In 1712, a Newcomen steam pumping engine began to operate at the Coneygree coal mine and the first commercial steam engine built by Boulton and Watt began pumping water from Bentley and Company’s Bloomfield Colliery in 1776.

There was a huge demand for coal to fuel the local iron works and so large numbers of coal mines operated in, and around the area. Some of the blast furnaces consumed 600 tons of coal per week. Mine spoil heaps became a common sight. By 1835 the annual rent for coal mining land was around £1,000 an acre.

Beginnings

The mineral rights belonged to the Lord of the Manor and anyone wishing to dig for coal had to acquire a copyhold, which was a legal document obtained via the courts. Such surviving documents provide evidence for early mining in the area. In 1272, a survey of the manor of Dudley, makes reference four pits of sea coal that were worth four pounds annually. It is thought that they were in Woodsetton.

Many coal mines opened in the area. By the early 17th century, licences to dig for ‘sea coal’ had been granted by the lord of the manor to pits at Woodcross, Cinder Hill, and Woodsetton. It seems that by that time, Cinder Hill and Woodcross were already centres of a small mining industry. In 1613 a licence to dig coal at Coseley, was granted to William Persehouse, at ‘Smythie Crofte’, ‘The Leys’, and at ‘Crosses’. Another local resident, John Birche, obtained a licence to dig for coal in ‘Woodcrosse’, Ettingshall. Roger Hickmans had a licence to dig for coal in ‘Ettingshall Over Field’.

In 1686, Doctor Plot wrote about the local coal deposits in his ‘Natural History of Staffordshire’, describing the ‘fat shining coal’ that was to be found in parts of Coseley.

Coseley’s coal mines greatly benefited from the opening of the canal, which had been built to enable the easy and cheap transportation of coal to Birmingham, to supply the many industries there. The building of local railways in the 1850s also helped the local mining industry, but to a lesser extent.

An early account book in Dudley Archives has the following entry:

At this time, the canal had not yet reached Coseley, so the coal must have been loaded at Bloomfield or Bilston.

Later Years

In the 1870s things started to go wrong. A depression in the iron trade led to a fall in the price of coal, which in turn led to the closure of many mines. A long strike took place in the coalfield, during which labour was withdrawn. Pumping engines were not operated, and many mines flooded. In 1870 it was estimated that around 150 million tons of coal and 20 million tons of iron ore were under water in South Staffordshire.

Some mine owners would not use a pumping engine because they were also draining their neighbour’s pit at their own expense. Pumping also altered surface drainage, because the water was run into streams, which percolated back into the mines.

A petition to Parliament led to the South Staffordshire Drainage Act of 1873. Under the terms of the act, a Board of Commissioners was created to raise money to fund pumping operations. A rate of one penny per ton of coal, slack, and fire clay was levied on the mine owners, but initially little progress was made. In 1878 greater powers were granted to the commissioners. During the next 10 years, £100,000 was spent on pumping water out of the deeper mines. In 1886 the levy was raised to nine pence per ton of coal, slack and iron ore, three pence per ton of fire clay, with an addition of one penny per ton for surface drainage. Water courses were straightened, and made watertight by puddling the beds with clay.

The Mines Drainage Commission opened a pumping station off Moat Road, Summer Hill, on part of the Moat Colliery site. It was powered by a large beam engine that could pump water from a depth of 620 feet. The engine operated between 1893 and 1902 and raised over 7.3 billion gallons of water during that time.  The operation cost over £2,500 annually, but in spite of all the efforts, the drainage problem was never solved. The Commission was largely ineffective.

In 1890 the Mines Drainage Commission wanted to know if it was still worth draining mines in the South Staffordshire Coalfield and so contacted mine owners to ask for an estimate of the quantity of workable coal still in the ground. The results showed that in the local area alone, around 43 million tons of workable coal and ironstone were still in the ground. By that time coal production had fallen to half of what it was in 1874, and around £75,000 would be required to completely drain the deep pits in the area.

By 1896 most of the local collieries had closed, although a few of the larger ones remained, bringing the total mining workforce to 1,332. By this time, most of the easily workable coal had gone, and a coal strike for higher wages in 1912 resulted in the closure of many of the remaining pits. The few that survived had all closed by the late 1930s.

As well as coal, there were deposits of ironstone and limestone that led to formation of the local iron industry. There were also numerous clay deposits that led to the formation of many brick works. In 1851 there were the following brick makers: James Bates, Edward Cartwright, George Church, Job Elwell, and Benjamin Gibbons. In 1912, Isaac Hughes made bricks at Cinder Hill. Thanks to the local deposits of fire clay, there were also the following makers of fire bricks: Thomas Hinton, Benjamin Johnson, John Mellard, and William Waterfield. In 1912 William Mobberly was producing fire bricks in Upper Ettingshall Road.

There were also local cement manufacturers using the local limestone deposits. In 1912 cement was being produced by the Deepfield Company, run by James Hill.