The Mining Industry in
the Huddersfield District
By D. A. Wray
COAL MINING IN MEDIÆVAL TIMES
The earliest mention of the digging and employment of coal
as a fuel in Britain occurs in the records of the early
part of the thirteenth century, and refers to the Northumberland
and Durham coalfield. There are also further evidences that
within the same century coal was being shipped from Newcastle
to London and various other parts of the country. Thus the
first allusion to coal in Yorkshire invariably refers to
it is ‘sea-coal.’ Before any developments took
place in Yorkshire, the Newcastle district was being somewhat
extensively exploited, and in these early operations the
monastic houses played a leading part. At the beginning
of the fourteenth century coal was being employed for domestic
and other purposes in London. The pollution of the city
air, however, led to numerous complaints against the innovation;
and in 1306 King Edward I., in response to a petition from
Parliament, prohibited its use as fuel. This proved but
a temporary check, although for the next two or three hundred
years the gentry in London looked upon ‘sea-coal’
as an objectionable and highly inferior fuel to wood.
The earliest references to the coal mining industry in
Yorkshire are to be found in legal documents of the fourteenth
century. Other records belonging to that period also occasionally
contain casual references; the first mention of the Huddersfield
district appears to be that given in a Coroner’s Report,
where it is recorded that a certain resident of Lepton,
John Long, was accidentally killed by falling into a coal
pit on the Monday after Ascension day, 1357.
In its infancy coal-mining would be confined to workings
along the outcrop of the coal seams, and many of the excavations
would consist either of small day-eyes or of shallow bell
pits sunk close to the outcrop in a manner exactly analogous
coal was at first employed by smiths and lime burners, and
the monks who had at an earlier period assiduously developed
the iron-ore industry took an active interest in the development
of coal mining on their estates.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century the coal industry
had become well established, and in the Wakefield Court
Rolls under the date 1402, it is recorded that ‘twelve
pits of sea coals in Horbury Lyghtes are sold this year
to divers tenants for thirty-one shillings and sixpence.’
Nevertheless much coal was still being imported through
Newcastle and Hull from the Durham and Northumberland coal
fields. Thus coal which was brought up the River Ouse and
referred to as sea-coal was being employed for burning the
lime required in the buildings of York Minster; native coal
appearing in the accounts for the first time in 1499. thus
in this years it is recorded that fourteen shillings was
paid for twelve quarters of subterranean coals from the
Wakefield district.
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