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A HISTORY OF COAL MINING AROUND HALESOWEN

by Nigel Chapman

ISBN 0 9517756.9.6

Paper Back: £9.00

The Black Country is a place once noted for its mines, brick works and ironworks. It covers an area of many square miles and many people have different ideas of what is Black Country and what is not. It is generally accepted that the Black Country is bounded by the towns of Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Bromwich, Smethwick, Oldbury, Halesowen, Stourbridge and Kingswinsford, which mark the limits of the Staffordshire Thick Coal Seam.

The town of Halesowen lies at the southern edge of the workable thick coal measures. Here the thick coal seams have already begun to separate into two thinner seams of coal. Traditional rib and pillar mining techniques, which were applied elsewhere in the Black Country, were of little use in this district. The mine owners had to develop new methods to get the coal. Often they were variations of the Longwall System.

Many of the Halesowen coal mines came into being after 1850 when mining technology had improved to the extent to enable the coal to be worked economically. This was also the period of railway expansion, and it was the Stourbridge Railway which provided the principal means of taking the coal away.

In addition to the thick coal, there were seams of brooch coal and fireclay. The fireclay was raised to make firebricks, gas retorts and glass house pots and was an important industry in its own right. Coal was required at the fireclay works to heat the kilns and drying stoves. Coal mining and fireclay production was often carried on by the same people, who raised the coal partly to supply their works and partly for sale.

Nigel Chapman has put together much of their known history from a variety of sources. He examines the methods of work used to extract, and looks at the people involved with the trade. Maps, photographs and extracts from the original documents complete the study.