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Coal mining in Scotland includes all deep and open cast mining since early production in the later Middle Ages to the present day.

Beginnings

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Effigy of George Bruce of Carnock, who pioneered coal mining in Scotland

Scotland has abundant coal fields, particularly in the Central Belt and Ayrshire. In the late Middle Ages coal was one of the major exported raw materials to the continent.[1] From the mid-sixteenth century, Scotland experienced a decline in demand for exports of cloth and wool to the continent. Scots responded by selling larger quantities of traditional goods, increasing the output of salt, herring and coal.[2] George Bruce used German techniques to solve the drainage problems of his coal mine at Culross.[3]

Industrialisation

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The headgear at Francis Colliery, Fife

Coal mining became a major industry, and continued to grow into the twentieth century, producing the fuel to smelt iron, heat homes and factories and drive steam engines locomotives and steamships. Coal mining expanded rapidly in the eighteenth century, reaching 700,000 tons a year by 1750. Most coal was in five fields across the Central Belt. The first Newcomen Steam Engine was introduced into a Scottish colliery in 1719, but water remained the most important source of power for most of the century. With increased demand for household fuel from a growing urban population and the emerging demands of heavy industry, production grew from an estimated 1 million tons a year in 1775, to 3 million by 1830.[4] Production almost doubled by the 1840s and peaked in 1914 at about 42 million tons a year.[5]

Initially increased production was made possible by the introduction of cheap labour, provided from the 1830s by large numbers of Irish immigrants.[6] There were then changes in mining practices, which included the introduction of blasting powder in the 1850s and the use of mechanised methods of transferring the coal to the surface,[7] along with the introduction of steam power in the 1870s.[6] Landed proprietors were replaced by profit-seeking leasehold partnerships and joint-stock companies, whose members were often involved in the emerging iron industry.[4] By 1914 there were a million coal miners in Scotland. The stereotype emerged early on of Scottish colliers as brutish, non-religious and socially isolated serfs;[8] that was an exaggeration, for their life style resembled coal miners everywhere, with a strong emphasis on masculinity, egalitarianism, group solidarity, and support for radical labour movements.[9]

Map of the Monkland Railways and surrounding lines in 1848

The invention of James Beaumont Neilson's hot blast process for smelting iron in 1828 revolutionised the Scottish iron industry, allowing abundant native blackstone iron ore to be smelted with ordinary coal.[10] In 1830 Scotland had 27 iron furnaces and by 1840 it was 70, 143 in 1850 and it peaked at 171 in 1860.[11] Output was over 2,500,000 tons of iron ore in 1857, 6.5 per cent of UK output. Output of pig iron rose from 797,000 tons in 1854 to peak at 1,206,00 in 1869.[12] As a result, Scotland became a centre for engineering, shipbuilding and the production of locomotives.[13]

Britain was the world leader in the construction of railways, and their use to expand trade and coal supplies. The first successful locomotive-powered line in Scotland, between Monkland and Kirkintilloch, opened in 1826. By the late 1830s there was a network of railways that included lines between Dundee and Arbroath, and connecting Glasgow, Paisley and Ayr. The line between Glasgow and Edinburgh, largely designed for passenger transport, opened in 1842 and proved highly successful. By the mid-1840s the mania for railways had begun.[14] A good passenger service established by the late 1840s, and a network of freight lines reduced the cost of shipping coal, making products manufactured in Scotland competitive throughout Britain.[15]

Decline

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In the 1930s Scottish industry came out of the depression slump by a dramatic expansion of its industrial activity, absorbing unemployed men and many women as well. The shipyards were the centre of more activity, but many smaller industries produced the machinery needed by the British bombers, tanks and warships.[16] Agriculture prospered, as did all sectors except for coal mining, which was operating mines near exhaustion.[17]

There were 26 opencast sites in 2014, mainly in Scotland.[18] British coal mines achieve the most economically produced coal in Europe, with a level of productivity of 3,200 tonnes per man year.[19]


Major coalfields

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Notes

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  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wormald1991pp41-55 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ C. A. Whatley, Scottish Society, 1707–1830: Beyond Jacobitism, Towards Industrialisation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), ISBN 071904541X, p. 17.
  3. ^ J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), ISBN 0748602763, pp. 172–3.
  4. ^ a b I. D. Whyte, "Economy: primary sector: 1 industry to 1770s", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ISBN 0-19-211696-7, pp. 211–12.
  5. ^ C. A. Whatley, "Economy: primary sector: 3 mining and quarrying", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ISBN 0-19-211696-7, pp. 208–9.
  6. ^ a b M. Lynch, Scotland: A New History (London: Pimlico, 1992), ISBN 0-7126-9893-0, p. 408.
  7. ^ W. Knox, Industrial Nation: Work, Culture and Society in Scotland, 1800–present (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Series, 1999), ISBN 0748610855, p. 105.
  8. ^ C. A. Whatley, "Scottish 'collier serfs', British coal workers? Aspects of Scottish collier society in the eighteenth century", Labour History Review, Fall 1995, vol. 60 (2), pp. 66–79.
  9. ^ A. Campbell, The Scottish Miners, 1874–1939 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), ISBN 0-7546-0191-9.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Finley2001pp198-9 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lynch1992p407 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ O. Checkland and S. Checkland, Industry and Ethos: Scotland 1832–1914 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2nd ed., 1989), ISBN 0748601023, pp. 24–5.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference A. Whatley, 1997 p. 51 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ M. Lynch, Scotland: A New History (London: Pimlico, 1992), ISBN 0-7126-9893-0, p. 410.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference ChecklandandCheckland1989pp17-52 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference Buchanan2003p51 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ T. M. Devine, The Scottish Nation, 1700–2000 (London: Penguin Books, 2001), ISBN 0-14-100234-4, pp. 549–50.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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