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June, 1939

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There is little doubt that the origin of railway track for the exclusive use of vehicles with flanged wheels is to be found in mediæval German mining practice, and the evidence which recent research has revealed of what was being done in Central Europe in the sixteenth century formed the subject of an article which the present writer had the privilege of contributing to COLLIERY ENGINEERING for July, 1938. On the other hand, when railways were adopted for use in connection with British mines both track and vehicles were developed so extensively that the mining wagon-way in its improved form as widely used in the eighteenth century in the Co. Durham mining areas was accepted in certain parts of the Continent as an English device, and when it was introduced into the Ruhr district at the end of the eighteenth century it was referred to as an englischer Kohienweg.¹

So far it has proved impossible to fix with any great precision the date on which mineral railways were first adopted in England. One of the difficulties experienced in examining early documents is that of terminology, for the word railway was comparatively a late-comer and although rails are referred to in very early years, the term for a line of rails was a "waggon-way." "Tramway" and "tram-road" are not words of great antiquity (contrary to popular impression), although "tram" is. Probably the earliest use of the word "tram" in connection with a highway is to be found in the will made by Ambrose Middleton, of Skirwith (County of Cumberland) and Barnard Castle (County Durham), dated August 5, 1555, ² which provided "To the amendinge of the highway or tram from the Weste ende of Bridgegait in Barnard Castle 20s." On more than one occasion this has been quoted as an early reference to a railway, but failing more definite evidence than is known to the present writer to exist, the reference should be interpreted with caution, especially as the word "tram" is used as the alternative to highway. In old Scandinavian traam or trum meant a beam of wood, and as such came into the English language, especially in the North. Equivalent words for a beam in other Teutonic languages were the Low German Traam, old High German Dram, and old Dutch Drom; and in Latin trabes. It has been suggested that the derivation of tramroad may be found in the Latin trames, a bypath, footpath, or road (see "Aeneid vi. 676: Et facili vos tramite sistam), but the way in which the word came into use in England indicates that this origin, though plausible, is improbable.

A Scottish legal decision of 1601 refers to the "tram or beam of the gibbet." This is an interesting mention of the word tram, as it is clearly shown as an accepted term in the North meaning a beam., As it is not until two centuries later that we find the word tram used to mean a railway, we are perhaps on safer ground in assuming that the Middleton will of 1555 referred to a log road. In its old meaning of a beam, the word "tram" became associated with mining transport as the name for a rectangular frame on which baskets ot coal were conveyed. At first it was probably carried by bearers; then dragged like a sledge; and afterwards provided with low wheels on which to run. As mining vehicles "trammys" are mentioned in 1516-17 (Durham Acc. Rolls — Surtees), and trains in 1585 (Wills and Inv.N.C. — Surtees — II). I would emphasise, however, that there appears to be no evidence of the combination of the word "tram" with "way" or "road" until the late years of the eighteenth century.

First-known railway in England

It is in the closing years of the sixteenth century that we find our first definite reference to rail transport in this country. Manuscripts preserved by Lord Middleton at Wollaton Hall (near Nottingham) were recorded by the Historical Manuscripts Commission in 1911, and among them is a contemporary week-by-week coal account for the period from October 1597, to October 1598, which refers to "railes" and implies that in 1597 there was a wagonway from the pits at Wollaton (Bilborough) to the River Trent, a distance of about two miles. Some writers have expressed doubt as to whether it is justifiable to accept even this reference because of its vagueness, but the matter is made almost certain by other manuscripts at Wollaton Hall. One dated June 15, 1609, refers to the delivery of coal "at the new rayles end," and another dated May 1, 1610, is a letter which says "I beseeche you take order with Sir Thomas [Beaumont] that we mai have libertie to bring coales down the rayles by wagen for our cariadges onely, and we will bring them down by raile ourselves, for Strelley cartway is so fowle as few cariadges can pass." This letter was written by Robert Fosbrooke, a Midland coal dealer who had contracted to market the output of Sir Percival Willoughby's colliery at Wollaton. Sir Thomas Beaumont, who was knighted in 1603 and died in 1614, was financially interested in the Strelley and Bilborough mines, as was also the eldest brother, Sir Henry.

Huntingdon Beaumont seems to have been the common factor in the introduction of wagon-ways both in the Nottinghamshire and the Northumberland coalfields, and it is probable that he was responsible for this development. The manor of Coleorton in Leicestershire had belonged to the Beaumont family at least since the beginning of the fifteenth century, and the Coleorton coal mines seem to have been the most important in the county during the time of Queen Elizabeth. In 1586 Colerton colliery was in the hands of Sir Henry Beaumont, and Huntingdon (a younger brother) went outside the family estates to find an outlet for his energies. He was a friend of the Willoughby's of Wollaton, and probably played a part in the development of the neighbouring Strelley and Bilborough mines. Sir Phillip Strelley appears to have leased to the Byrons (a family of Lancashire coalowners) his manors of Strelley and Bilborough for the nominal sum of £20 per annum for 21 years from May 16, 1597, and this seems to have been the beginning of progressive management and rail transport there. The Byrons sold the remaining 15 years of their lease to Huntingdon Beaumont³ on October 2, 1603, for £4,000, and he took up residence at Bilborough. The enormous increase in the value of the lease shows clear evidence of considerable development within six years, for much of which the wagon-way was doubtless responsible, and as the Byrons seem to have taken very little interest in the property, it is a fair assumption that Beaumont inspired the introduction of modern methods even before he bought the lease.

We next find traces of Beaumont's activities in Northumberland in the neighbourhood of the River Blyth. In 1595 Peter Delaval, a London merchant, obtained from the Crown a lease of mines in the coalfields of Cowpen and Bebside, near Bedlington, but the enterprise failed. The lease was taken over by a Midland group that also failed to make the mines pay, and on September 9, 1605, Huntingdon Beaumont (described as "of Bilborough") with four London merchants bought for £374 3s. 4d. the remaining years of the lease and during the next few years spent⁴ upwards of £6,000 on equipment. Nevertheless the venture did not succeed, and about 1614 the Midland lessees abandoned the works, having lost large sums of money and incurred heavy obligation for the future as well. Among the plant and material they left on the ground was a railway, 500 yards long, running between the coal pits and the salt pans, near the sea, at the mouth of the River Blyth — a railway which was built during their term of occupation. The records in the Crown Mines Office show that after Beaumont and his partners left the place, Peter Delavel, one of the original lessees, entered the works and carried off "all the said rayles set upon the land and ground of Bebside for 500 paces in the wagonway on both sides of the way."

In Gray's famous account⁵ of the Newcastle coal trade, published in 1649, it was stated "Many thousand people are employed in this trade of coales; many live by conveying them in waggons and waines to the river Tyne . . ." The same work said "Some South gentlemen hath, upon great losse of benefit, come into this country to hazard their monies in coale pits. Master Beaumont, a gentlemean of great ingenuity and rare parts, adventured into our mines with his £30,000, who brought with him many rare engines not known then in those parts, as the art to boore with iron rodds, to try the deepnesse and thicknesse of the coale; rare engines to draw water out of the pits; waggons with one horse to carry down coales from the pits to the staythes on the river, &c.; within a few years he consumed all his money, and rode home upon his light horse." Incidentally, Gray's own copy of the book, now preserved in the Gateshead Public Library, has a manuscript correction of the figure from £30,000 to £20,000.

Flange-wheeled wagons

Nicholas Wood⁶ remarked that the carts employed in 1602 in conveying coal by road were called "waynes," whereas Beaumont's vehicles were termed "waggons". As ever since that period, Wood says, "The carriages employed upon rail-roads have been designated by the latter name; we may infer, that the 'waggon' of Mr. Beaumont was applied upon a rail-way, and that he was the first to introduce them into the north." Wood's deduction, based on his extensive local knowledge — for he was the viewer at Killingworth — seems reasonable, and is further supported by writers of the seventeenth century Before leaving Gray's remarks I think we may extract something further from them by implication. The contrast between the words "waggon" and "wayne" would be unnecessary if the vehicle were designed to run simply on a road of parallel beams, as has often been suggested, or even if the permanent way were of the angle-iron or step variety used in later years. A special type of vehicle implied something peculiar to a wagon-way and I suggest that the "something" was the use of flanged wheels. Admittedly this deduction goes beyond what can be proved from the mere differentiation between the two words for the vehicles, but great strength is given to this view by writers of a few years later.

Wood's remark about the carts employed in 1602 being called "waynes" has resulted in this date being quoted widely as that of the introduction of railways in the North but it was given merely as an example, and as we have seen, Beaumont's interest in the Cowpen and Bebside collieries began only in 1605. The records of the port of Blyth⁷ show that the first year in which any considerable quantity of coal was recorded as shipped from the River Blyth was 1609, when 21,571 tons were exported. This was therefore the probable year when the wagon-way began to be used. Evidence is lacking as to how far the idea was copied on the North-East Coast during the next few years, but we have a hint that the potentialities of wagon-ways soon came to be appreciated in some quarters, for an important project for making the King "the sole merchant of the Coales" was presented to Charles I on July 10, 1628. (See Stowe MSS. 326 No. 1.) The scheme proposed, inter alia :–

Nationalisation suggested in 1628

The proposal was for the Crown to take possession of all the coal mines within the Bishopric of Durham "Uppon remoove of that Bishop" and to develop these mines as a royal enterprise. The "reformed cariages" were probably of the type designed to run on railed wagon-ways. It is scarcely necessary to say that this early suggestion of nationalisation was not proceeded with.

John Watson (1729-1797), who left a valuable collection of manuscript volumes on mining practice from 1745 onwards, stated that horse-operated wooden wagon-ways came into use soon after the Revolution (1649), and it seems fairly certain that it was the second half of the seventeenth century which witnessed their widespread adoption. We have a distinct allusion to railways at the northern collieries in a document of 1660 (cited in 1852 by T. J. Taylor⁸ regarding "a bargain and sale from Sir Richard Tempest and others to William Carr and others, of ten keels or lighters, and a quarter part of the wood or timber laid upon trenches, bridges, and waggonways or unlaid upon the same." Other evidence of the existence of wagon-ways about this time in the Stella and Ryton district appears to be afforded by the information obtained in connection with a law-suit of 1665 concerning Crawcrook colliery. The wagons used here are stated to have carried fifteen bolls each, equal to about 33½ cwt., or two wain-loads, a size of vehicle which almost certainly must have been run on a wagon-way.

A Counsel's opinion of 1763 is the next document to assist us. It is an opinion upon a conveyance dated 1672 relating to the South Gosforth and Coxlodge collieries, and says, inter alia, "some short time before this conveyance a new method was invented for carrying coals to the river in large machines called waggons made to run on frames of timber fixed in the ground for that purpose and since called a waggon-way which frames must of necessity lye very near, if not altogether upon a level from the colliery to the river and therefore wherever there are any hills or vales between the colliery and the river and the same cannot be avoided, it is necessary in order to the laying such waggon ways, then to make cutts through the hills or level the same, and to raise or fill up the vales so that such waggon way may lye upon a level as near as possible." By this time, therefore, the construction of wagon-ways in the neighbourhood of the Tyne was treated as an engineering work of some importance. There is no suggestion here of the theory which has often been advanced that wagon-ways were evolved by a process of filling with logs the ruts in badly made roads. Moreover, such ways are described as a new method invented some short time before, which is scarcely the phrase a legal man would apply to the rough and ready expedient of repairing deeply-rutted roads with baulks of timber.

We have very valuable evidence of the position in 1676 in Roger North's account⁹ of his brother's experiences when he went on circuit to Newcastle. According to that writer: "Some of the aldermen related strange stories of their coal works. One related to wayleaves: When men have pieces of ground between the colliery and the river they sell leave to lead coals over their ground and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground will expect £20 per annum for this leave. The manner of the carriage is by laying rails of timber from the colliery down to the river, exactly streight and parallel; and bulky carts are made with four rowlets fitting these rails; whereby the carriage is so easy that one horse will draw down four or five chaldron of coals, and it is an immense benefit to the coal merchants." Here is the clearest evidence of special vehicles for use on the rails, and, moreover, a statement of the peculiar feature of their construction, namely, that they were equipped with rollers fitting the rails. The probabilities are in favour of a wide wooden wheel running on the rail, with a narrow wheel of larger diameter fixed inside to act as a flange. The remark that carnage was easy seems to preclude a roller projecting over both sides of the rail as wear would rapidly make such an arrangement very much the reverse of easy in running.

The "Newcastle road"

Daniel Defoe wrote¹⁰ early in the eighteenth century "They (coals) are then loaded again into a great machine, call'd a Waggon, which by the means of an artificial road, call'd a Waggon-way, goes with the help of but one horse, and carries two Chaldron or more at a time; and this sometimes three or four miles to the nearest River or Water-carriage they come at, and there they are either thrown into or from a great store-house call'd a Stethe . . ." There can be little doubt that during the seventeenth century the wagon-way was developed on Tyneside more extensively than elsewhere, and, in fact, it was often called¹¹ a "Newcastle road." Before the end of the century the use of wagon-ways had spread to the neighbourhood of the river Wear, where the first line was laid in 1693 by Thomas Allan who "amassed a large fortune in the collieries and purchased estates, a part of which still retains the name Allan's Flatts near Chester-le-Street." ¹²

REFERENCES

1. "Geschichte des Eisens," by L. Beck.
2. Publications of the Surtees Society, Vol. 38, at p. 37 (1860).
3. Chanc. Proc., James I. B. 40/70.
4. Chanc. Proc., James I. B. 17/61.
5. "A Chorographia," by William Gray, published at Newcastle upon-Tyne in 1649.
6. "A Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads, and Interior Communication in General," by Nicholas Wood, Colliery Viewer. 2nd edition, published in 1832.
7. "The History and Development of the Port of Blyth," by C. E. Baldwin, General Manager and Secretary, Blyth Harbour Commission. Published in 1929.
8. Proc. Arch. Inst., Newcastle, 1852, Vol. I, at p. 180.
9. "Life of the Right Honourable Francis North, Baron of Guilford, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under King Charles II and King James II." Published in London in 1742.
10. "The Complete English Tradesman." 1726. Vol. II. Part II, pp. 29 and 30.
11. "Archæology of the Coal Trade," by T. J. Taylor, and "The Coal Viewer and Engine Builders' Practical Companion," by John Curr, of Sheffield, 1797.
12. William Hutchinson's "History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham," 1794; quoted by John Sykes in "Local Records or Historical Register," in 1833, and by Moses Aaron Richardson in "Local Historian's Table Book."

(To be continued.)

Drawings and Photographs accompanying the article