Coal
Coal comes in many different forms and releases its trapped
energy in different ways. 'Cannel' coal burns brightly and was used
as a source of light as well as heat. By the middle of the 19th
Century many of Scotland's towns were lit by gas derived from coal.
Dumfries's gasworks used cannel coal mined at New Cumnock in
Ayrshire. 'Anthracite' burns with great heat but without flame or
smoke. It was suitable for grain and malt drying and was exported
for this purpose from Kilmarnock to Ireland.
Coal has been valued as a domestic fuel for several centuries.
From the late18th Century, a wide range of industries increasingly
relied on coal as a source of energy. The Rowanburn pit at
Canonbie, sunk in the middle of the 19th Century, supplied fuel for
local limekilns, pottery kilns, distilleries and a tweed
mill.
The spectacular industrial success story which unfolded in the
west of Scotland during 18th and 19th Centuries was not due simply
to the presence of coal. Where coal was mined, other important
materials emerged. Ironstone was discovered, from which iron could
be extracted. Limestone was abundant and was essential to the iron
smelting process. Clays were found which were suitable for lining
blast furnaces and producing bricks. This landscape yielded all the
basic ingredients for rapid industrial development.
Mining
Massive deposits of coal are buried at great depth below the
surface in a number of parts of Scotland. Powerful forces, over
millions of years have twisted and folded the earth. As a result,
in places, seams of coal have been brought to the surface. Coal
would have first been found where it outcropped on eroded river
banks and valley sides. Here, it could be easily dug out. In
Scotland, the first evidence we have for the use of coal as a fuel
for the fire, occurs in written documents from more than 900 years
ago in the reign of Malcolm 1V.
A hundred years later, a charter of 1415 indicates that the monks
of Crossraguel Abbey had the rights to coal pits at Dailly in South
Ayrshire. It is likely that these were 'bell pits' - simple
excavations to depths of up to 80 feet, expanding outwards into the
coal seam as they descended.
In the closing decades of the 17th Century, Sir Robert Cunningham
of Auchenharvie, began to exploit the coal on his estate, on a
scale which had not been seen before in this part of Scotland. He
built a harbour at Saltcoats for the export of his coal and set up
coal-fuelled salt pans for the production of salt.
For the next two centuries, coal mining provided the mainspring
for industrial development in the west of Scotland. At the outset,
mining depended on human physical effort alone. Over time,
horse-power and steam power were applied to the process of hauling
coal from the coal face and hoisting men and coal from the pit
bottom. In the final days of the mining in this part of Scotland,
electrically powered machinery, performed all the essential
functions in the colliery - coal cutting, haulage, drainage,
ventilation and lighting.
Scottish Coal Collections Project
Coal-mining collections are held in museums, libraries and
archives throughout Scotland. After a survey in 2005 established
the existence and the extent of these collections, a cross-sectoral
partnership was established to gather information on as many of the
collections as possible. The resulting website provides a single
point of reference for the many researchers interested in this
important aspect of Scotland's industrial past, as well as for
professionals working with coal-mining collections, and can be
found at http://www.coalcollections.org/
