10.1.6

Coal

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Coal

All the new factories in England required a lot of coal to power them and so more coal had to be mined. Mining was very dangerous and miners worked in terrible conditions.

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Steam power

  • Coal had been mined in Britain long before the Industrial Revolution.
  • However, since steam power was so crucial to powering the machines that were at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, Britain needed much larger quantities of coal to burn.
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Demand for coal

  • 2.7 million tons of coal were mined in Britain in 1700, but this had jumped to 15 million tons by 1800.
  • The main producers of coal in Britain were the northeast of England, the West Midlands, and central Scotland.
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The dangers of mining

  • Coal was crucial to the development of the Industrial Revolution, but coal mining was incredibly dangerous.
  • Coal had to be dug from up to 100m underground, and could only be reached by narrow shafts through the coal mines.
  • Miners risked suffocation, drowning, and being crushed by collapsing mineshafts.
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Children in the mines

  • Around 20,000 children worked in coal mines by the 1840s, often having to drag heavy cartloads of coal on their hands and knees.
  • It wasn’t until 1842 that the government took measures to improve the lives of children working in the mine.
  • The Mines Act prohibited the employing of girls, and boys under ten.

Jump to other topics

1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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