Some idea may be formed of the necessity for such a mining Commission, and of the difficulties it had to overcome, from the following particulars, as Mr. Sopwith stated them in his valuable Paper on “Mining Plans and Records,” read before the British Association at Newcastle in 1838:—“Great distrust of any interference” (he says) “existed, and some of the mine-owners refused to allow of underground surveys being made. Numerous and conflicting parties were then working mines under customs which were totally inapplicable to the present state of mining; destructive at once to the interests of the free miners of the Forest; ruinous, as sad experience had shown, to the enterprising capitalist; and subversive of the rights of the Crown. So great was the perplexity, and so numerous and conflicting were the claims of contending parties, that the law advisers of the Board of Woods deemed it almost impossible to arrive at any satisfactory adjustment of them within the period of three years, as named in the Dean Forest Mining Act. The ruinous and unsatisfactory state of the mines must appear obvious on a slight consideration. As no plans existed, it was impossible to tell to what extent or in what direction the underground works were being carried. The crossing of mattocks, that is to say, the actual meeting of the workmen underground, was often the abrupt signal for contention; the driving of narrow headings was a means by which one coal-owner might gain possession of coal which of right belonged to another; and a pit, though sunk at a cost of several thousand pounds, had no secured possession of coal beyond 12 yards round it, that is, a tract of coal 24 yards in diameter. At 40 or 50 yards from such a work another adventurer might commence a pit, and have an equal right, if right it could
be called, to the coal. If a long and expensive adit was driven, another one might be commenced only a few yards deeper; and, from such a state of things, it is quite clear that great uncertainty and frequent losses inevitably ensued.” Moreover, the receipts from mines and minerals, by the Crown, upon the average of the six preceding years, were only £826 2s. 10½d.
The important Act by which these difficulties were to be removed, under the auspices of the three Commissioners above named, was framed in accordance with the suggestion thrown out in the fourth Report of the Dean Forest Commissioners, viz., that all subsisting mine-works should be released by compensation to the Crown, and the whole relet on a well-defined plan to such free miners as might make application for the same. The Act (1 and 2 Vict. cap. 43) provides that all male persons born and abiding within the hundred of St. Briavel’s, being upwards of twenty-one years of age and having worked a year and a day in a coal or iron mine or stone-quarry within the said hundred, should alone have the right to hold or dispose of such works, a register of all such persons being kept as “free miners.” It suppressed all claims to pit timber, with all “customs,” and assigned to the Commissioners under the Act the duty of fixing rents and royalties for twenty-one years, and to the gaveller power to limit and regulate as well as to enter and survey all works which might be re-awarded or galed. No engines were to be erected nearer than sixty yards to any enclosure, within which only air-shafts might be opened, and all unnecessary buildings were to be removed.
On the 16th of August, 1838, the annual Report of the Commissioners of Woods was issued, signed by Lord Duncannon, B. C. Stephenson and A. Milne, Esqrs. It mentions that a piece of land in the parish of English Bicknor had been granted for school purposes, and that the Severn and Wye Tramway Company obtained the licence of the Crown to lay down a branch from Brook Hall Ditches to Foxes Bridge.
The only circumstance requiring notice in the following
year is the decease of the second Commissioner of Woods, Sir B. C. Stephenson, who had long held the office, and he was succeeded by the Honourable Charles Gore.
The next annual Report bears date 29th July, 1840, and contains nothing calling for special notice.
The year 1841 is particularly important in the history of the Forest from its being the date of the present coal and iron mine awards, under the authority of the Mining Commissioners, the former being signed on the 8th of March, and the latter on the 20th of July. By these awards no less than 104 collieries were defined and assigned, together with twenty iron-mines, and certain rules and regulations were laid down for working them.
The duties of the Mining Commissioners having now closed, it must have been highly gratifying to those gentlemen to receive from the Government the following expressions of commendation, communicated by Mr. A. Milne:—“I am to convey to you our entire approbation of the zeal, ability, and sound discretion which appear to have marked all your proceedings in the performance of the very important, difficult, and laborious duties which devolved upon you, and their belief that, while the result will be very beneficial to the interests of the Crown, it will be attended with equal advantage to the great body of mining adventurers in securing their titles to the property on very reasonable and moderate terms, and subject to the regulations and conditions which seem to be well calculated to protect them from that constant and expensive litigation which had so long existed.”
The total cost of adjusting the working of the coal and iron mines was £10,459 1s. 3d. The valuable services of the Mining Commissioners were again noticed in the annual Report of the Board of Woods, published on the 9th August in the following year, when 408 acres 2 roods were thrown open in Blakeney Hill (south) and the South Lea Bailey Copse, a similar extent of open Forest being enclosed at St. Low and Great Kenseley. It also adverts to an Act passed on 30th of July previous, dividing the Forest into ecclesiastical