The Mining Industry in the Huddersfield District
By D. A. Wray

THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

In the seventeenth century the coal industry continued to develop, one of the chief features being the increasing demand for coal and domestic purposes. The sulphurous fumes of second-rate pit coal, and much of that obtained at the outcrop had long proved a deterrent to its extended employment for domestic purposes. Though the records are meager, there appear to have been numerous shallow pits scattered over the area. The art of boring was well known at this period, and is referred to in documents bearing the date 1633 in reference to the Halifax district. The methods of transport and haulage underground, however, appear to have been little in advance of those employed in medieval times, the coal being drawn up and the water pumped by means of a simple windlass. The underground workings seldom extended more than fifty to sixty yards from the base of the shaft, it being found, in fact, more convenient and less expensive to sink new shafts when opening out adjoining areas.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century all the principal landowners in the district were issuing mining leases; and there are numerous and extensive records of these in the case of the Saviles, the Kayes, the Beaumonts, and the Dartmouth family. The main colliery shafts in the Flockton, Emley and Crigglestone districts appear to have been as much as 300 feet deep at this period. Evidences of primitive methods of mining are occasionally met with in reopening these old workings, and an old wooden pump See pic on right), discovered in old workings in the New Hards Coal at Speedwell Colliery, Emley Moor, which probably dates from the latter part of the eighteenth century, is preserved in the Tolson Memorial Museum, Huddersfield. As late as this period the methods of transport underground were equally primitive; and the usual employment for juvenile labour consisted in ‘thrusting’ the tubs, or pushing them along the ground; wheeled tubs on rails being a much later innovation.

This period, however, subsequently witnessed the advent of the steam engine, and with its general employment for winding and pumping in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the coal industry grew rapidly. The demand for coal increased immensely, and with the advantage of steam to maintain a continuous blast great advances could be made in the smelting of iron with coal and eventually coke. At the end of the eighteenth century there were thirteen furnaces in blast in the West Riding of Yorkshire, including one at Colnebridge, near Huddersfield, and another at Kirkstall, near Leeds; the remainder being in the Sheffield district. In the seventeenth century there had been a rapid development and growth of the iron and cutlery trades at Sheffield, and although prior to that time iron-working and smelting extended as a scattered industry across West Yorkshire from Leeds to Sheffield, the latter with superior local advantages began definitely to be established as the predominant centre. The factors that primarily contributed to this result were: the proximity of a series of more important bands of easily reducible iron-ore, the suitability of several beds of gritstone as grindstones, the occurrence of limestone in the adjacent hills to act as a flux, and the fact that water-power could readily be obtained from a succession of streams of steep gradient.

The isolated occurrence of an iron-works producing on an average one hundred and fifty tons of native iron annually at the village of Colnebridge in the latter part of the eighteenth century is of considerable interest. Thus while it represented the final phase of a local industry that had been carried on intermittently for over six hundred years, the factors that contributed to its successful working were those which later led to the establishment of the Low Moor Iron Trade; an industry which played so significant a part in the great industrial developments in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the following century.

The ironstone mined at Colnebridge was the Black Bed ironstone, and almost adjacent lies the outcrop of the Better Bed Coal. This seam is remarkably free from impurities, especially sulphur, and consequently the amount of ore available was limited, and on its removal the Colnebridge works had finally to close down. In 1796 the Low Moor Ironworks were established and commenced to mine the same bed of ironstone in the county to the north where the reserves were infinitely greater; and utilizing the pure sulphur-free Better Bed Coal for smelting, they produced a product world famous for its purity.

© Copyright of Kirklees Museums and Galleries