volumetric measures

[whartley]

Many mining districts adopted their own volumetric measures. For example, the Newcastle chaldron. The imperial/metric equivalents of these are generally well known. For the researcher or historian a problem may arise where an individual colliery adopted its own volumetric measure. This was sometimes the case at small primitive collieries supplying a limited market area in the early 19th century. For example a colliery accounts book may record, 'sold to.....20 loads of coal at...£7 3s 6d. How does the reasearcher determine the imperial/metric equivalent of a 'load' and start to estimate the output of the colliery? The following method may help:
1 Establish what type of coal was being mined, ie 'better bed' 'black bed'.
2 Discover the price of such coal per ton in the district at that time. Hunt's, 'Mineral Statistics' may help but there are other sources.
3 Take the cost of a 'load' or whatever measure was being used at the colliery and divide it into the market price per ton. This will provide the imperial equivalent to a load.
I suspect this method can be utilised for other commodities where a unique volumetric measure was being used.
Bill Hartley
NEIMME

[daz]

Hya Bill, a very interesting subject and one that has caused some confusion to myself and probably many other “non academic” but interested readers of coal mining related history as well. In much the same way as reading of collier’s pay being related to the weight or volume of coal that they produced, it has always confused my simple mind that reference is often made to the number of corves or tubs that a collier filled as being the basis of his payment without any direct weight related comparison being made. It must surely have been possible to “fill” a tub, tram or corve with a single lump of coal as well as with a variable weight of “fines”, “singles”, “doubles” and “trebles” etc. I recall reading that in the “early days” at least one West Yorkshire colliery paid a differential to colliers loading a tub with a one inch gap sized fork as opposed to those that didn’t, but even then there was no mention of payment for a tub not having being weighed that was filled with only a few pieces of large coal as opposed to a tub filled with one inch pieces of coal. It seems obvious to me that there should have been some means of evaluating the output/payment directly proportionate to weight of saleable coal but it does seem as though much of the collier’s payment was defined or related to the volumetric capacity of coal vehicle rather than a weight produced. The later years of a collier’s output being based on weight alone and the resultant arguments of maximum/minimum weight of tubs/trams etc, necessitating the introduction of “Checkweighmen” in order to determine the short measures or excess dirt inclusion scams on both the part of “producers” and “management” make a great deal of sense to me, it is only the earlier descriptions of apparent volumetric evaluations that cause any sort of confusion to me, any comment?

[whartley]

Hi,
confusing isn't it? Small primitive collieries usually sourced their equipment locally and the determining factor was often the diameter of the shaft. The load capacity of the (usually timber) headframe would also have been important, together with the strength of the rope and of course the ability of the tub to be hauled to the surface without too much spillage. Also, such collieries operating on landed estates often used the labour practices of agricultural workers and there would probably have been some master- servant negotiations to determine the pay rate for whatever a 'load' was. The archives of the Shibden Hall estate collieries held in Halifax library reflect this.
Regards
Bill Hartley