The Montagu Family of East Denton Hall
By Les Turnbull
A background paper
for the conference on Elizabeth Montagu held at the University of Swansea
in June 2011 by Les Turnbull B.A.(Hons), M.Ed - a member of the North of
England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers.
The Montagu family were at the centre of political and
social life during the eighteenth century and were noted for the strength of
character of their womenfolk as well as the political and military achievements
of their men. Admiral Sir Edward Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich, was the brother-in-law
of Lord Crewe, the Bishop of Durham. He had six sons and two of them, Sidney
and Charles, played an important role in the coal trade of North East England. Sidney married the daughter of Sir Francis Wortley, a
large coalowner in Yorkshire, and assumed the
title Wortley when his wife inherited her father’s estate. In 1712 his son,
Edward Wortley Montagu, married Mary Pierrepont, a lady with a very independent
mind. While living in Constantinople with her husband, the British ambassador
to the Ottoman Empire, she appreciated the
importance of inoculation as a preventative to smallpox and had her own
children treated many years before Jenner championed inoculation as the solution
to this devastating disease. The admiral’s younger son, Charles, married Sarah
Rogers, the daughter of John Rogers, the owner of several collieries in
Northumberland and Durham.
Their son, Edward Montagu, married Elizabeth Robinson who, as Mrs Montagu,
became a distinguished lady of letters and earned the title ‘Queen of the
bluestockings’. In 1758, Edward Montagu inherited East Denton Hall, once the
home of John Rogers, on the western outskirts of Newcastle
upon Tyne. Elizabeth
died childless in 1800 and was succeeded by her nephew Matthew Robinson who had
in 1776 adopted the surname Montagu. In 1800, he inherited the title Lord
Rokeby upon the death of his eccentric uncle also called Matthew Robinson. Today,
the Montagu and Rokeby families are remembered in the names of streets and
public houses in Newcastle.
Sir Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich
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________________________________________________________________
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Sidney
Montagu
Charles Montagu
(1650 – 1727) (c1658 – 1721)
married
Ann Newcomen
married Sarah Rogers
daughter
of Sir Francis Wortley
daughter of John Rogers
assumed
name of Wortley
coalowner in the North East
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Edward Wortley Montagu
Edward Montagu
(1678 – 1761)
(1692 – 1775)
1742 married Elizabeth Robinson
Elizabeth Montagu of Denton Hall
Their daughter
Mary married John 3rd Earl of
Bute Matthew Robinson (nephew)
and their son
John, the 4th Earl of Bute married
adopted the title Montagu and
Charlotte
Jane the daughter of Viscount Windsor
later became 3rd Lord
Rokeby
Unpalatable as it may be for an audience in the great coal
port of Swansea to accept, but it is nevertheless necessary to understand that
the Northumberland and Durham coalfield was the most important coal mining area
in the world during the eighteenth century: for this reason the region was known
as the Great Northern Coalfield and the city of Newcastle upon Tyne was seen as
an Eldorado trading in black diamonds. Local landowners and London capitalist alike
believed that opportunities existed for vast fortunes to be made; but as Gray,
the author of the first history book about Newcastle, observed in 1649, mining was
not without risks and ‘many…hath consumed
and spent great estates and dyed beggars’.
Although the weather in the north could be inclement in the
eighteenth century and the River Tyne was regularly frozen over in winter, Newcastle was not an uncivilised wilderness within the Arctic Circle as one of Elizabeth Montagu’s friends
believed. Indeed, John Wesley observed that ‘I know no place in Great
Britain comparable to it for pleasantness’. Nor
was the city a cultural wilderness: Newcastle
could claim to be at the centre of scientific, medical and mathematical
studies, a focal point for engineers and craftsmen, and the home of noteworthy
musicians, poets and artists. Men of the calibre of the composer Charles Avison
walked its streets; as did the poet Mark Akenside and the artist Thomas Bewick.
The eminent mathematician Charles Hutton was the son of the deputy overman at
Longbenton Colliery, his brothers were all miners and he worked down the pit in
his youth. Furthermore, Newcastle
housed ladies whose academic achievements were unusual for the age: the
feminist writer Mary Astell, the distinguished Anglo-Saxon scholar, Elizabeth
Elstob, and Anne Slack, the author and publisher of school books, unwittingly contributed
to the early stirrings of the feminist movement. It is not without significance
that one of the country’s first provincial literary and philosophical societies
should have been founded here in 1793; and the Newcastle Lit. and Phil. was the
first such society in the country to admit lady members.
Newcastle’s
significance as a regional commercial and cultural centre was founded on the
development of the coal trade. Coal seams are distributed widely throughout Britain but not in the area of London
and the South East, where in the eighteenth century, as in Britain today, most
of the population lived. Because coal is heavy, before the development of the
railway, it was costly to transport by land: after about two miles the cost of
road transport exceeded the cost of production making it too expensive for the
market. However, in the North East of England, the coal seams providing good
quality household fuel were near to the major rivers, which give access to the sea.
Therefore, this region was uniquely placed to transport coal by water to the
developing market for domestic fuel in the South East of England. This trade
was known as the seacole trade to distinguish it from the landsale trade which
supplied local markets: the seacole trade was by far the most lucrative
business, achieving prices often five times higher than those offered in the locality.
The export trade to foreign countries was never large in the eighteenth century:
in the 1770’s it was less than 3% of total production. The problems of carrying
low value bulk cargo in small ships, the imposition of high export duties and
the intermittent wars of the century, all conspired to keep this element of the
business small.
From the reign of Elizabeth I, coal owners in the North East
seized their opportunity and the coal trade from the River Tyne increased from
about 35,000 tons in 1550 to 400,000 in 1625. By the time Charles Montagu became
involved in mining ventures in the Great Northern Coalfield at the end of the
seventeenth century, the seacole trade was about half a million tons; and by
the death of Elizabeth Montagu in 1800, it had increased to over a million and
a quarter tons. Coal was also shipped from the River Wear, Seaton Sluice, the
River Blyth and the River Wansbeck but the trade from Newcastle
upon Tyne was always the most important. Although coal was used as
a fuel by industry, until the nineteenth century most of it was used for fuel
in the home; and the diminishing supply of wood, together with the steady increase
in population, were the two principal factors to explain the expansion of the
trade. After 1760, as the steam engine changed the nature of industry and
transport, coal was used increasingly as a source of power. Consequently, as
the progress of the industrial revolution in Britain
gathered pace, a massive expansion of coal mining took place during the
nineteenth century, principally generated by the demand for steam power, reaching
a peak in 1911 when 56.4 million tons were mined and 227,000 men were employed
in the coalmining industry in Northumberland and Durham. Ironically, the development of both
the railway and the steam locomotive by colliery engineers in the North East of
England, enabled competitors from elsewhere in Britain to challenge the
supremacy of the Great Northern Coalfield, by providing them with the means to
market their coals to London and the South East.
The principal coal seams outcrop on the escarpments to the
west of Newcastle and Gateshead, in the area
between Hadrian’s Wall in the north and the road from Gateshead,
westwards through Whickham, to Ryton in the south. This area provided the coal
for the seacole trade during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the
beginning of the eighteenth century, the upper seams in this part of the
coalfield were becoming exhausted; and until the development of better pumping
equipment to drain the deeper seams in the older areas of mining, entrepreneurs
were forced to look for coal in the hinterland of the Tyne Valley. The
principal mining area at this time was the tongue of land between the tributary
rivers Team and Derwent shown below on Gibson’s map. Three wooden waggonways
were built to carry the coal to market – the
Northbanks Way,
the Western Way
and the Tanfield Railway. The Montagu family played a significant role in these
developments: Charles was responsible for building the Northbanks Way to Dunston and, as a
member of the Grand Allies, he was a partner in the Tanfield Way.
John Gibson’s map of 1787 shows the landscape of Tyneside as
it would have been in Elizabeth Montagu’s time. Newcastle,
the regional capital, was still largely confined within the medieval city walls
and was surrounded by villages, such as Denton,
which are now part of the suburbs of the modern city. The Montagu’s residence
was at East Denton Hall, to the west of Newcastle,
and interestingly John Gibson designates ownership to Mr. Montagu, Elizabeth’s nephew and
heir. A waggonway to the east of the hall linked the Caroline Pit, the principal
shaft of the Montagu Colliery in 1787, with the staiths on the north bank of
the River Tyne at Scotswood. The coal was ferried from Scotswood in small
vessels, known as keel boats, to the sea-going ships, known as colliers, which
were berthed at the mouth of the river. The map also provides a statement of
the principal landed families in the area who, as coalowners, were the main
figures in the coal trade at that time. The Montagu’s neighbours were the Ord
family in Fenham. John Ord was a partner with Edward Wortley Montagu in a
colliery in the adjacent royalty of Elswick; but his family’s principal source
of income was as lawyer to the Liddells and their associates in the coal trade.
To the south, across the River Tyne, was Gibside Hall belonging to the Bowes
family; Axwell Park,
the home of the Claverings; and Ravensworth
Castle, the seat of the
Liddell family, the driving force behind the Grand Alliance. This mock medieval
structure dominating the western slopes of the Team Valley
is both a statement of the wealth that was made from the coal trade and a
comment upon the important position of the coalowners in Tyneside society. When
compared to Ravensworth
Castle, East Denton Hall
is a modest structure.
Extract from Gibson’s Map of the Great Northern Coalfield 1787
Ravensworth Castle
looking north east towards Newcastle.
East Denton Hall circa 1786
When the first Earl of Sandwich, Admiral Edward Montagu, was
looking for suitable positions for his younger sons, he turned for help to his
brother-in-law Nathaniel Crewe, Bishop of Durham, who used his extensive powers
of patronage to secure the appointment of John Montagu D.D. to the position of Dean
of Durham and his fifth son, Charles Montagu, to the posts of Constable of
Durham Castle, High Sheriff of County Durham and M.P. for the city. After the
death of his first wife, Elizabeth Forster, in about 1688, Charles Montagu
married Sarah Rogers, the daughter of John Rogers I, a leading member of the Newcastle coal trade, who held mining leases in both
Northumberland and Durham.
John Rogers I had died in 1671 and his extensive interests were developed by
his son, John Rogers II (1656 – 1709), and his grandson, John Rogers III (1685
– 1758). This second marriage gave Charles Montagu entry into the coal trade
and doubtless through the influence of his uncle Nathaniel Crewe, a friend of
Sir Francis Blakiston of Gibside, he was able to secure a lease of Northbanks
and Hutton collieries near Marley Hill in 1690. The following year, in 1691,
Sir Francis’ daughter Elizabeth was granted the Gibside estate as her dowry for
her marriage to Sir William Bowes but the coal remained leased to Charles
Montagu.
During the next decade, in partnership with George Baker,
with whom Charles Montagu was connected through his first marriage, he
developed Northbanks into one of the leading collieries on Tyneside. Although
the coal was at first carried by wains (carts drawn by two oxen and two
horses), the new system of transport by rail was soon adopted, and by 1699, a
waggonway had been built to the River Tyne at Dunston at a cost of £5,740 – an
enormous sum at that time. In 1698, Charles Montagu took a lease for 31 years
of Benwell royalty to the west of Newcastle
in partnership with George Baker and redeveloped the old colliery. This
included building a waggonway, about two miles long, from the vicinity of Benwell
Roman fort to the rebuilt staiths on the River Tyne at a cost of £2,686, which also
represented a considerable investment. In both these enterprises Charles was
probably the principal provider of the capital needed. For most of the time
parliamentary duties kept Charles in London,
while George Baker was the man resident in the North East, responsible for the
management of the business. He was assisted by Timothy Rawlings, who Montagu
referred to as ‘my servant, fitter,
partner and dear friend’; (fitter was the local term used to describe the
man responsible for the sale of the coal). This combination of London capital and native expertise was a
feature of other partnerships in the coalfield. In the early eighteenth century,
Montagu’s collieries at Northbanks and Benwell provided the bulk of the coal
for the seacole trade from Newcastle
earning annual profits in the region of £4,000.
Although by far the most important, Northbanks and Benwell
were not the only mining interests of the Montagu family. Through family ties
with the Cocks (his mother-in-law’s family), the Creaghs (his sister-in-law
Margaret was married to William Creagh), and the Ellison’s (his brother-in-law
had married Elizabeth the daughter of the Newcastle merchant Benjamin Ellison),
Charles Montagu had shares in a partnership developing Bensham royalty
belonging to the Ellisons; and through his links with the Liddells he had
interests in Stella Grand Lease on Ryton Moor to the west. Later, through his
connections with the Rogers family, his son
Edward was to inherit shares in mines at Monkseaton, Chirton, the lower Team Valley
and Denton. These
examples serve as a reminder that family connections were all important, not
only in eighteenth century politics, but also in the coal industry. Family ties
secured access to coal royalties and assisted in gaining wayleave rights through
estates which were vital for building waggonways to lead the coal to market and
also for constructing watercourses to drain the mines.
In the early years of the eighteenth century, Charles
Montagu suffered increasingly from bouts of manic-depression, which was to
cause his gradual withdrawal from political and business life, culminating in a
commission of lunacy being awarded to his wife in 1716. In these circumstances,
because both his sons were underage, the usual practice would have been for the
business interests to be taken over by his wife Sarah. However, probably on
account of the debts that Charles had incurred through developing his
collieries, after 1703, the Benwell and Northbanks partnership was changed;
subsequent accounts are in the names of his son James and his older brother, Sydney
Wortley Montagu, who each had a half share. Sydney, the second son of the Earl
of Sandwich, had married Anne Wortley, who was heir to extensive coalmining
interests in South Yorkshire. Their son Edward
Wortley Montagu, born in 1678, was introduced into the partnership in 1710. After
a term as ambassador to Istanbul,
he returned to the north to manage the family’s coalmining interests.
When the accessible coal in
Benwell royalty became exhausted, the Wortleys began to develop the
neighbouring estate at Elswick, in partnership with John Ord. In 1724, this
partnership purchased a pumping engine to re-win the drowned colliery, which was
in business until 1740. The Wortley’s were also in partnership with the Liddell
family during the 1720’s in the development of Heaton Banks Colliery to the
east of Newcastle.
This colliery was to become one of the great coalmines of the mid eighteenth
century, principally because of the successful application of the new steam pumping
technology. However, the developments on the south side of the river were more
important. Charles Montagu’s lease of the Hutton and Northbanks collieries
ended in 1723 and Lady Elizabeth Bowes refused to renew the contract for the
benefit of his relatives, Sydney and Edward Wortley. Fortunately, the Wortley’s
had acquired leases on Blackburn Fell nearby and, by an agreement with Sir
Henry Liddell, they built a branch line to the Dunston Waggonway re-using the
timber rails from the link to Northbanks Colliery. However, this new venture
was thwarted by the owner of two separate parcels of land who, being in the pay
of the ladies Bowes and Clavering, refused to renew the wayleaves through his
property. This act severed Wortley’s route to the staiths and killed off the Dunston Way.
This dispute drew Liddell and the
Wortleys into close alliance against the Claverings, the Bowes and their
associates who were developing another major waggonway in the Derwent Valley –
the Western Way from Pontop to Derwenthaugh; and the conflict over wayleaves
rights ultimately resulted in the building of the famous Tanfield Way (depicted
below in a painting by R.S.Turner) and the creation of the powerful cartel
known as the Grand Allies. In 1722, George Liddell offered Sydney Wortley a
waggonway route to Dunston in return for a half share in his coal leases on
Tanfield Moor which was the foundation of the partnership and the railway.
Later George Bowes was persuaded to join the alliance which was formerly
established in June 1726. Attempts were made to entice Lady Jane Clavering into
the partnership thus giving the Grand Allies control over most of the major
coal producing area of the early eighteenth century. Her determination to
remain independent resulted in the diversion of the Western Way to avoid both the Gibside and
Axwell estates: the new route from Burnopfield, ran down Busty Bank, and onto
the western flank of the River Derwent. This is the route shown on Gibson’s
map.
The Tanfield Arch
The formal agreement known as the Grand Alliance was drawn
up by Sydney Wortley, Sir Henry Liddell and George Bowes who agreed to share
wayleave rights and to co-operate over the development of collieries for their
mutual benefit. They hoped, by controlling the principal collieries in the region,
to be able to dominate the seacole trade from the River Tyne to London; and in this
respect they were very successful for most of the eighteenth century. A copy of
the agreement which had a significant influence upon the development of the
coalfield is housed in the North of England Mining Institute.
A statement of the seacole trade (known as the vend) for the
year 1736 names the principal collieries supplying the market. The dominance of
the Grand Allies (Liddell, Wortley and Bowes) at this time, when their
collieries produced 68% of the coal for the seacole trade, is clearly shown. The
figures also reveal the important position held by the Wortley branch of the
Montagu family whose collieries at Tanfield and Heaton were supplying 20% of
the coal. These figures in the table below represent the production agreed for
each colliery. The records of John Buddle show that the actual production was
297,346 chaldrons (787,967 tons) and about 60% of this coal was for the London market.
Sir Henry
Liddell Tanfield
36,000
Team
26,000
½
Heaton 18,000
Mr Wortley
Tanfield
36,000
½
Heaton 18,000
Mr Bowes
Tanfield
36,000
Hutton
8,000
Miss Clavering
Derwent 23,000
Mr Ridley
Byker
28,000
Western
14,000
Mr White
Jesmond 18,000
Total 261,000
The Great Northern Coalfield dominated the London market until the coming of the
railways opened up competition from collieries nearer to the capital. In 1830
the north east ports supplied 96% of the coal imports into London. The estimates of national production also
show the dominance of the northern coalfield. In 1750, the total production in
the United Kingdom
was estimated to be 5,230,000 tons; the North East collieries produced
1,955,000 tons (37%); and the collieries of South Wales 140,000 tons (2.6%).
No mention is made of Edward Montagu, the son of Charles
Montagu, either in the formal agreement or in the minutes of the Grand Allies
which would suggest that the legacy of Charles was managed or acquired entirely
by the Wortley branch of the family. However, Charles Montagu’s in-laws, the
Rogers, are mentioned for Mrs Elizabeth Rogers and her son John Rogers III held
a half share of Parkhead Colliery with George Bowes; and they held shares in
collieries at Ravensworth, Lamesley and Kibblesworth in Liddell’s homeland. They
also had interests in a small estate of 198 acres to the west of Chester-le-Street adjoining Pelton Moor where they owned
three eighths of the coal. Their interest in East Denton
originated with the purchase of the estate by John Rogers II from James
Clavering in 1706. However, by the mid eighteenth century the family’s fortunes
were on the wane and John Rogers III of Denton Hall was a minor player in politics
of Tyneside coal. Since the death of his wife Anne (a member of the Delaval
family of Seaton Delaval Hall) in 1723, John Rogers III had suffered from a mental
illness and appears to have withdrawn from public and business life from September
of that year. In 1746, his friends secured a commission of lunacy and his
affairs were left in the charge of his cousin Edward Montagu. John died in June
1758 at his house in Pilgrim
Street, Newcastle,
and by the terms of his will half the estate was inherited by Edward Montagu
and the other half by William Archdeacon and Anthony Isaacson, the sons of his
cousins Margaret and Mary Creagh. This other half came into the position of
Edward Montagu through purchase and deposition. The organisation of the funeral
was the reason for Elizabeth Montagu’s first visit to the area but on that
occasion she stayed at Carville Hall, Wallsend, some three miles to the east of
the city, rather than Denton Hall where she noted ‘the rats and ghosts are in full possession’.
Mrs Montagu’s next visit to Newcastle was in September 1760 when the
death of George Bowes of Gibside, a leading member of the Grand Allies, was the
cause of another funeral. Dr. Alexander Carlyle commented that in Newcastle ‘where there was no audience for such an
actress as she was, her natural character was displayed, which was that of an
active manager of her affairs, a crafty chaperon, and a keen pursuer of her
interest, not to be outdone by the sharpest coal-dealer on Tyne’. Mrs
Montagu made brief visits in the autumn of 1763 and 1764 but she was absent in
1765 when major events where taking place. The partition of the estate was
agreed and William Archdeacon’s share of Denton Colliery was leased to Edward
Montagu for the customary term of 21 years. The exploration to find the Beaumont seam was successful and the coal was considered
to be equal in quality to that of the High Main seam at the Grand Allies major
colliery at Longbenton to the north east of Newcastle. The Beaumont
seam had been won and worked in West Denton by
John Blackett with whom Edward Montagu was in conflict to a point where legal
action was threatened. The flooded waste of Blackett’s colliery was to the rise of East
Denton and Edward’s advisers pointed out that ‘without the Engines…in West Denton your Honour’s Colliery…will labour
for many years under the inconvenience of wet Coals and we shall lie constantly
under the apprehensions of being irrecoverably drowned out by Mr Blackett who
has it in his power to turn the River Tyne or west Denton Burn into his
colliery all of which water would unavoidably fall upon East Denton Engines and
over power them’. If such actions were contemplated, it is an interesting comment
upon the business tactics of coalowners at the time. Edward Montagu was advised
to abandon his action in the Court of Chancery and to hire Blackett’s ‘Engines at West Denton together with the
privilege of making Cutts and Drains in his Ground’ since ‘If a Chancery Bill is to be preferred
it…would be productive of such ill consequences as might render the winning
utterly impossible’. The matter seems to have been resolved in 1766 by John
Baker’s purchase of West Denton – the Baker
family having been associated with the Montagus since Charles Montagu’s arrival
in the area.
John Blackett was not the only problem confronting Edward
Montagu for he had to wrestle with a major industrial dispute which was affecting
the coalfield in 1765. After the ending of the Seven Years War, there was a
boom in trade and a shortage of skilled labour which had resulted in a large
increase in the binding money paid to the hewers. Like agricultural workers, the
pitmen were required to sign a bond which tied them to their employer for one
year. Some observers regard the bond as an instrument of slavery; others
consider it a perfectly reasonable attempt to define the conditions of
employment and to protect the business from losing the key elements of its
workforce, which was particularly important at a time of expansion when skilled
labour was in short supply. This instrument of management was also
understandable in an industry where a large outlay of capital was needed before
returns were forthcoming and bankruptcies were frequent. It is interesting to
note that the earliest surviving bond was that drawn up by Charles Montagu to
enlist miners for Benwell Colliery. Although the Benwell bond ran from November
1703 to November 1704, a date in October had become the custom during the first
half of the eighteenth century. The binding date was important: busy times for
the trade, such as October, would favour the miners and slack times the owners.
In 1765 the owners decided to change the date to January, a slack period for
the trade since it was difficult for the fleet of colliers to sail during the
winter months, and this action caused a strike throughout the coalfield
involving about 4,000 men. The owners also attempted to introduce a clause
requiring miners to produce a certificate of discharge from their previous
owners before they could be enlisted. The men believed – probably with
justification – that no owner would grant such a discharge certificate and the
clause would amount to ‘a binding during
the will of the master’. Ultimately, the owners capitulated but the issue
of the date of binding was to re-emerge in 1809 sparking off another major
strike in the coalfield. This was a protracted and violent affair resulting in
almost 300 arrests before a compromise was effected and the binding date moved
to April.
The Benwell Bond of 1703
In 1766, Mrs Montagu arrived at Denton
in the last week of May and spent most of the year in the north taking part in
a tour of Scotland
during the summer. On 12th July a party was held to celebrate the
winning of the colliery during which large quantities of food and ale were
consumed, as was the custom of the coalfield. The Newcastle Journal recorded
the event:
‘All the workmen with
their wives, walked in procession to the great court before the hall, with
colours flying and a band of music: from whence, after a general salute of
three huzzas, they proceeded to a field east of the house, where several long
tables were placed sufficient to contain all the company, consisting of 377 men
and women, the tenants and workmen upon the estate. These tables were each
furnished with a large piece of beef, mutton, or veal, to which were added
twice as many fruit puddings, the size
of which may be guessed at by the quantity of flour used for them and the pies,
which was less than two sacks; the rest of the dinner consisted of two sheep of
144 lbs. each, and several hundredweight of beef. One of the sheep was roasted
whole, and the other, with the beef, boiled in a large brewing vessel.
Abundance of ale, strong beer, and punch was consumed. Dinner being ended, the
company again returned to the great court, and being drawn up in a circle, with
Mr Montagu and his lady in the centre, they toasted the royal family, the
donors, the coal trade, etc., accompanied with loud huzzas, after which they
concluded the evening with country dances and other diversions’.
Plan of Denton
Estate circa 1766
The estate plan of Denton
shows the two parts of Edward Montagu’s lands, namely East
Denton comprising 448 acres and Lemington comprising 59 acres. West Denton, which had recently been purchased by John
Baker from the Blackett family, was a separate enterprise. A major geological
feature of the coalfield – the Downcast Dyke or Ninety Fathom Fault – is
clearly shown bisecting the estate. This fault cast the strata five hundred
feet down to the north west
and for this reason the coal seams in the southern part of the estate were more
easily accessible. Fortuitously, the upheaval which created the dyke also had
the effect of making all the seams in the vicinity of the fault good household
coal. The diagram below shows the coal seams on either side of the Ninety
Fathom Dyke. Elizabeth Montagu was mining the Beaumont seam in the southern part of Montagu
Colliery.
Diagram showing the position of the coal seams in Denton
North of the Ninety Fathom Fault, the first significant seam
of coal was the High Main or Kenton Main seam which had been mined by the
Blacketts in the seventeenth century. Mining in the High Main seam was
abandoned in 1690 when the colliery flooded. In the late eighteenth century the
Montagus erected a new pumping engine beyond the fault and worked this seam
from three pits. They also worked the seam below – the Newbiggin Stone Coal
seam – from another eleven pits at a depth of about 32 fathoms. The deeper
seams, the Low Main seam (84 fathoms deep) and the Beaumont seam (110 fathoms), were not mined north
of the fault until later in the nineteenth century. In the southern part of Denton estate, the High
Main and Newbiggin Stone Coal seams were not present. However, near the river
the Low Main seam was only about four fathoms from the surface and coal had
been mined from this seam since medieval times when the royalty belonged to the
priory of Tynemouth. By the mid eighteenth
century, the Low Main seam was exhausted and the workings flooded; and the
winning of the lower Beaumont seam was only
possible after the development of steam pumping engines which were adopted first
by John Blackett in West Denton and later by Edward Montagu in East Denton. The ‘proposed
place for an Engine’ became the site of the Engine Pit of the Montagu
Colliery where the Beaumont
seam was won at a depth of 36 fathoms.
The plan below shows the pillar and bord workings at the
southern end of the colliery and it is typical of collieries in the Great
Northern Coalfield. The black areas are the pillars, twenty yards long and five
yards wide, left to support the roof; the long white areas in between are the wide
bords, where the coal has been extracted working with the cleat; the narrow
bords or walls were worked at right angles against the grain of the coal to
form the pillars. After the initial working, most of the coal remained in the
colliery as pillars: these pillars were subsequently re-worked in the later
stages of mining. Because of the inadequate method of ventilating the colliery
at this time many shafts were needed: each pit had a working life of about five
years after which a new shaft was sunk as the winning progressed. Fourteen pits
mining the Beaumont
seam are named on the map. Thirty fathoms below the Beaumont seam was the Brockwell seam which
was mined in the early nineteenth century.
Plan of workings in the Beaumont Seam
In 1767, Mrs Montagu arrived at the end of August. On 17th
September her friend Elizabeth Carter wrote ‘God
grant you long life…to enjoy this new-found treasure and…every assistance to
enable you to discharge so important a stewardship’. The following month,
on 17th October, the Newcastle Journal recorded that Mrs Montagu had
founded a school for the children of pitmen employed in Denton Colliery. All
was not good news however. On Boxing Day, Ralph Allison, the viewer at East
Denton Colliery, was attacked by footpads near Benwell village, on the road
from Newcastle,
and was lucky to escape with his life. The viewer performed the roles of
principal engineer and managing director of the colliery: he was responsible
for hiring the workforce, directing the operations at the colliery and
negotiating wayleave rights. The viewer’s job would include responsibility for
the farms which supplied feed for the horses used by the colliery as the
principal source of power both above and below ground. He would also have
oversight of the ancillary industries –
‘the bricks, tiles, the tar manufactory ect. going on at the waterside’. In
all likelihood it was the technical skills of this man, in developing the
colliery and building the railway to the River Tyne at Scotswood, which had
enabled the enterprise to succeed. Unfortunately, he died in July 1770 as the
Newcastle Journal recorded: ‘Friday, died
at the house of William Archdeacon, Esq., in Newcastle, aged 39, Mr Ralph Allison,
viewer of the collieries to the Hon. Edward Montagu, Esq., in which station he
acted with the most indefatigable care and strictest integrity…his humane
behaviour to the men under him gained their esteem and love’. This laudable testimony to a viewer, who was clearly
the employer’s representative, was not unusual: because these men shared the
dangers of the mine with the workers, and often championed their cause, they
were not infrequently regarded with respect and even affection. Unfortunately, it is not known who succeeded
Ralph Allison but by the mid 1770’s Christopher Bedlington, the assistant to
the eminent viewer and engine builder, William Brown, appears to have been in
charge at East Denton.
Edward Montagu retained an interest in two other areas where
his wife’s family, the Rogers, had a long standing association – Tynemouthshire
in Northumberland and the area to the west of Chester-le-Street in County Durham.
John Rogers II and his partners John Carr and Henry Hudson had established collieries
at Whitley Bay
and Monkseaton in 1676 which supplied the seasale trade through the port of Cullercoats; but by 1722 problems with
water led to these collieries being abandoned. Later, Monkseaton was re-opened
as a landsale colliery in which Mrs Montagu had a 20% share; and doubtless the
affairs of this colliery were the reason for her visits to the Duke of
Northumberland at Alnwick. Rogers and Hudson were also interested to develop
the neighbouring royalty of Chirton. However, this colliery was not won until
1754; and it became an important seacole colliery which supplied 10,000
chaldrons (26,500 tons) for the vend in 1773. Mrs Montagu was a partner in this
enterprise holding a 6.25% share. John Rogers had also worked Flatts Colliery
to the west of Chester-le-Street and in 1771 Edward Montagu secured a lease
from the Bishop of Durham of ‘All the
Coalmines in his Lordshops territories’ in that part of County Durham.
Whether he was successful in mining coal in that region is not known. However,
part of the franchise, the Whitehall
estate, was leased out to a partnership led by Robert Shafto in 1772.
At Denton in that year, a
panel of viewers expressed concern about the future of the colliery because the
workings in the Beaumont
seam beneath the southern part of the estate were nearing exhaustion. At this
time the Montagu Colliery was a major enterprise: in 1773 it supplied 16,000
chaldrons (42,400 tons) for the vend placing it amongst the top rank
collieries. The viewers calculated that there was only fifteen months work
remaining and stressed ‘the immediate
necessity to make a compleat new winning’. They proposed two solutions: the sinking
of a new shaft west of Denton bridge to win the
seam in the northern part of the estate, south of the fault; and extending the
existing workings eastwards into Benwell estate, where William Archdeacon had been
leased ninety acres of the Beaumont
seam by Robert Shafto. In 1773, William Archdeacon granted this land in Benwell
to Edward Montagu for a period of 25 years from May 1774. This was probably Edward
Montagu’s last important contribution to the enterprise at Denton
for in May 1775 he died at his London
home in Hill Street,
aged 82, leaving the estate to his wife.
Contemporaries believed that Elizabeth Montagu was more than
capable of managing the business. In a letter to Lord Lyttelton in July 1765, when
writing about the winning of Denton Colliery, she had shown a grasp of the
essential economics of mining: ‘I believe
we have open’d a noble source of future plenty but it is present poverty. We
are at present the poorer a great deal, for a mine at first opening has a
prodigious swallow; when it begins to disgorge it makes noble amends….Some who
have begun without a fund have by the malice of their fellow traders been
obliged to lay aside their project before the time that the profits were to
come in, but as we are not in any danger of bankruptcy, we can hardly fail of
being very great gainers’. These were to prove prophetic words and in June 1775,
Mrs Montagu set out for the north to inspect her inheritance. She described Denton in rather
colourful language as having ‘the air of
an ant-hill; a vast army of black animals for ever busy’; and explained
that ‘near fourscore families are
employ’d on my concerns here’. She noted that the ‘boys work in the colliery from seven years of age’ which was
common practice in the Northumberland and Durham
coalfield. Besides the benefit of additional income for the family, pitmen
believed that it was important to familiarise children, at an early age, with
the workings of the coalmine to enable them to acquire that sixth sense which
was the mark of a good pitman and an essential skill to ensure his safety. In
Mrs Montagu’s correspondence there is no mention of girls at work in the pits:
unlike colliery districts elsewhere, female labour was not used in the Great
Northern Coalfield. She lists her charitable deeds at Denton and emphasises the importance of kind
behaviour towards the workforce as a management tool: ‘our pitmen are afraid of being turned off, and that fear keeps an
order and regularity amongst them that is very uncommon’. Although her
colliery was thriving, she had concerns about ‘seeing my fellow creatures descend into the dark regions of the earth;
tho’, to my great comfort I hear them singing in the pits’.
On 31st May 1776, Elizabeth Montagu wrote a
letter to Mrs Carter which contains a very graphic description of the mining
community at Denton.
‘The people here are little better than
savages, and their Countenances bear the marks of hard labour and total
ignorance. Our Pittmen are literally as black as coal; they earn much more than
labourers, their children get a shilling a day at 9 or 10 years old, but they
are so barbarous and uncultivated they know no use of money but to buy much
meat and liquor with it. They eat as well as the substantial tradesmen in great
Towns, but they are ragged and dirty, and their wives are idle and drunken so
that while they live in plenty they present to your view an air of misery,
poverty and oppression. These Pitmen marry and multiply in order to be rich,
for their children add to their prosperity. They are useful persons to the general
common wealth, but considered separately a strange set of barbarians. As the
Children are so early sent into the mines I am afraid it will be impossible
ever to civilise them’. Mrs Montagu’s description has parallels
elsewhere in, for example, Edward Chicken’s poem ‘The Collier’s Wedding’.
Chicken was curate of the parish church
of St. John’s in Newcastle
and he relates an account of the courtship and marriage of a miner from
Benwell, the estate to the east of Denton,
which includes the following lines:
‘Dead drunk, some tumble on the floor,
And swim in what they’d drunk before.
‘Hiccup’, cries one.
‘Reach me out your hand’.
‘The house turns round.
I cannot stand’.
Excessive eating, drinking and gambling were features of the
mining communities well into the nineteenth century as the early histories of
Methodism in the region
testify. However,
this was not the full picture for there were many intelligent men from these
communities who rose to positions of prominence. The distinguished mathematician
Dr. Charles Hutton was born in Newcastle and worked with his brothers at
Longbenton Colliery, where his father was deputy overman; George Stephenson,
the railway engineer, worked at another colliery belonging to the Grand Allies,
Killingworth; and arguably the greatest colliery engineer of the nineteenth
century, John Buddle Junior, was introduced to work underground at the age of
six by his father. Intellectually, all three men were a match for the
bluestockings.
Increasingly the burden of running Denton Colliery in the
last quarter of the century appears to have fallen upon the shoulders of Mrs
Montagu’s nephew and heir Matthew Robinson who assumed the name of Montagu in
1776. Mrs Montagu observed ‘with great
pleasure that Montagu has a happy turn for business, and applies himself to
learning the science of coal-mine-working, of which many coal-owners are
ignorant entirely, but none ought to be so’. Doubtless this was a result of
her tutelage. The colliery continued to prosper and expand. West Kenton estate
to the north of Denton,
where the upper seam had been worked by the Blacketts until the colliery was
drowned in 1715, was purchased in 1779. In 1787, Mrs Montagu wrote that Matthew
had ‘set out for Denton…to give his attention to the opening
of a new seam of coal’. This was almost certainly the Newbiggin Stone Coal
seam which was won at a depth of over 35 fathoms in the north
west part of East Denton, north
of the Ninety Fathom Fault.
Mrs Montagu probably paid her last visit to Denton in the autumn of 1789, although she
continued to interest herself in the business. It is likely that William Thomas
moved into Denton Hall about this time and, at the age of thirty one, became
the principal viewer of the colliery. He probably succeeded Christopher Bedlington
who was fully engaged as both viewer and part owner in developing the
neighbouring colliery in East Kenton. William
Thomas was a distinguished figure in the intellectual life of Newcastle at the end of the eighteenth
century. He was a founder member of the prestigious Literary and Philosophical
Society where he presented several papers to fellow members two of which have
more than local significance. After the drowning of six miners in 1796, when
men working in East Denton Colliery broke into the flooded workings in the
Seven Quarters seam of an old mine at Slatyford, William Thomas suggested that
plans of abandoned workings should be housed with the Justices of the Peace to
avoid such tragedies. Unfortunately, his request fell on deaf ears and seventy
five miners were killed at Heaton Colliery in 1815, when water from the Grand
Allies old colliery burst in and flooded the workings. The men died of
suffocation while awaiting rescue. After this accident two great engineers of
the day, William Chapman and John Buddle, championed William Thomas’ idea but
again without success. The Mines Act of 1850 made it compulsory for managers to
keep a working plan of the colliery and make it available to visiting
inspectors but there was no requirement to deposit plans of workings when mines
were abandoned until 1872.
The legislation was not retrospective and in March 1925,
miners at the View Pit in Montagu Colliery broke into the flooded workings of
the Brockwell seam in Benwell Colliery, which had been abandoned in 1848, resulting
in the deaths of 38 men. His second paper concerned railways. Wooden waggonways
for mineral traffic have a history stretching back to the early seventeenth
century in the North East of England but William Thomas was one of the early
advocates of railways for passenger traffic. In 1805, he proposed the building
of a double line metal railway between Newcastle
and Hexham with passing places every half mile to accommodate private
carriages. By this time his employer, Matthew Montagu, had joined the Lit. and
Phil.
William Thomas
Wayleave payments for the passage of both water and coals
through the estate, were a useful source of additional income to the Montagu
family. Wooden waggonways from Kenton and Brunton to the north had passed
overland through Denton but, in 1790, Christopher
Bedlington secured a wayleave from Mrs Montagu for an underground waggonway
from East Kenton to Scotswood, which was
intended both to drain the two collieries and to provide a means of
transporting the coals to the riverside staith. Unfortunately, he miscalculated
the depth of the Great Fault and the drift ran above the High Main seam in East Kenton. This waggonway is sometimes regarded as the
world’s first underground railway, which is nonsense, since much longer drifts
than Kitty’s Drift were common place in the mineral mines of the northern Pennines. However, the line beneath East
Denton does have a claim to fame as the world’s first passenger
railway: Kitty’s Drift became a tourist attraction in the early nineteenth
century offering members of the public a means of visiting a coalmine without
the inconvenience of descending a shaft precariously suspended on the end of a
rope.
The Montagu waggonway ran from the Caroline Pit, past the
eastern side of Denton Hall, down to the staiths at Scotswood where the coal
was loaded onto keelboats. The engraving of the staith for Hollywell Colliery
at Lemington is shown below with a keel boat alongside. The large wooden
structure was to protect the coal from weathering which reduced its price at
market. The coal was then ferried by keel boats, which each carried eight
chaldron (about 20 ton), from the staith to the sea-going ships moored at
Shields near the mouth of the river. These larger vessels – generally between
two and three hundred tons burthen – were unable to pass beyond the bridge at Newcastle; and most
captains preferred to moor at Shields rather than tackle the moving sandbanks
in the river. The keelmen were hired by the fitters who owned the keels and
were responsible for the sale of coal to the captains of the colliers. Like
other coalowners, the Montagus signed an annual contract with a fitter. In
1775, Elizabeth Montagu’s fitter was a man called Atkinson who had recently
built a collier ship named ‘The Montagu’ for
the coal trade to the Thames.
The journey down the east coast to London took about four to five weeks. About
40% of the coal was sold at Kings Lynn in East
Anglia and ports along the south coast, but London accounted for the
lion’s share of the seacole trade. The colliers often travelled in convoy
sometimes escorted by a naval vessel in times of unrest. At the London end of the
business the coalowners had agents, known as factors, to advance their
business. There were about dozen factors at the Coal Exchange and their job was
to arrange lighters to offload the colliers in mid-stream and ferry the coal to
a riverside wharf; to arrange the paperwork including the payment of taxes; and
to negotiate with a buyer for the sale of the cargo. The buyer was a wholesaler
who sold on portions of the cargo to smaller distributors.
It is instructive to compare Denton with other major collieries in the
Tyneside area at the end of the eighteenth century. Amongst the collieries
supplying the vend in 1773, Denton
was in the top rank with an allocation of 42,400 tons. However, a table in the
view book of John Buddle Senior, which lists the output of the collieries
supplying the seacole trade from the River Tyne in 1788, and records the
capital invested in each colliery, indicates that, although Denton shared in the increased production of
the coalfield, Denton Colliery had fallen into the second class. Within that
list of 25 major collieries Denton
ranks as number nine. The first class collieries further east, such as
Wallsend, were producing in the region of 80,000 tons per annum with capital
invested amounting to £25,000; East Denton was
producing about 53,000 tons with an investment of £12,000.
Although precise figures do not exist for the late
eighteenth century, some understanding of the size and nature of the community
at Denton can
be gained from the early census records and documents created following the
lease of the colliery to a new partnership, Cookson and Cuthbert, in 1807. A
colliery of the size of East Denton would need
about forty hewers. The seacole trade required large coal and the hewers needed
considerable skill when extracting the coal from the seam to prevent breakages.
Inevitably, small coals were produced and since these coals were of little
value they were either left underground, sold to the local glassworks or used
in the brick and tiles kilns on the estate. The hewers were supported by about the
same number of putters to move the coal to the base of the shaft. With the
addition of overmen, onsetters, wastemen, trapper boys and others, the total
underground workforce would be in the region of 150 men and boys. Mrs Montagu’s
claim that ‘I have now above 500 men at
work below ground in the pits’ is difficult to understand: the total number
at work in East Denton both above and below
ground was probably no more than 250. Elsewhere, she referred to there being
four score families of miners on the estate which is more credible.
The first census of 1801 noted that there was a population
of 809 living in East Denton which had
increased marginally to 824 by the time of the second census in 1811. A list of
the workmen’s houses in Denton Colliery, together with the householder’s name
and occupation, was drawn up on January 12th 1808 by the new owners
and this provides a more detailed record. The document lists 117 properties
including the school house and the colliery office; five houses were empty and
110 occupied. Allowing for the possibility that the houses associated with the
six farms on the estate were not included, the figures suggest an occupation
level of about seven people to a dwelling which was not unusual for the period.
The dwellings were scattered throughout the estate in fourteen different
locations the main concentrations being at Denton Square (15 houses), Slatyford (26
houses), Denton
Burn (15 houses) and Scotswood (18 houses). The occupations listed are all
associated with the colliery except the country blacksmith and the five hinds.
However, it is important to remember that the farms were an important adjunct
to the colliery since they produced the feed for the horses which were the
principal source of power both above and below ground. By 1808 the output from
East Denton Colliery was greatly reduced and the nature of the business had
changed: in that year the colliery produced 33,000 tons of which 62% was sold
to the local glasshouses and only 9,000 tons to the seacole trade. The value of
the colliery was only £2,051 in 1808 by which time the Beaumont seam was exhausted and the new
owners were working the Brockwell seam below. This was a smaller enterprise
than Elizabeth Montagu’s colliery: indeed, a large proportion of the workforce,
including nearly all those living at Slatyford, is recorded as working at
Kenton. Interestingly, 13% of the households are headed by widows which is a
reminder that mining was (and still is) a dangerous occupation.
Although the coal trade was dominated by men on Tyneside and
in London, it
would be wrong to assume that women were excluded from business circles. Ladies
of the calibre of Elizabeth Bowes, who had refused to renew Montagu’s contract
for Northbanks Colliery, and Jane Clavering, who defied the might of the Grand
Allies, were not submissive wallflowers in the drawing rooms of their male
counterparts – the Liddells, the Blacketts, the Ridleys and others. Edward
Wortley’s daughter Mary, who eloped to marry the Earl of Bute, was a staunch
defender of the family’s coalmining interests, particularly after the death of
her mother from cancer in 1762. Jane Clavering’s daughter, Alice Windsor,
managed Pontop Colliery which was one of the largest of the period with an
output twice the size of Denton.
Any assessment of Mrs Montagu’s role in the coal trade must be seen in this
context: Elizabeth was doubtless a match for
Walter Blackett, Henry Liddell, Thomas Clavering and their ilk; but she was
neither the first nor the only lady to confront the captains of Newcastle’s coal trade.
From her first visit to Denton
in 1758 to her death in 1800, Mrs Montagu spent in total no more than two years
in the north, but she was served by a very able set of viewers. Furthermore, her
absence should not be overemphasised since the major coalowners all had residences
in London,
where many represented the region as Members of Parliament. The drawing rooms
of Hill Street
and Portman Square,
where Elizabeth Montagu could entertain her business associates Mary Bowes,
Alice Windsor and Mary Stewart, were more influential than Denton Hall.
In 1783, Mrs Montagu wrote ‘I live in a great beehive, and tho’ as the queen bee, I do not work
myself, yet like her Majesty, I have care of the collected treasures’ describing
her life at Denton. The eighteenth century was a time when the collieries were
largely financed from the personal wealth of landed families and their ability
to raise money from the mortgage of their estates. Mrs Montagu understood that
a large outlay of capital was needed to win the colliery before a return was
received through the sale of the coal and that continuous injections of capital
were needed to maintain output. Acting in the role of chief executive of the
enterprise, she would have made the strategic financial decisions. As part of
the management of her treasurers, Elizabeth Montagu’s role was to establish and
protect the brand name of Montagu Colliery for coals – like wine – were marketed
under the name of the estate. This is why in December 1766, shortly after the
winning of Montagu Colliery, she was relieved to receive a letter from
Billingsgate reporting ‘that the first
ships which were then arrived were much approved’ and ‘at Lynne they have also succeeded and these are the two great coal
markets’. Whether she participated in the haggling at the Coal Exchange in London is not known; but certainly she would have
negotiated Denton’s share of the vend from Newcastle with her fellow
owners.
East Denton Hall was surrounded by pits but there is no evidence
that Mrs Montagu ever went near the workplaces of her miners. Although she showed
a maternal interest in the welfare of the workforce, she had little real contact
with the men who made her fortune, whom she regarded as savages. The viewer was
the person responsible for the hiring and direction of the workforce with whom he
was in regular contact both above and below ground. It was men such as Ralph
Allison, Christopher Bedlington and William Thomas who established the ethos of
the colliery and directed its operation. The technical aspects of mining,
including the operation of the waggonway and the staith, were their
responsibility. These viewers would have been appointed by Mrs Montagu to whom
they made regular reports concerning the technical operation of the business
and they provided information upon which financial and commercial decisions
could be made. Her fitter in Newcastle and her
factor in London
would also contribute to this process. During the next century the role of the
mining engineer was to increase in importance, while that of the coalowner was
to diminish, as joint stock mining companies increasingly provided the finance
for mining operations. In the board rooms of these companies there was no place
for the female entrepreneur.
Bibliography
The primary sources upon which this account is based are principally
to be found in the Watson and Buddle collections in the North of England
Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers at Newcastle
upon Tyne. The principal secondary sources are:
Bennett, Clavering, Rounding: A Fighting Trade: Gateshead 1990.
Blunt, R. ed.: Mrs
Montagu ‘Queen of the Blues’: Constable 1923.
Climenson E.J.: Elizabeth
Montagu – The Queen of the Bluestockings: London 1906
Colls and Lancaster ed.: Newcastle upon Tyne: A Modern History: Phillimore 2001
Doran: Lady of the
Last Century: London
1873.
Flynn M.W.: The History of the British Coal Industry Vol.2:
Oxford 1984.
Horsley P.M.: Eighteenth
Century Newcastle: Newcastle
upon Tyne 1971.
Hughes E.: North
Country Life in the Eighteenth Century: Durham 1952.
Thomlinson W.W.: Denton
Hall and its Associations: London
1894.
Turnbull L.: Coals
from Newcastle:
Newcastle upon Tyne 2010.
I am grateful to Jennifer Kelly, Alan Thompson and Dr Eric
Wade for reading the draft of this document and providing valuable comments.
East Denton Hall, the residence of the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle,
in 2010.
