Excerpt from Worcestershire Nineteenth Century: A Complete Digest of Facts Occurring in the County Since the Commencement of the Year 1800

Our mineral productions are coal and iron, both of which are found in large quantities at the northern extremity of the county, and coal is also raised in the neighbourhood of Bewdley. The Dudley division of the South Stafi'ordshire coal field is celebrated for producing what is known as the ten yard or thick coal - so named because the bed is thirty feet in thickness. It is, indeed, the largest and most important bed of coal in the kingdom, and its good qualities are too well known to every house keeper in this district to need that I should expatiate upon them here. With the associated thin coals and ironstone this bed is worth at least per acre. The number of tons of coal raised in the Dudley district (worcestershire only) during 1851 may be approximately reckoned at worth perhaps It was in this district that coal was first used for the purpose of smelting iron, in the year 1619. The duties on the introduction of foreign iron were either removed or rendered merely nominal in 1826, and the production has since nearly quadrupled, and now amounts to tons annually. The South Staffordshire and Worcestershire iron district ranks second in importance, far surpassing Scotland in the manufacture of wrought iron, and the quality is superior to that of South Wales. The number of furnaces now in blast in this county is twenty-eight, and eighteen out of blast. Nearly tons of iron were made here in 1851, and prices ranged from 50s. To 57s.6d. Hot blast; cold blast, 60s. To 67s. 6d. Best makes, 120s., and second ditto, 1109. Per ton. The make of iron has not greatly increased in Worcestershire during the last few years, but no branch of our productive industry rests on surer foundations, or has more prospect of continuous extension, than the iron trade.

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