should be filled up, that the Forest Courts should be regularly held, and that the officers should be strictly enjoined to do their duty.” It is disappointing to find no evidence that anything was done in consequence of this opinion.
About this time the fifteenth of the series of “Orders” enacted by the Mine Law Court of forty-eight, informs us that it met by adjournment at the Speech House on the 6th of December, 1737, before William Jones, Esq., Deputy Constable of St. Briavel’s Castle.
Owing to the injury which it was considered foreigners had done to the free miners by carrying coal out of the Forest for merchandise, it was decided that for the future no such carrying should be allowed except to certain persons named, under a penalty of £5, or property to that amount, or imprisonment in St. Briavel’s Castle for a year, to the perpetrator or any cognizant thereof. From this it seems perfectly plain that the free miner regarded the carrying of coal as much a part of his profession as getting it, and therefore equally requiring protection. The “Order” proceeds to direct that in every suit before the Mine-Law Court the plaintiff and defendant were to pay 6d. to the Clerk for entering the same, which was to form his salary. The rights of free-minership were conferred upon the Honourable Thomas Gage, Christopher Bond the younger, Esq., Thomas Crawley, Esq., James Rooke, Esq., Thomas James, Gent., Thomas Barron the younger, Gent., Thomas Marshall, Yeoman. John Wade was to be made “free” on his working a year and a day in the mine; and making it a rule that a foreigner’s son, being born in the Hundred, and seeking to become a free miner, was to serve by indenture an apprenticeship of seven years. The above “Order” has only twenty-three marks attached to it, more than half the jury signing their own names.
Proceeding to the date and objects of the next “Order” of the same Court, we find that it had been adjourned to the 2nd March, 1741, at the Speech House, before Edward Tomkins Machen, Esq., Deputy. It commences by explaining the terms “above” and “beneath the wood” to be two ancient divisions of the Forest, “beginning at the river Wye at Lydbrook, where the brooke there leading from the forges falls into the said river, and so up the said brooke or stream unto a place in the said Forest called Moyery Stock, and from thence along a Wayn-way at the
bottom of a place called the Salley Vallett, and so along the same way between the two old enclosures that did belong to Ruardean and Little Dean Walks unto Cannop’s Brooke, and down the said brooke to Cannop’s Bridge; and from thence along the road or highway to the Speech-house, and from thence along the said highway to Foxe’s Bridge, and from thence down Blackpool Brooke to Blakeney.”
It is worthy of remark, that the same boundary line, with only a trifling difference, defines the two townships of East and West Dean, into which the Forest is now divided for the purposes of the Poor Law Amendment Act. The connexion of this division with the Court of Mine Law consisted simply in this, that the attendance of a free miner on the jury was regulated by the position of his works and habitation in one or other of them.
A £5 penalty was laid upon all miners who should send or carry any coals to Hereford or Monmouth by the Wye, except lime-coal at “the New Wears,” at 4s. a dozen bushels. A similar fine was inflicted on any inhabitant of the Forest division of the county who should “presume” to carry coal otherwise than for their own use; so also no miner was to work more than two pits at one time; nor to carry coal for any person not a free miner; neither to sell fire-coal or stone-coal charks under 7s. a dozen bushels, or 5s. if smith’s coal, at Redbrook, which, if refused there, a “forbid” shall be declared until the former coal should be accepted. This “Order” further enacted that if coal was found in any bargeman’s boat, and he refuse to say from whom he had it, a general “forbid” shall be declared that no miner serve him with any more. A free miner is briefly defined to be “such as have lawfully worked at coal a year and a day.” A foreigner selling coal at Hereford for less than 13s. per ton was to be summoned, or abide the consequences of a general “forbid.” Should there be at any time more than a sufficiency of coal for the trade on the Wye, the barge-owners were to employ the services of the miners, or be fined according to their wages. A horse-load to the Wye was fixed at 2 cwt. and a quarter for 6d., ten such making a ton, to be weighed, if required, under a forfeit of 2s. 6d. Miners beneath the wood were bound to sell not less than a cwt. of coal for 4d.; 3 bushels of smith’s coal for 5d.; and 1 bushel of lime coal for 1d. at the pit. No team was to be served with less than 2 cwt. nor more than 21 cwt., to be weighed, if desired, or forfeit £5. This Order constituted Richard Clarke and Edward Tomkins Machen, Esqrs., free miners, and exhibits at the end the penmanship of only 18 of the jury, all the rest merely making their marks.
We now arrive at the seventeenth or last “Order” issued by the Mine Law Court. It dates 22nd October, 1754, and sat at the Speech House, before Maynard Colchester and Thomas James, Esqrs.
It records the election to free-minerships of the Right Honble. George Augustus Lord Dursley, Charles Wyndham of Clearwell, Esq., Rev. Roynon Jones of Monmouth, John Probyn of Newland, Esq., his son Edmund, Maynard Colchester the younger, Esq., Roynon Jones the younger, of Nass, Esq., Kedgwin Webley of London, Gentleman, Kedgwin Hoskins the elder, of Clearwell, Gent., William Probyn the younger, of Newland, Gent., Mr. Kedgwin Hoskins the younger, of Clearwell, Mr. Edmund Probyn the younger, son of the said William Probyn, Mr. Thomas James the younger, Mr. Thomas Baron the younger, son of Mr. Thomas Baron of Coleford, Herbert Rudhall Westfaling, of Rudhall in Herefordshire, Esq., John Clarke, of “The Hill,” in Herefordshire, Esq., Thomas Foley the elder, of “Stoke Eddy,” in the said shire, Esq., Thomas Foley the younger, of the same, Esq., John Symons, of the Mine, in the same county, Esq., Ion Yate, of Arlingham, Esq., William Lane, of “King’s Standley,” and Barrow Lawrence, of Bruen’s Lodge, Gent.
So full a list of persons of position and influence as this Order exhibits, lending their names to the Free Miners’ Society, indicates the existence of considerable importance in that body; and yet this was the last Court having forty-eight free miners on the jury whose proceedings have been preserved, the fact being that they failed to agree in their verdicts, and then gentlemen refused to attend, owing, it is said, to the violent quarrels and disputes which arose between foreigners possessed of capital, who now began to be admitted to the works, and the free miners. It is also reported that the decisions of the court were seldom observed, no Act of Parliament having passed to render them valid. The former protective distance between one mine and another was increased from 500 to 1000 yards of any levels, and enforced by a £5 penalty. The order concludes with directing that