ABSTRACT
Warmth was as vital to man’s needs as food, particularly in the British climate. Fire was first used for heating and cooking, but its ability to transform clay into pottery and ore into metals was soon discovered. Fuel, whether wood, furze, peat or later coal, became an essential element in the economy of developing societies. Likewise, man’s ingenuity led him to supplement his own muscle power by making use of other sources of natural power, firstly animal, then water and wind. These met his needs until the great upsurge in the economy in the eighteenth century, when the familiar coal was used to produce a new source of power in the steam engine. The benefit of this invention was nowhere more felt than in the coal industry itself, since the vast expansion of manufacturing industry and the needs of the burgeoning population created massive demand. In the course of the nineteenth century, coal was transformed into a more convenient form-gas —and was used for heating, lighting and to fuel the internal combustion engine. The latter could also be driven by an entirely new form of fuel, mineral oil, the supply of which was limited in Britain until recent times.
