ABSTRACT
Coal is unique among nineteenth-century industries. Not only was it a major industry in its own right, by 1875 directly employing over half a million men and boys, but throughout the century it was virtually the sole supplier of energy to Britain’s expanding economy. As the principal extractive industry it also occupied a special place in the economy between agriculture and manufacturing industry; and as the progenitor, provider and customer of the emergent railway industry, it linked its fortunes closely with those of this major force in nineteenth-century economic development.
