The History of John Bowes & Partners up to 1914
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Durham E-Theses The history of John Bowes & Partners up to 1914 Mountford, C. E. How to cite: Mountford, C. E. (1967) The history of John Bowes & Partners up to 1914, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9966/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk The history of John Bowes A Partners up to 1914 C. E. Mountford, B. A. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. TABLE OF OQNTE3N1TS Introduction Chapter 1 The early years : 1333 - 1845 1 Chapter 2 The years of rapid expansion : 1846 - 1855 40 Chapter 3 The years of consolidation : I856 - IS65 95 Chapter 4 The years of slower expansion : 1866 - 1885 119 Chapter 5 The years of re-organisation : 1836 - 1914 164 Conclusion Appendix A Coal output figures of John Bowes & Partners, 1871 - 1914 i Appendix B Comparison between the coal output figures of the Partners and other firms in the Durham coalfield with an annual output over 500,000 tons, 1871-1914 xi Appendix C The coal output of John Bowes & Partners as a percentage of the total output of the Northumberland and Durham coalfield, 1871- 1914 xxi Appendix D Average net selling price of all types of Durham coal, as given on the Accountants' Certificates of the Durham Coal Owners Association and the Durham Miners Association, compared with the coal output figures of John 3owes & Partners, lg71 - 1914 xxiv Appendix E Coke output figures of John Bowes & Partners, 1372 - 1914 xxviii Appendix F Comparison between the coke output figures of the Partners and other f irras in the Durham coalfield with an annual output over 100,000 tons, 1872 - 1914 xxx iv Page Appendix G Men and boys employed in County Durham by John Bowes & Partners, I884 - 1914 (i) underground xliv (ii) at the surface of collieries, coke ovens, brickworks and railivays li (iii) aggregate figures lvii Bibliography -i- INT50DUCTI0N. -ii- INIRODUCTION. The North-Sastern coal-field was for many hundreds of years the major coal-producing area of Britain. Compared with other parts of the country where coal was worked, it had three great advantages - that the coal outcropped and was thus easily won, that the rivers in the valleys where the outcrops were mostly to be found were navigable, and that the coal could easily be trans• ported to London, by far Britain's largest market. In the days when the only means of moving large quantities of goods was by water, especially by sea, the coal-owners of Northumberland and Durham established a dominance of the British coal industry which was never surpassed and only slowly eroded by other areas. Although archaeological evidence has shown that the Romans used coal in County Durham (though only on a very small scale), and although there are a few references to the use of coal in the Boldon Book of 1086, the coal outcrops would not seem to have been worked to any great extent until the thirteenth century, when the monasteries, especially the Priory of Tynemouth, developed a considerable trade. During this period and for many years after• wards coal was obtained by the "bell-pit" method - shallow pits in the ground excavated in the shape of a bell and anything up to thirty feet deep. When the excavation had attained such a size that the sides threatened to collapse it was abandoned and a new one begun. Most of the bell pits were situated in the Tyne valley, -iii- where much of the evidence has been destroyed by later develop• ment, though recent aerial photography has provided conclusive evidence of bell pit -workings on the Town Moor at Newcastle. The demand for coal in the Tyne and Wear valleys was very much geared to the requirements of the London market. As these increased the coal-owners were compelled to seek coal further inland, and eventually to sink shafts to obtain it* These deeper workings created new problems, not the least of which was drainage. It would seem that the industry reached a critical state by the early 1700fs, and was only saved from disaster by the invention of Newcomen's pumping engine. The installation of the first of these in the North-East cannot be dated with certainty, but it seems likely to have been in 1715 at Tanfield Lea. This provides a striking example of the extent to which the industry had spread from the rivers by that time, as this village lies about eight miles south-west of Gateshead. Other Newcomen engines were built in the North, and these enabled large areas which had previously been considered unworkable to be brought into production. One problem which the coal-owners of the eighteenth century had to face was that of transport. There was little point in sinking a pit eight miles from the Tyne if there were great diffic• ulties in transporting its coal to the river. Here the geography of County Durham proved an advantage. The highest area of the county lies in the west, and the land slopes towards both the sea -iv- in the east and the Tyne valley in the north. This meant that to reach the river loads of coal would travel downhill, and so horse and cart could be employed. The cart was allowed to travel by gravity where possible, and the horse was used to haul it back from the river to the pit. From this it was a short step to the construction of wooden waggonways, the first of which was the famous Tanfield waggonway, built in 1727 from the Tanfield area to the Tyne. Thus waggonways, with iron rails after 1770, were well established in Durham long before Brindley designed and built the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal in 1769. Indeed, the development of canals scarcely affected the North-Sast. The severe grades of West Durham would have demanded long flights of locks, causing delays; while, a comparison of the cost of building a canal and a waggonway could have left the coal-owners with only one choice. By 1800 the transport pattern of Durham was firmly established; a considerable net-work of waggonways brought coal down to be trans• shipped at "staithes" on the river banks, where small sailing ships, known as "keels", holding about 21 tons, took the coal downstream to the colliers moored at Newcastle or Sunderland. Mast of the coal-owners possessed only one pit, very often leased from the Church; but in 1726 a group of the most powerful coal-owners in North-Sast England formsd themselves into what became known as "The Grand Alliance". In view of its importance, both in relation to the industry in general and the early history of John Bowes & Partners, this deserves more detailed study. The -v- agreement was signed on 27th June 1726 between Sidney Wortley, Edward Wortley and Thomas Ord (all of Newcastle) for the first part, Sir Henry Liddell and George Liddell (of Ravensworth, near Gateshead) for the second part, George Bowes (of Gibside, near Gateshead) for the third part and William Cotesworth (of Newcastle) for the fourth part. The agreement was dated to run for 99 years from 11th November 1726, but by this date William Cotesworth had died, so his share was divided among the others. It has been thought in the past that the agreement arose out of difficulties in obtaining wayleaves (l) for waggonways to the Tyne (2), but this would seem unlikely. A more authoritative view was put forward by Sweezy in 1938: ".....The intent (of the agreement) is clear. The various signatory parties were joining hands to prevent the opening of new collieries by buying up lands, royalties and wayleaves. Any coal property which they could not directly get hold of they proposed to block off from an outlet to the river." (3) Even more important, Sweezy quotes evidence to show that the "Allies" from the first probably intended to regulate both prices (1) If he wished to build a waggonway, a coal owner came to an agreement with the owner of the land over which it was to pass under which the former rented the land and also agreed to a charge on the amount of coal or other goods which passed over the land in question. This was known as a "wayleave" agreement. (2) cf. LEE, C.E. "The World's Oldest Railway." Newcomen Society Transactions, XXV (1946). (3) SWEEZI, P.M. Monopoly and Competition in the English Coal Trade. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1938, p.24. -vi• and output. All of the important sea-sale collieries, whether owned by one of the "Grand Allies" or not, were allocated an out• put quota, and such was the "Allies" dominance of the industry that the owners of other collieries were compelled to agree or face ruthless undercutting of prices, which was employed at least once with complete success (l).