ABSTRACT
From the coalfields of County Durham to an international trade The phrase ‘taking coals to Newcastle’ refers to the substantial presence of that carbon resource in the city, but this is only part of the narrative. The city acted as a centre for the coal trade, while the catchment for its extraction encompassed much of the North East of England from rural Northumberland, up the Tyne valley and deep into County Durham. The wealthy coal barons of the region built fashionable country houses, many now lost to urban encroachment and economic decline, and would share ideas and practice through the North of England Mining and Mechanical Institute, located on Westgate Road in the heart of Newcastle. A significant challenge to the extraction of coal from the North East was the silted River Tyne, requiring the use of keelmen who would take exports in shallow draft boats down to the deeper channels near the mouth of the river. The dredging of the river through the 1860s under the direction of the Tyne Improvement Commission resulted in the eventual removal of the king’s Meadow Island from the middle of
the river at Dunston. Allied to this, the construction of larger and more powerful iron-clad steamships gradually replacing the reliance on sail transformed the economy of the coal trade from the North East. Particularly on the River Tyne, but also elsewhere throughout the region, was the construction of timber riverside structures known as staiths. Their purpose was to permit the loading of coal onto sea-going colliers located in deep water channels and thus removing the need for the keelmen as middle men. Staiths were located throughout the North East, with six main coaling points on the Tyne alone, including the largest at Tyne Dock, Dunston and West Dunston, Northumberland Dock, Whitehill Point and Derwenthaugh Staiths (keys and Smith 2000).
