The South Staffordshire Coalfield/Mode...
Note on the Mode of working the Coal and Ironstone of South Staffordshire. By Warington W. Smyth, M.A., Professor of Mining and Mineralogy to the Museum of Practical Geology.
A brief sketch of the modes of working the beds of coal and ironstone in South Staffordshire is appended, with a view of recording generally the practical methods, adopted at the present time, for the extraction of those rich stores of mineral wealth of which the geological relations have been described in the preceding pages.
The acknowledged requisite for the most advantageous method of working, viz, the combination of the cheapest mode of extracting the greatest possible quantity of mineral, with the safety and comfort of the men, has in this district been greatly modified by the circumstances of position, and an adherence to long established customs. In a few rare instances only have any attempts been made to substitute a new system for the old routine, and to such it will be needful to advert after we have viewed the principal features of the practice almost universally followed.
in the first place, the division of the ground into separate works is guided by the faults which in so many instances constitute natural boundaries and by the depth from the surface, of the deposits proposed to be worked; and an observer, conversant with districts of coal where extensive unbroken areas are worked at great depths by few shafts, cannot fail to be struck with the appearance of the South Staffordshire field, dotted over as it is with innumerable shafts, and deformed by the large waste heaps of slate and slack which so frequently surround them. The cause of this, lying in the subdivision into small arcas, and the comparative shallowness of the workings, and conducive no doubt to simplicity in all the internal arrangements, afford such facilities for securing the desiderata above alluded to, that it must be a matter of surprise to find that certain ancient incomplete usages should so long have held their ground.
The shafts by which access to the coal and ironstone measures is to be obtained, are sunk two together, at a distance of six or eight yards asunder, and with a diameter of six or eight feet. Each shaft being intended for a single rope or "band," is surmounted by a head-frame carrying one bread pulley of cast-iron, and the whimsey engine is so placed as to be able to serve two shafts at once, raising a loaded "skip" in the one, and lowering an empty one in the other, at the same time. The difficulties of sinking, as regards watery strata, being inconsiderable, except in some few cases, the ingenious and expensive application of wooden or iron tubbing, practised so frequently in the Belgian, and in our northern coal-fields, is almost unknown; and the shafts are lined with brick-work, unless when they pass through strata sufficiently strong to stand permanently without support. The area of the shafts is free from any obstruction, no "guides" being employed to regulate the passage of the "skips" or frames upon which the coal is piled in large masses surrounded by loose "rings," of sheet iron, and from which less than might be expected falls off during the ascent. Ponderous flat chains of three links, alternately short and long, with slips of wood inserted through the long links, are most frequently used for the drawing, and for shafts of moderate depth are very effective and safe.
Taken apart from minor details, the modes of working the mines are two in number, the first applied to the important beds called the "thick coal," and the "new mine;" and the second, termed "long work," (not, like the former, peculiar to the district,) employed in the other coal seams of from two to five feet in thickness, and in the ironstone measures.
The workings of the ten-yard coal are divided into compartments termed sides of work, which are separated from one another by "ribs," or walls of coal, from eight to ten yards thick, and of which no more are kept open at once than can be maintained in activity.
From the main roads, termed gate-roads, each side of work, unless commenced near the outer boundary, is accessible only through a narrow opening, cut, like the gate-road itself, in the lower part of the seam. "Stalls" are then driven out in the coal, each of them eight or ten yards wide, and are crossed again by similar galleries, leaving between them pillars of eight or ten yards square, but varied of course in dimension, according to local circumstances. For additional security during the working, small pillars of three or four yards square at the base, termed men of war, are spared out of the solid coal, wherever it is deemed necessary, to be rapidly prostrated and carried off, when the stall is fully opened. But the driving of the stalls themselves is a work involving no little waste of coal and insecurity to the colliers; the mass of coal of eight yards wide having to be undercut, or holed about a couple of yards in, a large amount of coal is cut up into slack by the "pike," or collier's pick, and the men are exposed to continual risk from falls of coal. As the various portions of the seam are successively "cut" at the side of the stall, and brought down, the colliers have to mount on heaps of slack or light wooden stages, and are necessarily exposed to still greater danger.
There is, in fact, perhaps scarcely any situation more suggestive of feelings of awe, than a side of work in the "thick seam," when a large fall of coal is brought down from the dusky heights of that lofty chamber; the thunder of the falling masses which seem to shake the solid earth and fill the air with a thick cloud of dust, contrasting fearfully with the dead silence which ensues, and which the hardy colliers scarce break by a whisper, whilst in suspense they listen for the slightest crack which might portend a farther fall.
When a compartment has thus been cleared and the large pillars sometimes a little thinned, the "slack" or small coal and dust is left in heaps, and to guard againt the spontaneous combustion, apt to ensue from the decomposition of small particles of pyrites, a dam is placed in the "bolt hole," and this portion cut off from all communication with the rest of the workings.
The second mode of getting, by what is called long work, need not be described at length, being very similar to that practised in Shropshire. Derbyshire, and other districts; it is, as elsewhere, variable according to the condition of the roof, &c., the road-ways being sometimes driven out through the "whole coal," which is then worked back towards the shafts, in other cases the roads being maintained through the "gob" or waste from which the coal has been removed, as the extraction proceeds from the shafts towards the limits of the field.
Very important, however, in an economical point of view, both to the lord of the soil, and to the lessee, as well as to the interest of humanity, is the success which has attended the efforts of certain coalowners to get the ten-yard coal on the principles of "long work," as exemplified in the pits of the Messrs. Foster, of Mr. Gibbons, and at Congreaves. We have seen that by the usual method, what with the ribs and pillars left untouched and the quantity of coal cut up into slack, a vast amount of useful fuel—of what in fact in a very few years must become of much higher value, is utterly lost to the nation.
It is not too much to assert, that from one-third to one-half of the coal is thus left useless, (some little only of the ribs and pillars being afterwards recoverable in a damaged copies} an amount of squandered natural advantages almost without a parallel.
By the common plan it is considered that 16,000 tons of coal obtained from an acre of ground represents a very fair produce, and no doubt's very much lower number is often obtained. At Messrs. Foster's, the coal is worked in two divisions, the upper half first, by long work, and then some months afterwards, when the "shut" or roof has fully subsided, the lower half is worked by the same method, and a total amount of from 26,000 to 31,000 tons of coal to the acre is procurable, and it need only be added to the conclusions suggested by a comparison of these numbers, that, under this newly applied system, there has been enjoyed a comparative immunity from those frequent and frightful accidents which have gained the workings of the Thick coal a most unenviable notoriety.
In conclusion, the ventilation of these works requires a short notice, from the fact, that although the coal is not highly charged with firedamp, very serious accidents have happened from explosions, and the every-day state of some of the pits cannot be regarded without dread. The establishment of a current of air is left much to accident; and the causes disposing the air to travel down one shaft and up the other are so easily disturbed by a change of wind, or other trivial cause, that a stagnation is frequently produced, or the pits are said to fight, and during the contest, if nothing more serious occurs, the colliers are obliged to "play" or absent themselves.
"Air-heads," of not more than 9 or 10 feet sectional area, are driven in the coal parallel with the gate-roads, and communicate with the "sides of work;" but unless, according to the suggestion of Ryan, they are driven in the upper part of the seam, there must frequently accumulate in those high working stalls a magazine of explosive gas ready to fire on the first opportunity, so easily afforded by a fall of coal, a change in the barometer, or the imprudence of a workman.
It need scarcely be observed how greatly the danger is augmented, when the "air heads" are not brought up simultaneously with the main workings, yet under the "butty" or "chartermaster" system, it is too common to find those important works omitted for long distances, and the men working in a confined space charged with foul gases and firedamp almost to the explosive point.
A great deal might be said on the details of this and the previous subjects, but I would hope that these short notes may only serve as a record of rude practices soon to be improved, and must refer the reader, desirous of further information on these heads, to the evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1835, of the House of Lords in 1849, to the report of Mr. J. Kenyon Blackwell, to Smith's Miner's Guide, published in 1836, and to Mr. Gibbons's pamphlet on his method of ventilation. No one. I believe, even practically unacquainted with the subject, will rise from the perusal of those statements without feeling that in the waste of a treasure of unique richness, and in the abandonment of an energetic and honest class of workmen to the dangers resulting from the absence of mental training, we have hitherto deserved as a nation but little credit for the stewardship of some of our finest coal-fields.
NOTE.
The following extracts from Plot's Natural History of Staffordshire, published in 1686, may serve to show the state of the South Staffordshire district, as regarded its coal and iron at that time. Speaking of the common coal then raised at Wednesbury. Dudley, and Sedgley. Dr. Plot says, "of which sort there is so great plenty in all parts of the country, (especially about the three above mentioned places,) that most commonly there are 12 or 14 colery's in work, and twice as many out of work, within 10 miles round, some of which afford 2,000 tuns of coal yearly, others three, four, or five thousand tuns. The upper or topmost beds above the ironstone lying sometimes ten, eleven, or twelve yards thick,. * * * * * Nor indeed could the country well subsist without such vast supplies, the wood being most of it spent upon the ironworks."
Alluding to the attempts which were made to smelt iron with coal or coke, he says, "The last effort that was made in this country for making iron with pit coal, was also with raw coal, by one Mr. Blewstone, a high German, who built his furnace at Wednesbury, so ingeniously contrived that only the flame of the coal should come to the oare, with several other conveniences, that many were of opinion he would succeed in it. But experience, that great baffler of speculation, showed it would not be. The sulphureous vitriolic steams that issue from the pyrites, which frequently, if not always, accompanies pit coal, ascending with the flame, and poysoning the ore sufficiently to make it render much worse iron, than that made with char coal, though not perhaps so much worse, as the body of coal it-self would possibly doe."
The different kinds of iron made are mentioned under the heads of 1. Redshare; 2. Coldshare; 3. Blend metell; and tough iron, the last being the best, and chiefly made from ores obtained at Rushall. The ores were first calcined on the open ground, "with small charcoal, wood, or sea-cole." After this they were taken to the blast furnace, where they were smelted with charcoal, one basket of the latter being used to one basket of calcined ore. The iron run from the furnaces was then taken to the forges, which were of two kinds, one known as the Finery, the other as the Chafery, and made into bars. For cutting the iron into rods it was taken to Slitting mills, and there cut and rolled.
Speaking of the improvement then made in iron smelting. Dr. Plot remarks, "we shall find it very great, if we look back upon the methods of our ancestors, who made iron in foot blasts, or bloomeries, by mens treading the bellows, by which way they they could make but one little Jump or bloom of iron in a day, not 100 weight, leaving as much iron in the slag as they get out. Whereas now they will make two or three tuns of cast iron in 24 hours; leaving the slag so poore, that the founders cannot melt them again to profit. Not to mention the vast advantage they have from the new invention of slitting mills, for cutting these barrs into rodds, above what they had antiently."
It would appear that the first successful smelting of iron ore by means of coal, then usually called pit or sea coal, was effected by Dud Dndley in the year 1619. Other unsuccessful attempts by Simon Sturtevant, John Rovenson, and others having been previously made.
Dud Dudley in his book Metallum Martis, 1665, says, that having been taken from Baliol Coltege, Oxford, where he was then a student, in 1619, "to look and manage 3 iron works of my fathers, 1 furnace, and 2 forges, in the Chase of Pensnet, in Worcester-shire, but Wood and Charcole, growing then scant, and Pit-coles in great quantities abounding near the furnace, did induce me to alter my furnace, and to attempt by my new invention, the making of iron with pit-cole, assuring myself in my invention, the loss to me could not be greater then others, not so great, although my success should prove fruitless; but I found such success at first tryal animated me, for at my tryal or blast I made iron to profit with pit-cole, and found Facere est adder e Inventioni." * * *
"After I had made a second blast and tryal the fesibility of making iron with pit" cole and sea-cole I found by my new invention, the quality to be good and profitable, but the quantity did not exceed above 3 tuns per week."
A patent for smelting iron ore by pit or sea coal was granted to Dud Dudley in 1619. In the year following his works were swept away by a great flood, known for long afterwards as the May day flood.
We, however, find Dud Dudley stating that the works were repaired, and that he "made annually great store of iron, good and merchantable, and sold it to divers men, yet living (1665) at twelve pounds per tun." Making "all sorts of cast iron wares, as "brewing-cysterns, pots, morters, and better and cheaper than any yet were made in these nations with charcoles." Subsequently we find him smelting with pit-cole at Himley Furnace, Staffordshire, having been "ooted of his works and inventions before-mentioned by the ironmasters and others wrongfully," and again at Hasco-Bridge in the parish of Sedgley, Staffordshire, making seven tons of iron per week—
"the greatest quantity of pit-cole iron that ever yet was made in Great Britain. Dud Dudley's works were riotously destroyed, and he himself by adhering to the royal cause became utterly ruined.
As respects the prices of the iron made by Dud Dudley, he states that "he did sell pig or cast iron made with pit-cole at four pounds per tun, many tuns, in the twentieth year of King James with good profit." He further says—"The author did sell bar iron good and merchantable, at twelve pounds per tun and under, but since bar iron hath been sold for the most part ever since at 15l., 16l., 17l. and 18l. per tun by charcoal iron masters."—Metallum Martis, p. 32.