Coal Black Heart (31 page)

The material about Rundell Bridge and Rundell’s appointment as royal goldsmiths comes from Christopher Hartop, “Royal Goldsmiths: The Art of Rundell and Bridge and Its Successors,”
The Magazine Antiques, June
1, 2005.

The extent of Rundell Bridge and Rundell’s operations in the 1820s comes from an entry on Rundell and Bridge Silver on the Georgian Index website (
http://www.georgianindex.net
).

The Duke of York’s “By God I’ll have everything the same at mine” quote comes via Martell, “Early Coal Mining in Nova Scotia,” p. 48.

The quote about his spendthrift ways comes from Maev Kennedy, “Duke’s Silver Service on Show,”
The Guardian,
Nov. 27, 2002.

The information about the Duke’s debts in 1825 comes from Martell, “Early Coal Mining in Nova Scotia,” p. 48.

The story of the Duchess of York approaching Christie’s to sell the Duke’s silver collection is from Eva Czernis-Ryl, “The Duke of York Baskets,” in
World of Antiques & Art,
online edition (
http://www.worldaa.com
).

Information about the state of the British investment world in the 1820s is from Samson, “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association of Nova Scotia, 1825-1842,” p. 5.

The information on the formation of the Columbian Pearl Fishery Association comes from Lovett, “Rundell, Bridge and Rundell—An Early Company History.” p. 160.

The Columbian Pearl Fishery Association’s decision to abandon South America comes from Samson, “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association of Nova Scotia, 1825-1842,” p. 6.

Martell, “Early Coal Mining in Nova Scotia,” p. 48, is my source for information about the Nova Scotia minerals lease.

A copy of the Duke’s lease for the mineral rights of Nova Scotia, signed 11 July 1826, London, by Liverpool, F.J. Robinson and G.C.H. Somerset, by His Majesty’s Command is on file with Nova Scotia Archives.

The analysis of the Duke’s lease swap with Rundell Bridge and Rundell comes from Samson, “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association of Nova Scotia, 1825-1842,” p. 4.

The information about the assessment of Nova Scotia’s mineral wealth conducted for the General Mining Association comes from Brown,
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton,
p. 56.

The description of the GMA’s arrival in Stellarton comes from Cameron,
The
Pictonian Colliers,
pp. 21–25.

The drawing of Smith is found in Cameron,
The Pictonian Colliers,
p. 138.

The biographical information about Smith comes from David Frank’s entry on him in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

The derivation of Albion comes from Cameron,
The Pictonian Colliers,
p. 22.

The early history of Albion Mines comes from Richard,
The Westray Story,
p. 8.

The quote from
One Hundred Years of Solitude
comes from the Harper & Row edition, 1970, p. 233.

The description of Albion Mines circa 1830 is found in Joseph Howe,
Western and Eastern Rambles, Travel Sketches of Nova Scotia,
edited by M.G. Parks (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), pp. 159-167.

Brown’s background in England comes from the Brown Family fonds, on file at the Nova Scotia Archives.

The description of Sydney Mines in 1836 emerges from Brown,
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton and The History of Sydney Mines,
p. 168.

The picture I saw of Richard Brown was in volume 17 of the Nova Scotia Historical Society Collections, 1913, p. 99. The description of his career and the quote from the Canadian mining journal comes from
The History of Sydney Mines,
pp. 19–20.

Brown’s discovery that most of the land in Nova Scotia was already leased comes from Brown,
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton,
p. 57.

The quotes from Smith and Liddell come from Samson, “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association Nova Scotia, 1825-1842,” p. 9.

The information about the GMA’s sweetheart deal come from Marilyn Gerriets, “Impact of the General Mining Association on the Nova Scotia Coal Industry, 1826-1850,” in
Acadiensis,
Autumn 1991, pp. 62-63.

I based much of the summary of the mass migration from Scotland to Cape Breton that follows on Stephen Hornsby’s book
Nineteenth-Century Cape Breton, A Historical Geography
(Montreal and Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992).

I based my musings on Alexander Beaton on correspondence between Beaton and British MP Charles Grant—stamped received June 15, 1830—which includes a list of emigrants on an unnamed ship from Skye who settled in Margaree. It’s found on The Ship’s List (
http://www.theshipslist.com
), an online compendium of ship’s passenger lists to North America, Australia and South Africa. The description of the ship is extrapolated
from Hornsby’s book
Nineteenth Century Cape Breton,
where the quote by the Nova Scotia MLA appears on p. 47.

The information attributed to Gesner comes from Robert Morgan,
Early Cape
Breton from Founding to Famine,
(Wreck Cove, N.S.: Breton Books, 2000), p. 138.

The description of the coal extraction methods of the day come from Hugh Millward, “Mine Locations and the Sequence of Coal Exploitation on the Sydney Coalfield, 1720-1980,” in
Cape Breton at 200, Historical Essays
in Honor of the Island’s Bicentennial 1785–1985,
pp. 191 and 199.

The description of the Sydney Mines and the work conditions there come from Brown,
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton,
pp. 50-54.

I’m indebted to Daniel Samson for an explanation of how the truck system worked.

The Briers biographical material comes from genealogical records, many of them hunted resolutely down by Andrew Alston, who also provided information about the topography of Lancashire.

The information about St. Helens comes from
A Brief History of St. Helens,
published by St. Helens Council and Tim Lambert, “A Brief History of St. Helens” (
http://www.localhistories.org/sthelens.html
)

For the section on the growth of the weaving industry of Lancashire, I’m indebted to Manchester City Council’s website “Spinning the Web: The Story of the Cotton Industry” (
http://www.spinningtheweb.org.uk
).

The information about spinning mills in 1830 comes from John Simkin, “Cotton Industry,” Spartacus Educational online encyclopedia (
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TEXcotton.htm
).

I based much of the description of urban life during the Industrial Revolution upon Andrew Taylor’s entry in “Cottontown,” a web history compiled by
the Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council (
http://www.cottontown.org/page.cfm?pageid=257prepared
).

De Tocqueville’s description of Manchester is quoted in Murray Bookchin,
The Ecology of Freedom, The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy.
(Oakland, Calif.: AK Press, 2005), p. 390.

The quote from Charles Dickens comes from
Hard Times.

The quote from the nobleman visiting Manchester is found in the Mill Workers section of “Spinning the Web: The Story of the Cotton Industry 1760-1820.”

The figures for women working in coal mines comes from Lynne Mayers’s
Bal Maidens and Mining Women
website (
http://www.balmaiden.co.uk/
). The numbers for children come from Simkin, “Cotton Industry”.

The information about compulsory schooling comes from “School Leaving Age May be Raised,” BBC News, Nov. 10, 2006 (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/i/hi/education/6135516.stm
), along with
The Cambridge History of English and
American Literature in 18 Volumes
(1907-21), Volume XIV, The Victorian Age, Part Two.

Peter Gaskell’s description of the cotton mills comes from Gaskell,
The
Manufacturing Population of England,
(London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1833), pp. 161-162.

John Wesley’s view of child labour comes from Carolyn Tuttle, “Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution,”
EH.Net
Encyclopedia (
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tuttle.labor.child.britain
)

The information about the growth in the British coal industry during this period comes from Sidney Pollard, “A New Estimate of British Coal Production 1750-1850,” in
The Economic History Review,
Vol. 33, No. 2 (May 1980), pp. 212-235.

The quadrupling of British coalmines during the 1842-1856 period comes from Freese,
Coal: A Human History,
p. 67.

The growth of the British coal-mining labour forces comes from John Benson,
British Coalminers in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History,
p. 7.

The figure about children in the coal mines comes from Tuttle, “Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution.”

The portrait of life for child miners is gleaned from
The Children’s Employment
Commission of 1842
and Benson,
British Coalminers in the Nineteenth
Century: A Social History.
The quote about the initiation of child miners comes from Benson, the same source, p. 32.

The list of mining tragedies comes from a list compiled by English mining historian Philip Clifford on his website,
www.heroes-of-mine.co.uk
. The information about the death toll being higher for young miners comes from Benson,
British Coalminers in the Nineteenth Century: A
Social History,
p. 38. The list of mining ailments comes from the same source, pp. 40-45.

The number of child miners in 1881 comes from Tuttle, “Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution.”

The description of mining techniques comes from ex-coal miner turned historian Bill Riley’s website,
www.pitwork.net
.

The information on nineteenth-century boozing in colliery towns is culled from Benson,
British Coalminers in the Nineteenth Century,
pp. 142–171.

The figure about illiteracy in nineteenth-century English towns comes from Edwin G. West, “Literacy and the Industrial Revolution,” in
Economic
History Review,
No. 3, August 1978.

The information about the St. Hilda’s colliery band comes from Alan Hindmarch’s entry on the band on the Brass Band Reference website (
http://www.harrogate.co.uk/HARROGATE-BAND/misc22.htm
).

The description of the Parish Church of St. George, Chorley comes from the church’s website (
http://www.marcalcomputing.co.uk/stgeorge
).

Andrew Alston provided information on courtship rituals in eighteenth-century Chorley as well as the descriptions of the pubs during that period.

The information on the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain comes from the online history of the National Union of Mineworkers (
www.num.org.uk
).

The newspaper clippings about the state of the coal industry come from the
Chorley Guardian,
May 10, 1902, p. 7, and June 21, 1902, p. 6.

The biographical information and general summary of Whitney’s career are culled from Donald MacGillivray “Henry Melville Whitney Comes to Cape Breton: The Saga of a Gilded Age Entrepreneur,” in
Acadiensis,
Volume IX, Autumn 1979; MacGillivray’s entry on Whitney in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
and Thomas W. Lawson,
Frenzied Finance: The Crime of Amalgamated.

The description of Whitney’s business organization comes from Thomas W. Lawson,
Frenzied Finance: The Crime of Amalgamated,
p. 151.

My source for the GMA’s deal is Samson, “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association Nova Scotia 1825-1842.”

The 1838 figure on GMA coal production comes from David Frank’s entry on Richard Smith in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
The 1858 figures come from Gray,
The Coal Fields and Coal Industry of Eastern Canada,
Department of Mines and Energy.

I’m indebted to historian Daniel Samson for an advance read of sections of his book
The Spirit of Industry and Improvement: Liberal Government and Rural-Industrial Society, Nova Scotia, 1790–1862
(Montreal and Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), which is my main source about the animus towards the General Mining Association. The information on the GMA’s lease arrangements comes from Samson, “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association Nova Scotia 1825-1842,” p. 18.

Information on how the GMA restricted competition comes from Marilyn Gerriets, “The Impact of the General Mining Association on the Nova Scotia Coal Industry 1826-1850,” p. 74. The quote from John Archibald comes from the same source, p. 72.

The GMA’s decision to hire ships to hunt down coal smugglers—as well as the quote from Matthew Roach—comes from Ian McKay, “The crisis of dependent development: class conflict in the Nova Scotia coalfields, 1872-1876” in
Class, Gender, and Region: Essays in Canadian Historical Sociology
(St. John’s: Committee on Canadian Labour History, 1988).

The figure for the GMA’s annual investment into Nova Scotia comes from Samson, “Industrial Colonization: The Colonial Context of the General Mining Association Nova Scotia 1825-1842,” p. 22.

The notion that the GMA’s investments failed to materialize comes from p. 21 of the same source.

The quote from Cameron about Mount Rundell comes from
The Pictonian Colliers,
p. 24. The information about the renaming of a GMA steamship comes from the same source. p. 28.

David Frank’s
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
entry on Richard Smith refers to the Nova Scotian paper’s statement about his cantankerous nature.