Coal Power

Before the Industrial Revolution, many nations considered energy a high priority only when they were at war. For modest domestic needs, these societies relied upon charcoal, the source of energy widely used before the 19th century.

If, however, we take a closer look at Britain at the time, we see that this small island had few forests, but it did have large colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The country was also almost always at war with France between 1756 and 1815. Britain’s economy was expanding rapidly, and its young but successful cotton industry demanded power. Its growing population also needed fuel, and its military effort would have been impossible without iron, whose production required large amounts of energy.

An Underground Resource

Britain turned to its underground, which was rich in coal. In fact, ever since the 16th century, mining had been expanding to satisfy the ever-increasing domestic demands. Although primitive by today’s standards, mining did, at the time, qualify as an industry, mainly because of its immense (for that time!) output. By 1800, Britain was producing 10 million tons of coal per year. This was 90 percent of the global output. It is difficult to imagine this amount of coal being produced by part-time miners armed with shovel-like tools scraping it off the surface.

As the need for coal increased, more mines were opened and more miners were forced to venture deeper and deeper down shafts that reached depths of around 1,000 feet. As these mines were below the water table, they were prone to flooding. The traditional way of removing the water using buckets soon proved impractical, and the problem of flooding became acute. In addition, collapsing shafts, lack of air circulation, and the presence of explosive gases all made mining extremely dangerous.

‘Firedamp’ and ‘Skindamp’

It was believed that air circulation could be improved by burning gases and setting off explosions — a dangerous procedure, to be sure. In fact, the only safety measure taken was the shouting of “Squat, lads!” by the miners. The belief was that they could avoid the blast by lying as close to the mine floor as possible. The explosive gases, which were mostly methane, were known as “firedamp,” even though they have nothing to do with dampness. Actually, “damp” was just the Anglicized version of the German word for “vapor” — Dampf. It was a term used by the Germans who came to work in the British mines as early as the 17th century.

Another gas that accumulated in the coal seams was hydrogen sulphide. Miners called it “skindamp” because, when a seam was perforated, it would release a “rotten egg” smell. In mining talk, such pressurized gases were referred to as “bags of foulness.”

Here Comes Steam

Many of these problems, however, were soon to be overcome. By 1712, Newcomen steam engines had started pumping the water from the shafts, making mining a much more efficient operation. In 1816, the safety lamp was invented by George Stephenson, who was the son of a miner and who came to be known as the “father of railway.” Another version was invented independently by Sir Humphrey Davy.

A much-improved steam engine invented by James Watt was introduced in the 1770s. It allowed more water to be pumped out more efficiently. In addition, its fuel consumption was about one third that of the Newcomen engine.

Meet the ‘Child of the Mine’

As greater amounts of coal were extracted from deeper shafts, it became necessary to develop a system that would quickly take away the coal accumulating on the surface. Improved moving engines were used to pull trucks loaded with coal to the cotton mills. Thus, the railway, considered the “child of the mine,” was born. But this was not all.

The need in the coal industry for better steam engines led to engines being adapted to new applications. Among these uses were cotton spinning, power looms, washing machines for the wool industry, rotary presses used for printing, and bellows for blast furnaces for the metallurgical industry. When cast iron started to be used for machine frames in the early 1900s, new levels of precision in metal cutting were reached. Gears and axles that traditionally had been made of wood were now replaced by strong, machine-cut iron parts.

With the advent of wrought iron, the metallurgical industry took off. Soon, iron became the symbol of anything industrial from train tracks, to bridges, and to train stations that spread across the continents. The railway network grew at unimaginable rates, with the first line opening in the United States in 1827. Just two years earlier, the railway had achieved great success in Britain. Rail lines opened in France in 1828; in Germany and Belgium, in 1835; and in Russia, in 1837.

No Rest for Workers

The rapid expansion of the railway system meant that British miners had to work harder and faster. Indeed, coal production between 1830 and 1850 more than tripled from 15 million tons to 49 million tons per year. Meanwhile, British engineers crisscrossed Europe, supervising the new lines under construction in a “railway mania” that swept Europe between 1835 and 1837 and then again between 1844 and 1847.

As connections and interactions between continents grew, the demand for manufactured goods increased and diversified. The result was mass production, much of which was centered in Britain. In time, the country came to be seen as the “workshop of the world” — with its success and power due, in great part, to humble coal.