The iron manufacture, for want of the art of smelting by coal, and of a supply of wood, which the march of agriculture daily diminished, dwindled away, until, in the middle of the eighteenth century, it was revived at Colebrook Dale by the Darbys. In the intermediate period, we were dependent on Russia, Spain, and Sweden for the chief part of the iron used in manufactures.
But one of the most curious passages in Dudley’s Metallum Martis, is the following picture of the Dudley coal-field:—“Now let me show some reasons that induced me to undertake these inventions. Well knowing that within ten miles of Dudley Castle, there be near 20,000 smiths of all sorts, and many ironworks within that circle decayed for want of wood (yet formerly a mighty woodland country); secondly, Lord Dudley’s woods and works decayed, but pit-coal and iron stone or mines abounding upon his lands, but of little use; thirdly, because most of the coal mines in these parts are coals ten, eleven, and twelve yards thick; fourthly, under this great thickness of coal are very many sorts of ironstone mines; fifthly, that one-third part of the coals gotten under the ground are small, when the colliers are forced to sink pits for getting of ten yards thick, and are of little use in an inland country, unless it might be made use of by making iron therewith; sixthly, these colliers must cast these coals and slack out of their ways, which, becoming moist, heat naturally, and kindle in the middle of these great heaps, often sets the coal works on fire and flaming out of the pits, and continue burning like Ætna in Sicily or Hecla in the Indies.” (sic.)
At present, for more than ten miles round Dudley Castle, iron works of one kind or another are constantly at work; no remains of mighty woodland are to be found. The value of the ten yard coal is fully appreciated, but the available quantity is far from having been worked out. The untouched mineral wealth of Lord Ward in this district was valued, ten years ago, at a million sterling. The small coal is no longer wasted, but carefully raised from the pits and conveyed by the numerous canals, tram-roads, and railroads, to iron works, glass works, and chemical works. But still heaps of waste, moistened by rain, do smoke by day, and flaming by night in conjunction with hundreds of fiery furnaces and natural gases blazing, do produce, on a night’s journey from Dudley to Wolverhampton, not the effect of one Ætna or Hecla, but of a broad “inferno,” from which even Dante might have gathered some burning notions.
The political croakers who are constantly predicting that the last inevitable change, whether it be a Municipal Corporation Reform, a Tithe Commutation, or a Corn Tax Repeal, will prove the ruin of England, should study the geographical march of our manufactures, and mark how, on the whole population, the rise of a new staple in one district, or the invention of a new art, constantly creates a new demand for labour. The exhaustion of our forests, instead of destroying, founded one great element of our world-wide commercial influence.
We make no apology for this digression, knowing that, to many minds, facts connected with the rise of the iron trade will have as much interest as notes on the scene of a battle or the birthplace of a second-rate poet, besides, as we omit to say what we do not know, it is necessary we should say what we do.
Besides mining and smelting iron ore, a considerable population in and around Dudley is engaged in the manufacture of glass and of nails; the latter being a domestic manufacture, at which men, women, and children all work at home.
The castle dates from a Saxon prince, Dodo, A.D. 700; but, like the bird of the same name, the original building is extinct. But very interesting ruins of a Norman gateway, tower, and keep, are in existence; and form, with the caves, a show-place leased by the South Staffordshire as an attraction to their excursion trains. The caves are lighted up on special occasions, and were honoured by a visit from the geologists of the British Association when last they met at Birmingham. A fossil, called the Dudley locust, is found in great quantities and varieties in the limestone quarries, which form part of the mineral wealth of the neighbourhood.
The broad gauge line through Birmingham and Oxford will shortly afford Dudley a direct and rapid communication with London. To passengers this will be a great convenience, but a mode of conveyance so unwieldy, clumsy, and costly, is singularly ill fitted for a mineral district, as experience among the narrow tram-ways of the north has amply proved.
Dudley returns one member to Parliament; whose politics must, it is supposed, be those of the holder of the Ward estate.
Returning from Dudley through Walsall to Bescot Bridge, the rail pursues its course through a mining country to Bilston and Wolverhampton. On the road we pass in sight of the Birmingham canal, one of the finest works of the kind in the kingdom. An enormous sum was spent in improving the navigation, in order to prove that any railway was unnecessary. The proprietors, under the influence of their officials, a snug family party, shut their eyes and spent their money in opposing the inevitable progress of locomotive power to the last possible moment. Even when the first London and Birmingham railway was nearly open, a scheme for a new canal was industriously hawked round the county; and, although there were not enough subscribers found to execute the work, a small percentage was sufficient to furnish a surveyor’s new house very handsomely. Still, there is no probability of the canal ever ceasing to be an important aid to the coal trade in heavy freights.