of coal fires, which the Romans used to fuel their heating systems. Coal mining in China dates back to 200 years before Jesus Christ was born. Up to the 18th century coal was only mined near the surface beside outcrops, this type of mining was known by the names, "bell pits" and "adit mines". Monks at various places, including, Culross, Dunfermline, Newbattle, and Edinburgh, were digging in bell pits and open cut mines as early as the 12th century. A charter granted in 1291 to the Abbot of Dunfermline gave him and his monks the rights to dig for coal in the lands of Pittencrieff in Fife. In the 13th century a charter dealing with and recognising the importance of coal supplies was granted to the freemen of Newcastle, allowing them to dig for coals unhindered. Bell Pits. ( Sometimes known as "Stair Pits" ). A bell pit was little more than a well which was opened to reach the coal, it was shaped like an upside down bell, hence the name. Many areas had numerous bell pits which were in close proximity to other bell pits, as one bell pit collapsed another was opened. No kind of propping was used to support the roof, so that when the roof became unsafe the pit was abandoned. Factors such as the roof conditions, the build up of water, concentrations of gas, and ventilation problems were all taken into account before deciding to close a pit. Bell pits seem to have varied in depth, I have read articles suggesting anything from 10 to 90 metres. In some mines the coal was carried up ladders to the surface by women and children. As the population in Britain increased, the need for fuel supplies also increased, wood became scarce as great tracts of forest were felled for both fuel and building materials. Another method of mining were drift mines which were usually sunk into the hillside. The coal seam was usually visible at the side of the hill (known as outcrop coal ), the coal was first removed from the side of the hill, then the miners had to follow the seam further and further underground, the coal was worked until the working conditions became unsafe. The mine was then abandoned. By 1683, some of the bigger mines were using timber to support the roof, this enabled coal to be mined much further away from the mine entrance. It's difficult for us to believe or understand, but children of all ages were used in the coal mines, as soon as a child was seen as old enough to help the child began work. In the 1840s a Royal Commission looked into child labour. The report included illustrations that depicted children working in the mines, carrying heavy loads of coal, or pulling horses, or leading horses into the mine. Children being lowered down a shaft. Children pushed coal drams like this. The work was arduous and involved long hours. For a child going underground for the first time the mine would be a very scary place, it was pitch black, a candle or an oil lamp was all the illumination a child would have, if the candle went out or the oil ran out he/she could spend hours in complete darkness. During that time they would hear all sorts of noises, strata moving, pieces of roof or sides falling, and rats were a common visitor in the mines, so they would hear them scurrying around them. One of their first jobs would be as a trapper. A trapper is stationed at traps ( canvas flaps ) or doors in various parts of the pit, the trapper opened the trap so that trams of coal could pass through, then they immediately closed it again when the trams had passed through the trap. Air ventilation was stringently controlled and if the trap was not closed correctly, parts of the mine would lack adequate ventilation and dangerous gases would build up. In 1840, Phillip Phillips was a boy of nine. He worked in the Plymouth coal mines in Merthyr as a trapper. Six years old Mary Davis, also worked in the Plymouth Mines as a trapper. Benjamin Thomas, about eight years old, worked in the Broadmoor Colliery at Begelly in Pembrokeshire hauling skips of coal. Morgan Davies, aged seven years, worked as a door boy. Edward Edwards, aged nine, was a carter in the Esgyrn Colliery near Briton Ferry. he used to drag carts loaded with coal from the coal face to the main road, a distance of sixty yards. The carts had no wheels. Girl pulling a coal dram. Leather belts were placed on the child's shoulders, the child had to drag the coal with ropes over their shoulders. As mines became larger there was more underground haulage; boys aged 10, to 14, were considered old enough to guide horses along the roadways. The horse pulled tubs of coal to the base of a hoist; where a 'gin', on the surface, completed the work of raising the coal to the surface. [a 'gin' usually consisted of a horse going in a circle, and working a wheel that winds up or lets down various loads into the pit ). They also transported wood and other supplies into the mine to the working places. Mines were now using a lot of wood to timber up the roadways. The invention of powerful steam engines allowed underground mining to develop on a big scale. The steam engines were powerful enough to operate hoists to bring people into the mine and pull coal out of the mine. They also provided a means to ventilate the mine adequately, so the miners had oxygen, and the poisonous, explosive gases, would be dissipated by the ventilation. A Mine manager by the name of John Buttle was credited with inventing a system of ventilation that was to become known as "compound ventilation". Top. Board and pillar.1832 . Deeper mines were using a technique which we know as:- (a) board and pillar (b) pillar and stall (c) room and pillar (d) stoop and room. The name varied depending upon the part of the country the mining took place, however the method was basically the same. Coal was extracted from an area underground, ( the 'rooms' , stalls etc.), pillars of coal were left in to support the roof. When a boundary was reached they began working their way backwards, removing the pillars on a retreat basis. The Royal Commission 1840s, focused on children, but it was women and girls who were most immediately affected by the report, which led to the exclusion of all women and girls from British mines. The 1842 Mines and Collieries Act, banned all women, and children under 10 from working underground. No-one under 15 years was to work winding gear in mines. Top. Charles Dickens report submitted to the COALMINERS Mailing List. SECOND PART of the interview by Charles Dickens, as reporter for "Household Words", regarding a miner's evidence on accidents in NE England. Contemporary Account: Article dated Saturday, December 7 1850. A COAL MINER'S EVIDENCE (2) (concerning the recent explosion and previous accidents of a similar kind in SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE and NORTH DURHAM mines, this coal miner was in the pit at the time of the recent explosion) "After my accident I did not go down again in the pit for six months. I warn't strong enough. I drove a 'gin' on the bank. [the 'gin' consists of a horse going in a circle, and working a wheel that winds up or lets down loads into the pit]. The work was not hard, except in cold or wet weather; but then I often stood in a hovel by a fire, and kept th' old horse going by pelting him with small bits of coal, to let him know I was there. I learnt to read at an evening-school at this time; and to write a little too. But I've forgotten both since. "When I next went down into the pit I drew little waggons of coals, with a girdle and chain; this is called hurrying. Hard work it was. The blisters were often as big as shillings and half-crown pieces. All full of water they were. And the blisters of one day were broken the next, and the girdle stuck to the wound. Sore work, I promise you; but I got one-and-sixpence a day for it, and the last three months, two shillings. "After this, I was hired as foal to my uncle, a young fellow of nineteen who was a putter. Those who push the little waggons of coal along the tram-roads are called 'putters'; and when a young boy helps an elder he is called his 'foal'. When two boys of fourteen or fifteen years of age push together, equally, they are called half-marrows. I was a foal for near a twelvemonth; and then a half-marrow, and got twelve-and-sixpence a week. One day the butty (overseer) sent us to a part of the mine where we had never been before. There was fire-damp there, and it put out our candles, one after another, as fast as we lighted them. So we saw as it was not safe to try it on any longer, and we began to scramble our way back in the dark. Laughing we were a great deal. But we missed our way, and got into an old working as had been abandoned for years, and got quite lost. We wandered about here two whole days and nights afore we found our way out, and were nigh starved to death! . "I was strong of my age, and the butty said I had some sense in me, and set me to use the pick sooner than is usual. In general the miner does not use the pick, and become a holer or undergoer [those who go into holes and undermine masses of coal] till he is one-and-twenty. I was set to do this at nineteen, and earned four shillings a day, and sometimes more. Got badly burnt once at this work. I was lying in a new working where the air was bad, and I was obliged to use a Davy lamp. I had bought a new watch at Tipton, and I wanted to see what o'clock it was by it - else, what was the use on it? - and as I couldn't tell by the Davy, I just lifted off the top - and pheu! went the gas, and scorched my face all over, so that the skin all peeled off. It was shocking to see. I was laid up with this for two months - and sarv'd me right, I say now, but it was hard to bear at the time. "As for accidents from the explosion of gas, I say there's no help for them, and never can be, so far as the men themselves are concerned. I have been oftentime very careless myself, as I've told you, and so are all miners, and always will be. You may cure the mine of gas, perhaps, but you'll never cure the men. Nor, I don't well see how you're to cure the gas, at all times, neither. When a heading [the working at the end of an excavation] is made up a slant, the gas collects in the upper end, and to disturb this gas, as you must do, and distribute it, and drive it away, a'nt so safe and easy a matter, without a chance of a bit of an explosion or two. The worst time of all is when an up-hill heading is united to another heading, for then you're almost certain to have a rush down of the gas, and if there's an uncovered light in the way, you're sure of an explosion. Well - then, don't have a light in the way, on such occasions; make the juncture of the two headings in ! the dark. That's easy said; and so we're ordered, and so we ought to; but to get men to do it, that's the job. Besides, if it was all being done in the dark, a boy might come running that way with a lighted candle in his hand, a-singing 'Susannah' - and then where are you? "You want to know if there's no authority, and no order down in the mines - nobody to walk about and prevent accident from carelessness? Well - there's the butty, as gives out the work; and there's the doggy, who is always a-walking about to see it done. But what's one man to miles and miles of darkness underground, with gas or bad air everywhere, and roof and walls always liable to fall in? The overlookers have enough to do to take care o' themselves, at times. Some years ago - 1838 about - at Tamworth - a butty coming to his work in the morning, walked right into the pit's mouth with two candles in his hand; and only t'other day, in one of our mines here, a doggy had his head blown off with the wild fire. "It doesn't come of drink, this carelessness of the miners; it's just in our nature not to care - that's all. We do drink and eat too, a good deal; but not in the mine. Our dinners there, are not much, except on particular days, when there is a feast; but when we come up from the pit, we have hot suppers at night in our cottages. The doctors say that a miner needs to eat near three times as much as a mechanic who sits at his work all day; and we do eat three times as much. We're not a drunken set o' people; only on Mondays there's a many drunk, and not very handsome-like on Tuesdays. We mostly lie in bed and sleep half Sundays. Some of us are tee-totallers - but a werry, werry few. The Marquis o' Hastings, who's a great coal-owner, once told a collier that he knew a miner who had never drank a quart of beer in all his life, put together, yet he had lived to the age of ninety, - if he had but ha' drunk a quart of ale a day, he'd have lived for ever! "After I had been an under-goer three years, I had a large piece of coal fall upon me from the roof in one of the workings which broke my leg. My mother was dead, and I was not married at this time, because the girl I should ha' married, took up with somebody else; so I went to my sister to be nursed. She and her husband were going to live at Durham, and persuaded me, when I was well, to go along with them. I soon went down into the pit again, and used to earn five shillings a day. It was here that happened one of those very bad explosions I told you of when you first spoke to me about this last business. The one I now speak of was in the Willington Colliery." Top. A COAL MINER'S EVIDENCE (3) (concerning the recent explosion and previous accidents of a similar kind in SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE and NORTH DURHAM mines, this coal miner was in the pit at the time of the recent explosion) I should warn you this part contains a graphic description of those injured, and some names. I was drawn to tears while typing this. "It was in the Bensham seam of this colliery [Willington] that the explosion I am going to tell on took place. It took place on the 19th of April 1841, at a little arter one P.M. The Bensham seam lies about a hundred and forty fathoms from the surface; the coal is over four feet in thickness in most parts, and the pit is good nine feet four wide from wall to wall. The coals are drawn up in iron cages; two tubs on each cage. The pit had been in work some time. We had advanced two hundred and eighty yards from the bottom of the shaft. Besides this, there were two north headways, each seven feet wide, which had advanced more than two hundred yards. Holings were made between each of the headways for air. We had an up-cast shaft, called the Edward Pit, by which the air ascended to the surface, after ventilating all the workings. The current of air, you understand, descended by another shaft, as was called the Bigge Pit. One current went one way; another current anoth! er. There was pains enough taken to give us enough wholesome air. "It was at the west the explosion took place. I was at work with another man and a boy, near five hundred yards, reckoning ins and outs, east of the shaft. A sudden rush of wind and dust came past us. It put out our candles. We knew directly there had been an explosion somewhere, and we ran along in the dark as fast as we could. We fell down several times, tumbling over stones and large pieces of coal or timber that had been shaken and blown out. When we got to the foot of the shaft, we found the iron cage stuck fast, all jammed with the explosion; but we made the signal, and another cage was lowered to us, into which we jumped, before it reached the bottom, by scrambling up the sides of the shaft. When we got to the bank, and had taken our breath a bit, we saw the chief viewer of the pit come running to us with his Davy lamp. We each took a Davy, and went down the pit, to see who we could help. We knew there had been sad work among them. When we got down to the! bottom of the shaft, we soon heard moans and groans. They were two lads, still alive. We got them hoisted up in the cage to the bank; but they lived a very little while. Soon after, we found two more quite dead, shockingly burnt. We had not gone much further when we found there had been a great fall of the roofing; and among the loose coals and stones, and timbers we found a horse and a pony, all mangled and singed. We now met the after-damp, and were thinking of returning, when a groan made us go forward, and we brought out the body of a young man alive, but in such a state, be couldn't be recognised. We now found that the doors of the trappers in several places had been blown out, and consequently the air currents had ceased to ventilate all the west and north workings, so that those who were there, and had escaped the explosion, would be likely to lose their lives by the after-damp. "A strange smell of burning now made us know that some other sort of fire was at work, and as we ran in the direction it smelt like burning straw, which told us it was the stables as had taken fire. And sure enough, there were all in thick yellow smoke and red flames. The horses were prancing wild about, and one, who was blind, got out, and tore away, and killed himself by running agen a wall. We all saw death before us, if we couldn't master this fire; because if it communicated with the workings in the west and north, where the bad gas was, there would be another blow-up worse than the first. Mr. Johnson, the viewer, acted like a man. We all gave our minds to the work, and succeeded in stopping out, with wood and wet clay plaster, the entrances to these workings. Fire engines were then got down, and we continued to pump at the stables, and at the walls of coal which had took fire on each side, and after we had drenched them with water for several hours, the fire wa! s put out. It took thirteen hours and more to do this. "The main currents of air were restored as usual, and we then continued our search for those who had suffered by the explosion. We found Robert Campbell and another man crushed and buried under a fall of stone, and William Coxon, and Thomas Wood, and Joseph Johnson, all dead, but not burnt. It seemed as if they had got to this place, and then been suffocated and poisoned by the after-damp. Johnson had the top of a linen cap forced into his mouth, to keep out the poison - but that was no use. A little further on, we found two more men, and near them three little boys - trappers they were - all burnt horrid. Some distance beyond, Thomas Bainbridge, James Liddel, and William Bower, together with two if not three, more boys, who had been blown a long way, and also Robert Pearson and Richard Cooper, both very little boys - trappers. Up by the north heading we found the body of John Reed, the deputy who had charge of the pit, and also five others, some burnt, some mangled. "The cause of this explosion, which cost all these lives, was traced, on examination of all signs and appearances, to the trapper boys, Robert Pearson and Richard Cooper. Cooper's body was found away from his own trap, and lying close beside that of Pearson, where we saw reasons for knowing he could not have been blown by the explosion; and all on us come to the conclusion that he had left his own trap-door open, and gone to play with Pearson. The proper course of the ventilation was thus destroyed, and when George Campbell, whose body was found near, went there with his candle, to fill coals, the gas that had accumulated while the boys were at play instantly exploded. "You are surprised that children should have charge of these air-doors, on which the safety of the whole wine chiefly depends; but it has always been so. They are often trappers at six years of age. I was myself. Seven and eight are the most common ages; sometimes nine. In course the Queen's Ministers don't know anything about these underground matters. Some gentlemen were sent to look after us, about eight years ago. They said the Queen sent 'em; and they came down among us in the pits, and about on the bank; but I suppose they kept what they found to themselves. [Dicken's note: Far from it. See Report and Evidence of the Children's Employment Commission; and in especial, those of Dr. Mitchell and Mr. Leifchild.] For here we are with our little trapper boys, and our explosions, and our burnt and mangled men, just as we have always been. It's a hard life, any way; but to be killed slap off, is worst of all." Top. A COAL MINER'S EVIDENCE (4) (concerning the recent explosion and previous accidents of a similar kind in SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE and NORTH DURHAM mines, this coal miner was in the pit at the time of the recent explosion) "Now, as to the dreadful explosion and loss of life that happened at SLOUGHTON, I thought I could tell you all about it, in some sort o' order; but directly I begin to think about it, so many things come at once that it's not easy to think at all, or know what to say first. The overman had been out late on Sunday night. He went to the pit at two in the morning to see that all was safe. At three we all came to work, and a hundred and fifty of us, men and boys, went down. One of the workings was new opened, after being closed thirteen years. A dangerous place o' course. One o' the undergoers was sent in to remove the first pillar. I went to work with others at a good distance. We were at it about two hours, and then all of a sudden a rush of wind and coal dust cut by us, taking out all the candles, and there was a rumbling noise. We knew very weel what it meant, and we all ran towards the shaft. As we ran we came upon others in the dark, and others came rushing out! upon us from the side workings, and all of us together ran in a crowd and crush along the dark ways, in the direction of the shaft, and presently we found those who were foremost had fallen, and we got a sudden giddiness and gasping, so we knew we had met the choke-damp. It's a deathly, sleepy sickness you feel, and sinking at the knees, only you're sure it's not the breath of sleep you're afeeling, but you're breathing death. I called to those a-head to stop, and so did others near me, but many of them would go on, and down they went, one after the other. We felt the bad air couldn't be passed through, and we hurried backward in a worse disorder, if that's possible, than we had come on; and at last we all stopt in a scrambling crowd in a place where we found the air could be breathed. Here we remained. What a time it was, good Lord of Heaven! At first the elder ones of us tried to keep some order, and quiet the rest by telling them, as we know'd those on the bank, and ! plenty of others would be sure to know what had happened, and they'd soon come to help us. They would attend to this for a little, but soon they began to get wild and desperate, and so they went on crying out and shouting like mad, ending with a scream, until they were tired out. All this time many were down on their knees praying, and some lying about with their faces hid on the ground, and all of us expecting every minute another explosion, or else the advance of the after-damp would bring us certain destruction. And here we remained, hemmed round by the walls and by the after-damp, which we could no more get through than through the walls theirselves - hour after hour, every minute of which was a long torment of all sorts of things in ourselves, and in all those about us. I gave myself up for lost after the first hour - then I took hope a little; but after more time had gone, I gave up hoping, and was as bad as the rest. Still as more time went on, I began to pick up a! bit. I knowed our friends would help us if they could. Ay, but could they? - that was the chance. And then again I fell into despair, and crouched down, and covered my face and head with my hands, and sat there a trying to pray, and make my last peace with God, amidst all manner of cries and loud praying, and miseries of despair and madness of those huddling in the darkness all round me. Sometimes they got a little silent and solemn-like, and listened to the voice of one man who had never ceased to pray aloud all along; but presently somebody called out his wife's name - two or three cried out on their children, their mothers, the girls they were to be married to - and in a moment all again was wild cries and rushing about in the dark. "You know how we were saved. A great part of the roofing had fallen with the explosion, and this had shut off the fire from us, and the advance of the after-damp. Our friends made their way through the ruin - got fresh air in to us, and helped us out. Some died from exhaustion when they reached the bank; but most of us recovered, to thank God again and again in the arms of our wives and relations, who were all standing in crowds to receive us. They had come from all parts round about. The bank was like a fair, only a different sort of merriness, and many had no cause. The grief of some was a sad sight for any man. Five-and-twenty had been killed; some crushed, some burnt to a black cinder, so that they couldn't be told; some torn all in pieces, and the head of Anderson flung into a horse-tub - and the rest damped to death. "We think the explosion was caused by the gas from the old working, now opened after being closed thirteen years. Some noise made the undergoer go to this place, and instead of taking his Davy lamp, he ran there with a lighted candle in his hand. He, and the man who was at work there, we found under each other all black and mutilated. He was a mere body of cinder, and was only known by a little book in his pocket, as escaped. The Queen's gentlemen, when they came down here among us, said they could mend these things; but they haven't you see. We think the Queen wasn't told." Mr Dickens writes: An effectual remedy for these horrible accidents is indeed most difficult to devise. For even if the Government instituted a system of police inspection, it would require one officer, at least, to be constantly perambulating the dark roads and by-ways of every mine; and still, as the miner, whose evidence we have just read, very truly says, an explosion might be caused by a moment's carelessness at one end of a mine, while the "authority" was at the other. To us there appears no other chance of a remedy so good as this: - First, most stringent laws as to the proper ventilation of mines: Secondly, a system of Government inspection, extending to that of frequent visits by day and night, at times not known to the masters or miners; and, Thirdly, a regular system of registration of all accidents that occur in mines, especially as regards defective machinery and the explosion of gases. This system of registration has been put in operation with respect to the Factories, with very good effect. No child can receive an injury, which disables it from work for a fortnight, without a report of the same, under penalty of a heavy fine on the mill-owner, being sent to the Inspector of the District. The publicity caused by this has brought the question so continually into notice that the fore of public opinion has operated most beneficially in reducing the number of accidents. If then, a system of inspections and registration has been found necessary with regard to works above ground, where the difficulty of concealment must be so great, how much more necessary is it in works conducted hundreds of feet or fathoms under ground, where almost any recklessness or gross abuse may be committed with impunity, because unknown, and where none of its wrong doings come to light except with these terrific explosions and waste of industrious human lives? Top. A Few Inventors. Thomas Savery developed the "Miners' Friend", a steam engine that could pump water at 60 gallons a minute (1698). Thomas Newcomen developed the beam engine, the first steady-running atmospheric engine (1705). It was used particularly for pumping. George Stephenson made a steam pump and engines that solved the problem of pulling tubs of coal from coalface to pit bottom. He also improved colliery railways and built the first practical locomotives. James Watt (1736 - 1819). made the separate condensing engine, a greatly improved and more powerful Newcomen engine (ca 1770). This engine was a prime mover - it could lift weights and drive mechanisms. Boulton and Watt's rotative steam engine. Richard Trevithick further improved steam engines in the early 19th century enabling them to use high steam pressures. William Murdoch At one time an employee of James Watt, baked coal in a cast-iron retort and drew off coal gas. Abraham Darby Invented coke smelting (1709) and advanced the mass production of brass and iron goods. Carlyle Spedding devised a systems of bratticing and air coursing - the use of partitions, barriers, and one-way-valve doors ('traps') - used in ventilating the mines. He also worked on lighting systems for pits. Sir Humphry Davy invented the safety lamp - a flame burning inside metallic gauze that cannot ignite the methane gas (firedamp) in mines - that was named after him.the flame of the Davy lamp changes under various concentrations of gas. Top. Some uses for Coal. Coal is most commonly used to produce electricity in power plants. It is also an important fuel for heating and powering industrial and manufacturing facilities, and for making steel. Many chemicals are derived from coal and used in industrial processes. Coal is also associated in, gas production, engineering, railways, shipping and other industries. Coke was the main by-product of gas production, but there is a huge variety of other by-products which can be linked to coal. These include:- Aspirin. Benzol. Coal tar. Creosote. Detergents. Drugs. Dyes. Explosives. Fertilizer. Fibers. Films. Ink. Insecticides. Nylon. Moth balls. Paints. Perfumes. Pesticides. Pitch. Plastics. Soaps. Solvents for paints. Synthetic rubber. Tar. Thinners. Varnish. and thousands of other useful products. Of the hundreds of chemicals found in coal tar it is estimated that only twenty five percent are being used. Top.