Durham E-Theses Hetton-Le-Hole: the genesis of a coalmining landscape 1770-1860 Sill, Michael How to cite: Sill, Michael (1974) Hetton-Le-Hole: the genesis of a coalmining landscape 1770-1860, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9942/ 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 Hetton-le-Hole: the genesis of a coal-mining landscape 1770-1860 Abstract The thesis is concerned with the study of the growth of a major coal-mining settlement in the parish of Hetton-le-Hole in east.Durham. By the use of cartographic, censal and documentary source material in conjunction with relict landscape evidence, the thesis firstly seeks to explore in detail the morphological.evolution of the settlement in relation to the pre-mining landscape. A second section consists of an analysis of the occupation and social structure of the coal-mining households as well as their patterns of movement prior to 1851. The final section takes the form of a total reconstruction of the social and economic life of the community that existed at Hetton in 1851, some thirty years after the initial colliery sinkings in. the parish Although the growth of the.settlement was very rapid, particularly in the first ten years following the opening of Hetton colliery in 1822, the plan of the mining settlement evolved subject to the constraints of the earlier rural landscape. In addition, the influence of the landowners and their relationships with the Hetton coal company, was considerable in determining the ultimate form of the settlement. 53.7% of the households in Hetton in 1851 were occuped by. coalminers and their families, which were considerably larger than those of the non-coalmining element in the community; the mining families were highly mobile and had migrated in the thirty years before 1851 largely from contracting to expanding sectors of the Northumberland and Durham coalfield. Very few miners originated from.rural parts of the North East or from other parts of the country. Within the community as a whole eoal-mining dominated the economic.life and provided the only - larger-scale high capitalized .source of employment. Most of the remaining workers provided goods and services for the miners on a small- scale craft basis. Very few long-distance migrants lived in Hetton in 1851, save the Irish and the Scots. The former rarely worked in the collieries, but found employment by the provision of low-grade services. The latter in. general were more highly skilled than the Irish. An analysis of the occupations throughout the settlement revealed a partial zonation, with the miners concentrated in rows built on land owned by the coal company; in no street however did the incidence of coalmining households fall below 25%. In summary, therefore, this thesis provides a detailed study of the evolution of a coal-mining landscape in one parish in east Durham. HETTON-LE-HOLE: THE GENESIS OF A COALMINING LANDSCAPE 1770-1860 by Michael Sill BA A thesis presented to the University of Durham for the Degree of Master of Arts, 1974 September 1974 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. Contents of Volume 1 Page Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Hetton-le-Hole in 1851 16 An Overview Chapter 3 Land and Landownership 39 Chapter 4 Population and Settlement growth 66 Chapter 5 The Coal Miners 93 Chapter 6 Hetton-le-Hole: Social structure and 119 economic life in 1851 Chapter 7 Conclusion 152 Maps Listed below are the basic maps used in the study of parish of Hetton-le-Hole. A fuller list of cartographic sources is given in the bibliography in volume 2. O.S. 7" series 1:63360 Sheet 85 Durham (1961) O.S. Second series 1:25000 Sheet NZ 24/34 O.S. 1:10,560 Sheet NZ 34 NE (1967) O.S. 1:10,560 Sheet NZ 34 NW (1966) Geological Survey of Great Britain (England & Wales) 1:63360 Drift Sheet 27 (1965) Geological Survey of Great Britain (England & Wales) 1:10,560 Sheet NZ 34 NE (1964) 1:10,560 Sheet NZ 34 NW (1964) Abbreviations The following abbreviations have been used in the notes at the end of each chapter and in the b ibliography. U.D.D.P. & D. University of Durham Department of Palaeography and Diplomatic C.R.O. Durham County Records Office N.E.I.M. & M.E. North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, Neville Street, Newcastle upon Tyne Watson Coll. Watson Collection at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers N.C.B. Coll. National Coal Board Collection of Papers.relating to coalmining in North East England, lodged at the Durham County Records Office Acknowledgement The author wishes to. acknowledge the permission to reproduce Fig.29 from A E Smailes', North England, which was granted by Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd. Hetton-le-Hole: the genesis of a coalmining landscape: 1770-1860 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This is the study of a small area over a short period of time. The area is the parish of Hetton-le-Hole in County Durham CFig.ll and the period covers the time immediately before and after the first successful sinking for coal on the concealed coalfield of east Durham. The principal aim of the work is to examine the factors that influenced the establishment, growth and subsequent physical and cultural evolution of this Durham mining village together with the landscape elements assoc• iated with the development of coalmining in the first half of the nineteenth century. In order to explore this aim fully three related problems form the detailed objectives which are presented for examination. The first problem is concerned with the identification of the factors that influenced the initial establishment, growth and early settlement morphology of the Durham mining village. By the use of colliery company records and contemporary cartographic evidence, it is hoped that the influences and forces that were operative during this period.at Hetton, can be recognised and their importance evaluated. The second problem is concerned with the nature of the workforce which was attracted to this.new large-scale source of employment located in a previously scantily populated rural area. Recourse has been made to the appropriate Census Enumerators' Books in order to produce an analysis of the employment structure of the colliery labour force in the parish; a second analysis reconstructs the social structure of the coal-mining households in 1851, whilst the third study consists of an investigation of the migratory patterns of the coalminers prior to 1851. The third problem seeks to discover the nature of the community 2 that had come into being in the first thirty years of the life of the collieries in the area. Through a detailed reconstruction of the social and. economic life of the village it is intended to demonstrate the complete occupation structure of the community, the overall demo• graphic characteristics of the population, and the extent to which distinct socio-economic zones had been created by the middle of the nineteenth century. In this way, it is considered that a reasoned examination of the genesis of a coal-mining settlement in relation to the pre-mining cadaster, can be achieved within the spatial context of a parish that witnessed the sudden influx of coal-mining folk into a rural landscape. Geographers in Britain have not displayed very great interest in coal• mining . settlement . Such enquiries as have been made, have focussed in particular on the social and economic consequences of the contraction of coalmining in long-established coalfields such as the Northumberland and Durham coalfield. The economic problems attendant upon the closure of collieries in areas.such as West Durham, in which unemployment in the 1930s reached disastrously high levels, have rightly held the attention of regional and applied Geographers, as have the post-War measures.designed to broaden the.economic base of the colliery districts. Few Geographers haye studied.colliery settlement from the historical viewpoint; one exception is A E Smailes. Writing nearly forty years ago he produced two pioneer.studies of the historical geography of the Northumberland and Durham.coalfield. In his first paper CII he traced the temporal and spatial development of the North Eastern coalfield, in which.he was able to evaluate the significance of geological conditions., technological. developments-, transport-methods and .demand factors within the context of the changing patterns of-mining activity. In his later paper (2). Smailes analysed•, largely from the printed nineteenth..century census- abstracts, the nature of the population changes in the colliery districts- considered in.relation.to 3 the contemporary exploitation factors. He also considered the patterns of settlement that evolved on the Northumberland and Durham coalfield in relation to the date of mining colonization.