Early Tyneside Industrialism the Lower Derwent and Blaydon Burn Valleys 1550-1700
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Early Tyneside Industrialism The lower Derwent and Blaydon Burn Valleys 1550-1700 Eric Clavering and Alan Rounding N their very detailed account of Whickham coal parishes, Whickham, Gateshead, and before 17301 David Levine and Keith Ryton at least in its eastern part Winlaton, is IWrightson showed that the parish had become strikingly similar. All three are upland massifs thoroughly industrialized before the Civil War; reaching 450 feet or more, rising abruptly from indeed coal production was such that it a northern frontage on the Tyne, and sharply demanded a labour force equivalent to 94% of defined on their east and west flanks by valleys, the known adult male population of the par the Team between Gateshead and Whickham, ish.2 We wish to enquire here whether Whick the more considerable Derwent between ham is a special case or whether their Whickham and Ryton, and the Blaydon Burn description may fit industrialization elsewhere separating Winlaton from the west of the latter on Tyneside. For this purpose we propose to parish. Why then belligerance east of the Der look at an adjacent but overlapping area to the went, concord west of it? west, some six square miles lying between two The variable was ownership of land and coal. watersheds, those of the Blaydon Burn to the Among likeminded owners there was little west and the River Derwent to the east, in conflict: new men brought dispute. Before the depth very roughly three miles, from the Tyne Dissolutions the coal lands on the Tyne had as far as Reely Mires in Ryton and Blackamoor largely belonged to the Church, and such as did Hill in Whickham, an area meriting study since not were in large estates of landed families, its industrial history has long been obfuscated Neville (Winlaton), Lumley (Axwell-cum- by topological insouciance on the part of eco Swalwell across the Derwent), Gascoigne nomic and industrial historians insufficiently (Ravensworth) and Hedley (Saltwellside familiar with the Ordnance Survey.3 Examina across the Team in Gateshead). The coal trade tion of these valleys shows two main dissim was then dominated by James Lawson, who ilarities from the picture Levine and Wrightson was necessarily a tenant of the Church in have given us. One is that coalmining is not the several estates; when these were seized and sole industry; undoubtedly dominant, its privatized he bought them, in defence of his expansion is nevertheless accompanied after industrial investment if for no other reason. In the mid-16th century by the growth of metal consequence in Elizabeth’s reign the most lurgy. The other is the relative absence west of important group in the rising export trade in the Derwent of the internecine warfare charac coal might well be called the Lawsonians, teristic of the Whickham coalowners. families who held their coal through Lawson. Accounts of Tyne coal in the early 17th It was to a partnership of these, among them century have leaned heavily on Whickham data the determined recusant merchant Richard found in the endless lawsuits; there is far less Hodgson, a Neville retainer and husband of documentation of this kind for the rest of the one Lawson daughter, along with her son-in- coalfield.4 What is more, most of these cases law the coalowner William Selby, that on the arose from two quite small areas of Whickham, eve of his rising in 1569 Westmorland sold one of them only half of a square mile in Winlaton manor. The lesser neighbouring extent. The geological structure of the three manor of Stella across the Blaydon Burn, long worked by Lawson who held a pre-Dissolution bers of the Grand Lease consortium were 99-year lease from his sister the prioress, was partners in Stella Grand Lease too, but Ryton sold in 1600 to a Tempest. On the eastern bank saw no such litigation. of the Derwent the principal landowner was Lord Lumley. Until the death of Elizabeth, then, by far the greater part of what lay 1 Coal before 1625: i Winlaton between the watersheds belonged to four fam One would expect then that the peace reigning ilies of the Neville connexion, Tempest, Hodg west of the Derwent would have favoured son, Selby and Lumley. To the south, where Winlaton coalowners. There were however extraction was not yet economic, lay more countervailing factors, of which the first was estates of like-minded families, other Tem geology7. The coal seams of Tyneside dip pests, the Hardings and the Blakistons, giving towards the north east. A first consequence is an area of unusual homogeneity of ownership. that upstream there was more exposed coal To the west and particularly to the east workable by opencast and therefore exhausted matters stood otherwise. Here about half of the earlier. The wide lowlying Blaydon and Der coal belonged to the Bishop of Durham, oblig went Haughs by the river were one such area; ing entrepreneurs to pay for concessions, they seem to have been the first exploited, very always called “leases”. The most valuable, in likely in much the same way as peat was Gateshead and Whickham, was eventually extracted around Norwich, but so early as to transferred to Newcastle Council as the have left no record other than marshland. “Grand Lease”, but in less important Ryton it There was a similarly exposed crown on the top remained in his hands as the so-called “Stella of Winlaton Hill, and it must be from here that Grand Lease”.5 It was east of the Derwent that coal was sent for lime-burning at Windsor great changes in ownership took place. In Castle in 1367. This deposit may have held half Gateshead monastic coal passed to Lawsonian a million tons, but even this amount could well merchants, the Riddells. On the Team early in be quarried in a century. The only evidence of the new century first Ravensworth, and then its extraction, old workings and corves found in the lands between it and the Tyne, passed from roadbuilding in the 1930s, was destroyed and the old gentry to the ambitious merchant Lid cannot now be dated, a common fate of arte dells, unrelated to the Catholic-leaning Lawson facts of Tyne coal archaeology. world and new to coal, and this destabilized the A second consequence of the NE tilt is that, structure of the trade. once underground working was begun— The last decade of Elizabeth had seen the reluctantly, since it left half the coal to support Grand Lease too, intended to profit the old the roof—coal was best attacked “from the merchant oligarchy of Newcastle, passing to dip”, its lowest point, usually its NE corner. new men because of sale and inheritance of Working towards the rise allowed accumulat shares and parts of shares in it, and because ing water to flow down to be dealt with by state intervention facilitated the rise on the existing drainage. A great advantage of large Council of a largely Puritan opposition group. coal estates was that wide areas could thus be In a second round of sub-leasing in the 1610s methodically cleared. Where there were num the Whickham Grand Lease coal was allotted bers of adjacent small properties, unless much to four partnerships, in which Puritans were of the coal was sacrificed to serve as a barrier prominent and the only old family was Tem those up the rise drowned their neighbours of pest. Whickham became the cockpit of the the dip, a common cause of burdensome litiga trade because the interfaces of these com tion in the early 17th century, notably in panies with Whickham villagers, with earlier Whickham. In Winlaton this advantage of lessees and with their Liddell neighbours, extent was well understood; despite two divi brought endemic conflict; the flood of legal sions of the lands among the lords of the manor disputes arose from frontier flare-ups.6 Mem the coal was not shared out and was always worked as a single “Winlaton .Colliery”. Swalwell Ford. Her staiths lay across the river Unfortunately their good sense was frustrated on the Swalwell side, but still within Winlaton by geological faulting; the hill was split in two manor. Total output for 1581 was given as by a west-east fault, and the northern half had 23,602 fothers, over 100 wainloads a day, mak further fractured into four blocks which had ing 7,867 Newcastle chaldrons, some 20,800 sunk irregularly, allowing only limited working tons. Calculations of this kind however foster from the dip. an illusion of precision, and quantities below The breaking of the strata had also reduced will be given in Tens (of chaldrons actually considerably the extent of the coal crown as exported), the measure used by the trade. compared with those of the Whickham hilltops There was also unspecified production else across the Derwent, bringing early shaft min where in Winlaton, and Blaydon Staiths expor ing. In 1425 already there were two pits leased, ted in all 804T (tens). It seems possible that in no doubt sunk to the Hutton seam on the this colliery’s heyday output may have approa western side of the hilltop NW of the church ched the 1,000T mark; the Tyne’s entire export and N of the principal fault.8 Their output must then have been of the order of 4,000T.12 should not be underestimated; to judge by the William Selby did not come into his own mining techniques found about that time in until the reluctant departure of his aunt Bar Leicestershire it may have been as high as 2000 bara which elicited these figures.