No.4 'Colliers' in the online Kent County Archive Individual analysis - A Frenchman, July 1593

 A Frenchman, 'Dying suddenly at his work' -  July 1593 

Finding No. (copy and paste references into search box) -  P26/1/A/1

" July 1593, burial of a collier dying suddenly at his work, a Frenchman born"

Just a quick post this time, an extract from the Biddenden parish register.

This is another intriguing one that opens more questions than it answers.... firstly though, it is a good indication of the term collier actually meaning a charcoal maker rather than a coal miner: there were no coal mines in Kent in the 1590s so for this unfortunate fellow to die suddenly 'at his work', indicates he was probably making charcoal.

There is no detail of how he died; was he involved in an accident?  I have heard tales of men standing on heaps and the crust giving way for them to plunge into the heap and die a horrible fiery death - not pleasant and the reason I never even put my foot on the side of a heap to reach the top!  Cutting up wood with various sharp objects all day every day is also intrinsically dangerous of course so the list of methods of death is potentially quite long. If you are really interested in this kind of thing check out the 'Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England' Project... seriously it is proper research.

He is also not named, but there are plenty of other individuals interred on the same register that are not named - too poor or no family to be able to find it out?

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this entry is the fact that he was a 'Frenchman born'. Kent had a large population of immigrants from the Low Countries in this period, who were fleeing religious persecution but, I have yet to find a large French refugee population. Was this individual a collier that had emigrated with his occupation or had he been forced into it through poverty? Or indeed was he an infant when he came England?  Sadly, we will never know.  

He was probably a protestant to be buried in the Parish Church but, again we just don't know.

Well rest in Peace Monsieur, whoever you were?

No.3 'Colliers' in the online Kent County Archive Individual analysis - Richard Vynton of Tonbridge, 17 October 1594

Richard Vynton of Tonbridge, Collier -  "Gun Founder” – 17 October 1594 

Finding No. (copy and paste references into search box) -  QM/SRc/1594/77

"Richard Vynton of Tonbridge, collier, in £5, to appear, answer and to be of good behaviour; sureties, John Denton and John Turner of Speldhurst, gun founder."

This case is surprisingly the only collier, in the Kent archive, that I can directly link to the booming iron industry that was happening in the Sussex, Surrey and Kent Weald at the time.

The process of making iron was a heavy consumer of charcoal: it wasn't until the early 18th century that coke was invented as a fuel for furnaces.  According to Hammersley in the article "The Charcoal Iron Industry and Its Fuel, 1540-1750"1 to produce one ton of bar iron took 13.5 loads of charcoal in the 1590s at the Middleton and Oakamoor furnaces (Hammersley, table 2, page 604).  A load was a waggon loaded with twelve sacks of charcoal.  Hammersley estimates that a load of charcoal was made of around 300 cubic feet of solid wood, so that is 4050 cubic feet of wood per ton of iron produced.  He goes on to state that by the end of the sixteenth century the annual output of a Wealden furnace was around 200 tons (Hammersley, Page 600), that is a whopping 81,000 cubic feet of wood converted to charcoal per annum... and that is just one of the 50 blast furnaces in Weald in the 1590s. (Hammersley, Table 1, Page. 595).

Getting back to out collier Richard Vynton, a quick search online took me to the 'Wealden Iron Research Group' (www.wirgdata.org) that links Richard's Surety 'John Turner of Speldhurst, gun founder' with the Barden Furnace and Forge (this is the only furnace in the Parish of Speldhurst). See http://www.wirgdata.org/printpro.cgi?personid=565
  

The furnace operated from 1574 until 1761, and there is evidence that guns were being founded from 1588-89.  see http://www.wirgdata.org/searchpro2.cgi?personid=73

Whether Richard worked directly for the Furnace  we don't know but, even if he was not directly employed the quantity of charcoal required would have kept him busy, though not busy enough to stop him getting into trouble and having "appear, answer and to be of good behaviour" at the West Kent Quarter sessions.

The Wealden Iron research Group's website is well worth a browse, I particularly like this modern artist's cross section illustration of a blast furnace and gun foundry in operation. 

Illustration from http://www.wealdeniron.org.uk/hist.htm

Notes and Sources:

1:  The Charcoal Iron Industry and Its Fuel, 1540-1750 by  G. Hammersley, available to read for free online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2593700

No.2 'Colliers' in the online Kent County Archive Individual analysis - Walter Dawes of Broadgate, 30 June 1594

Walter Dawes of Broadgate, Collier “for goyng away from his Captian.” – 30 June 1594

Finding No. (copy and paste references into search box) - QM/SRc/1594/12

This case is an interesting one, for me,  as it crosses over into my other passion for the era: military History.  

It would appear Walter had been recruited for service in Brittany but, was somewhat reluctant to go.  I am pretty certain he was on his way to Brittany because of  the very helpful (and free to download) article “Levies from Kent to the Elizabethan Wars(1589—1603)” by J.J.N. McGurk in Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 88  1973.

So what was going on in Brittany in 1594 that involved sending English troops? Well, it was quite complicated but, put simply: the English Government decided to back the Protestant French King Henry IV in fighting Catholic rebels to secure the English Channel ports; the main reason being the Catholic Rebels were allied to Spain and Spanish troops were roving northern France with an eye on securing Brest, or some other deep water port, to act as a spring board for another Armada attempt on England.  The ‘Invincible Armada’ had of course failed in its task back in 1588, but at least half of the ships made it back to Spain and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma's Spanish Army of Flanders (that was meant to link up with the fleet and invade South East England) was unaffected by the defeat; so the threat was a real one, in fact two other Armadas did leave Spain to try and invade England, in 1596 and 1597, but both were defeated by the weather.  So in 1594 there was a very real threat of Spanish domination of the French Channel coast and the disastrous implications for England. 

Kent was one of the ‘front line’ counties and due to the departure points for expeditions to France often being in Gravesend or Dover, it made sense to recruit in county to lessen the cost of transporting troops to the departure point.  

It would appear Walter was part of the contingent, recruited in 1594,  who  “…had such a long delay in Gravesend  that many absconded from the Captain’s charge; fifteen of their names were sent to the council which then ordered Sir John Leveson and Sir Thomas Scott to have these men traced and imprisoned[1].”  Sadly the list of the 15 men is not available online to confirm he was one of them.   

It is worth noting that Walter lived a stone’s throw from North Foreland, known as ‘El cabo de Margat’ by the Spanish at the time, which was the location that appears in the instructions given to Parma and Santa Cruz, by King Philip in 1587, as the place for the Armada to anchor and wait for Parma’s army to ferry across to invade[2].  Maybe Walter would have been keener to take up arms if he realised how close Broadstairs came to becoming the front line landing beach for the Spanish invasion back in 1588, or maybe he felt, for this reason, he would rather defend his home rather than fight  across the channel?

Perhaps he was just a reluctant conscript who didn't want to be a soldier anywhere. He sounds like one of 'the very poor sort of men he was about to bring over to him out of Kent'[3], as complained about around this time by Captain Morton to Sir John Norris, leader of the expedition. It was also not unknown, at the time, to use the 'press' for foreign service as a means to rid parishes of undesirables.  Maybe Walter the collier was one of these[4]? 

"The Siege of Rouen 1591", by Frans Hogenberg, 1591 - 1593. English troops (in Normandy) fighting alongside French Royalists. 

Print available to download from the Rijksmuseum

 

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[1] “Leviesfrom Kent to the Elizabethan Wars (1589—1603)” by J.J.N. McGurk in Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 88  1973.  P. 67

[2] C. Martin and G. Parker, The Spanish Armada, 1988, p.284.

[3] McGurk, P.67

[4] For  the practice of conscription for 'social cleansing' see "A survey of the demands made on the

 Welsh shires to supply soldiers for the Irish War 1594-1602" by J.J.N. McGurk. (1983 PP.56-57

No.1 'Colliers' in the online Kent County Archive Individual analysis - James Ansley of Bromley, 1606

James Ansley of Bromley, collier– “To keep the peace” – July to August 1606

Finding Nos (copy and paste references into search box) -  QM/SRc/1606/162, QM/SRc/1606/207, QM/SRc/1606/208

James seems to have had an ongoing dispute with the Arthur and William Wright, both labourers,  also of Bromley; it starts with James being subject to a recognizance to Keep the peace on 7th July 1606, Just over a month later on the 11th August both William and Arthur Wright have a recognizance against them to ‘keep the peace towards James Ansley’.  

It would seem there was no love lost between James and the Wrights.  

The most interesting aspect of James’ appearance in the records is that he is described as Collier in the original July entry and also in one of the two entries for the 11th August but, in the second is described as a labourer.  This is on the same day in the same court.  This may point to the fluid nature of being a collier: perhaps James had to supplement his charcoal making with other general labouring?  Or, the clerk of the court could have been a bit sloppy in recording occupations, as one would assume it is the same magistrate and recording staff sitting?  

There is a clue to the potential dual career possibility in the late Jos Kingston’s amazing analysis of Norton (Sheffield) ‘Life & Death in Elizabethan Norton’ at http://www.joskingston.org/LDEN/CHAP3.html#Item8 (scroll down to Charcoal Makers).  In this she finds Colliers who are recorded in official documents as both Husbandmen and a Charcoal Makers. 

'Colliers' in the online Kent County Archive

Whilst reading 'Industry in the Countryside: Wealden Society in the Sixteenth Century' by Michael Zell a footnote indicated to me sources on colliers in the Kent County Archive based in Maidstone [1].    

A quick search  of their online archive for 'collier' revealed thirty seven mentions of colliers in court cases in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

The earliest record is dated September 1592 and I have included entries up too August 1612 which isn’t technically Elizabethan but, it’s good stuff so it’s in there.

They are for the most part, from WEST KENT QUARTER SESSIONS RECORDS which were ‘found at Maidstone Museum in 1964’.

To speed up publication, I have decided to drip feed my analysis of the results: each blog entry will look at an individual mentioned in the archive going forward.

So what is a collier?

Before I start we need to address the term collier: what makes me so sure that these ‘colliers’ are charcoal makers and not coal miners? Well to be honest cannot say for certain; however, I think it is much more likely they are charcoal makers rather than coal miner for a number of reasons: 

Firstly, in this period there were no coal mines in Kent (the later Kent coal fields were not discovered until the 1890s) so the chances of coal mining colliers living around Kent would be very slight.  

Secondly, I have yet to find a contemporary source that refers to 'Charcoal Makers' as such: they refer to 'colliers' or sometimes 'woodcolliers'[2]. 

Thirdly, there are hints in the sources themselves.  The case of ‘William Mountfield of Bedhurst, collier’ is for the offence of taking ‘rewards’ from various individuals to ‘relieve them of the burden of providing charcoal for the royal household under colour of being deputy to John Roar, Purveyor’.  This is the only direct reference to charcoal in the cases examined and although it does not prove his trade was making charcoal it certainly gives a strong link.  Another clue is the record of the burial in July 1593 ‘of a collier dying suddenly at his work’, if this man was a coal miner he wouldn’t be at his work in Kent to be buried there.  I am confident that colliers referred to here are charcoal makers, and as I find more evidence of colliers being charcoal makers I will post them.

Number of individual Colliers mentioned:

Entries can be roughly broken down into:

• 17 colliers being accused of a crime
• 9 colliers acting as Sureties for others
• 2 colliers being the victim of a crime
• 3 colliers mentioned for other reasons

A very rough initial analysis seems to indicate colliers were more often on the wrong side of the law than not.

As I have already said for the foreseeable future my posts will be an analysis of these individuals in more detail in no particular order

Notes on legal Terms used in sources defined by the OED:

1. Indictment - a formal charge or accusation of a crime.
2. Recognisance - a bond by which a person undertakes before a court or magistrate to observer a particular condition, e.g. to appear when summoned.
3. Surety - a person who takes responsibility for another’s undertaking.

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[1] See my previous blog entry: http://tudorwoodcollier.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-snippet-from-page-168-of-industry-in.html

[2] For example, Ulpian Fulwell’s sixteenth century play, Like will to like, has a character Tom Collier of Croydon, a well-known charcoal making area to feed London’s need for fuel, Colliers Wood being a nearby south London suburb that bears witness to the areas past.

Fellow (1620s) Wood Colliers in the USA

I recently discovered another fantastic blog written by Rick McKee, a traditional Carpenter from New England, who last week blogged about the traditional Charcoal burn at the Plimoth Plantation museum in Massachusetts.  

https://www.plimoth.org/

The museum recreates life in Plimoth in the 1620s,  so it's charcoal burn is very relevant to our charcoal making as it might have been in 1599. 

I emailed Rick and he has put me in contact with Mark the lead Collier (and a blacksmith at Plimoth) who has had 22 years of charcoal making! Needless to say I am now going to ask Mark soooo many questions about how they do it over there!

I REALLY recommend checking out Rick's blog especially his charcoal entry from 17 September 2015

https://blueoakblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/kind-of-coal/

Glimpses of Colliers in the record - Bristol

This post is a short analysis of the brief mentions of 'Colliers' in Bristol Record Society's Publications Volume XLIV: TUDOR WILLS PROVED IN BRISTOL 1546 - 1603.

There are  one hundred and ninety-two wills transcribed in the book, and perhaps not unsurprisingly, only two mention Colliers: one as a benefactor of a will and the other the will of the Collier himself.

The wills:

[Will] 67   MARGARET JOONS, widow, [St Thomas], (23 November 1597).
Testatrix’s debts 23 November 1597: 

to Margery 10s 

to Mistress Pr[e]wett 8s 

to Mary Hill 2s 

to Robert Stevens 3s 9d 

to Richard Stevens 3s 4d 

to “bucher the collier” 3s 

to John Cooke 1s 4d 

to Richard Lentorn 1s 

to Robert Humphery 4s

Sick of body. Soul “to the hands of god my creator & to Jesus Christ my savior.” To be buried in the churchyard of St. Thomas. 

                Executrix Alice Maisy her Servant 

Overseers: John Grigg and Thomas Prestwood. 

Memorandum: “William Weall hath a ceverlett in pane [pawn] for v s”

[Will] 151  EDWARD AVERY, collier, St.Philip, 7 December 1600, nuncupative, proved 19 November 1601. 

Soul to almighty God, body to be buried in St. Philip’s churchyard. 

                To daughter Fortune £3 which his brother-in-law Thomas Brewer owes him, one ewe and one lamb. 

                Residue to wife Alice, executrix. 

Witnesses: Mr. Thomas Baynard, William Maynard, John Avery of St. Philip’s.

Analysis:

MARGARET JOONS

“Bucher the collier” is the only benefactor referred to by his trade and it is in inverted commas;  I suspect this is reflecting Margaret's exact words of who she owes money to and only knew Bucher by his trade rather than Given name?  This implies, to me at least, a less than personal relationship and the debt may well be for charcoal supplied for her domestic use?  Jumping a bit to conclusions there, I know, but not a lot to analyse really... 

EDWARD AVERY

This will is nuncupative, i.e. spoken not written; this could perhaps reflect the will of an illiterate man?  Also, it took over eleven months to be proved, but looking through the book at other wills this does not seem uncommon and may reflect the legal process rather than anything unusual in Edward's will or estate that would cause delay?  

The frustrating aspect to this will is it's brevity: he leaves his (beautifully named) daughter, Fortune, £3, a ewe and a lamb then the "Residue" to his wife.  This might be illustrating he was a man of few processions or maybe he had too many to list, and as they were all going to his wife why bother listing them?  The word residue, implies a small amount, but it is impossible to know.  There is no mention of a house or chattels, but I am guessing he had land or at least grazing rights to own (at least) a Ewe and a lamb?

His brother in law owes him a fair amount of money at £3 - a sack of charcoal sells at 8d (ish) in period - so £3 is 90 bags of charcoal... a good amount of work to produce this kind of capital  to loan to anyone.  This perhaps reflects that Avery had more interests than just charcoal making to have that kind of money to be owed him? Perhaps he was a small time husbandman too? St Phillips, his parish of residence was 'outside the walls'  and rather nicely the Braun & Hogensburg map of Bristol, published 1581, shows plenty of sheep grazing around the city. I have highlighted St Philip's on the map below to show it's 'rural' nature.

Map from http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/british_isles/bristol/maps/braun_hogenberg_III_2.html

So all in all I seem to have raised more unanswerable questions than anything else, but that's historical research for you.