1758. “Pigg Pitt.”

Several of the above names closely resemble those by which many of the existing coal-works are designated; as for instance—“Strip-and-at-it,” “Winners,” “Spero,” “Prosper,” “Never Fear,” &c. One other interesting fact preserved in these records is that the coal seams were called then as now by the names of “Upper” and “Lower Rocky,” the “Lower” and “Upper High Delf,” the “Starkey Delf,” and the “Lowery Delf.”

The Appendix to the Fourth Report of the Dean Forest Commissioners relative to the mines, incidentally mentions the old coalwork called “the Oiling Gin” as originally galed in 1766, and transferred by agreement, dated 15th April, 1776, to a company, in consideration of £2,100, at whose cost the first “fire-engine,” constructed, probably, on Watt’s principle, patented in the previous year, is understood to have been put up in this neighbourhood. It also specifies the “Brown’s Green Colliery” near Lydbrook, opened in 1772; the “Moorwood Coal Works” in 1773; “Arthur’s Folly” in 1774, begun in the “Thirty Acres,” and brought up into “Little Cross Hill;” and also the undertaking called “The Gentlemen Colliers.”

On the 26th August, 1777, the Court of Mine Law, by which the coal-works in the Forest had been ever regulated, sat, as it proved, for the last time, having been held according as business required three or four times a year, with some few exceptions, since 1668. A memorandum with which its last minute is endorsed is thus expressed:—“Mine Law Court, 26 August, 1777. There has been no Court holden for the miners since this day, which is a great loss to the gaveller, and causes various disputes amongst the colliers, which is owing to the neglect of the Deputy-Constables.”

A careful perusal of the papers in which the proceedings of the Court of Mine Law are recorded from 30th April, 1706, supplies the following particulars illustrative of the manner in which the miners of the first half of the 18th century conducted their works, together with the usages of the Court then in vogue. Nearly all the sittings were held at the Speech-house, under the

supervision of the deputies for the time being of the Constable of St. Briavel’s Castle, attended by the clerk of the court, and the gaveller or his deputy. Rarely more than twelve, but sometimes twenty-four miners constituted the jury; the suits they had to try being mostly for debts and trespasses between miner and miner, such as for leaving open dangerous pits, breaking “forbids,” refusing to pay tax for defending the rights of the mine, loading “foreigners’” teams at the pits, for perjury, for keeping more than four horses in carrying coal, or for removing pit lamps, scores or cowls, &c. Copies of two such entries, with other proceedings of the Court as specimens, are given in the Appendix No. VI.

As early as the year 1718 the proceedings of the Court were occasionally disturbed by the persons attending it. Thus, on the 13th of May, the following amercements were made and recorded:—

John Davis, for talking in Court 2s.
John Kear, for talking in Court 2s.
Wm. Budge, for disturbing ye Court 2s.
Nich. Whitstone, for the like 2s.
Thomas Rudge, for the same 2s.
John Griffiths, for disturbing the Court 2s.
Thomas Rudge, for the same offence 2s.
John Trigg, for the same offence 2s.
Griffith Cooper, for talking in Court 2s.

Writing upon the subject of the Forest collieries, about the year 1779, Mr. Rudder remarks in his History of the county,—“The pits are not deep, for when the miners find themselves much incommoded with water, they sink a new one, rather than erect a fire engine, which might answer the expense very well, yet there is not one of them in all this division. They have indeed two or three pumps worked by cranks, that in some measure answer the intention.”

In the year 1788 we are informed by the evidence of the Gaveller, that, according to an account made out in the previous August, “there were then within the Forest 121 coal-pits (thirty-one of which were not actually in work), which pits produced 1,816 tons of coal per week; that there were 662 free miners concerned and