Monday, December 8, 1834

1834

December

Monday 8

8 

12 1/2

No kiss.  Boisterous, rainy night – Windy, rainy morning, and began snowing (1st time this winter) at 9 a.m.  Fahrenheit 47° at 9 10/.. a.m.  

Breakfast at 9 1/4 – Hinscliffe (James) came before 10 and staid till 1 – Long collier-talk –

With respect to the business in question (Spiggs Colliery loose through the Wellroyde holms), Hinscliffe thinks we had better wait 2 or 3 weeks till he can get more information – Thinks Samuel Holdsworth must be working on the same level and will be benefited by the loose – Others, too, may be benefited –

Hard to make Keighleys and company pay for this, but yet some provision should be made against it – Nothing to be done but by a barrier-wall of ashler stone 3 feet long by __ and well puddled at the back – This very expensive, but nothing else will turn –

I said I had considered the matter and thought the loose should be worth half as much as the coal – He said he had nothing to say against it – but the coal was too dear at 80 guineas lower bed and 70 guineas upper bed – Well, said I, but value each bed at £50 per acre to the owner and each bed at £25 per acre loose = each bed £75 per acre coal and loose; how is that – Hinscliffe said nothing against it – Agreed, however, to wait till he gets more information, when he will call again –

Said he did not wish to say behind his back what he would not before his face, but Mr. Rawson is not a gentleman – (i.e. for lowering his coal 2 pence – I said he was polish – He would worry up Wilson the little dog, and set Stocks the great one, against him –

Wilson cannot stand long – His loose and colliery will be put up to Auction and Stocks will get it – I asked if it would be worth Stocks’s while to give £5000 for it, Engine and looses without the coal – Hinscliffe thinks not, though thinks Stocks has a 1000 acre of coal (both beds) in Northowram, but he can have as good a loose as Wilson’s in the same clough above and set up an engine of his own for £5000 –

Hinscliffe, however, caught at my asking what it was worth, and said perhaps I should think of it – He would consider about it, get more information and let me know – I begged him not to name it – but said it would not be worth my while to give an out of the way price for it, though I would not let Stocks have it for nothing –

It then came out that perhaps Mr. Rawson might think something of it (thus confirming my guess that it would be so; vide 24th ultimo page 215) – I said it would not pay Rawson, for Joseph Wilson could give a loose, or if Stocks came to me, I thought I could give him a tail-loose.  Hinscliffe seemed to consider a little and then answered, Well! perhaps I could –

He said he heard I had been told that Rawson had got 4 or 5 acres of my coal – Well! said I, and who told me?  Hinscliffe did not know – No! said I, nor do I know, but the person who had told me must (though I neither have told nor mean to tell it) is yourself. Hinscliffe stared – Yes! said I, you told me of their getting my coal – You told me of the water they would throw on me, and put into my head the penalty to guard against it – Holt has often wondered how I got to know about it so well – It is you who, in fact, put it into [my head] to sink the pit above – I know Mr. Rawson thinks you a friend of his and that you are in the same scrape about getting my coal – I know all this well enough – But I mean you to be my friend – You and I can agree – I don’t mind about your getting – Mr. Rawson’s is a different thing –

We then talked over the expense of Rawson’s colliery.  £200 a year, said Hinscliffe, will not work the engines and keep them in repair and find gas, etc. – Well then, allow £300 a year and 4 per cent interest on £15,000 expense on the colliery from 1st to last = £900 a year to pay out before a shilling of wages or ordinary expense is paid – We agreed this could not answer, and Hinscliffe owned he thought the colliery could not go on long in this way –

We made out that Wilson could not get more than 2 acres per annum (1 hard and 1 soft bed) and that he had £300 a year 4 per cent interest to pay besides ordinary expenses, and this cannot answer –

Hinscliffe valued the Wyke coal (late Mere, now Carvin cum uxor Mere, daughter of the former) when let to Rogers and Langley, at £300 per acre both beds, and John Oates put £50 per acre additional on the 2 beds, at which Hinscliffe supposes Rawson and Langley took it – Got rid of it – Sold their Geer etc. to the Low moor Company for £500 and lost £500 by the little bit of the concern they worked – The Low Moor Company have got it cheap, they have paid a good deal of money down to Carvin, who is a man of expertise –

Lampleugh Hird should go into the pits, and not merely ride to the pits’ mouths – They let their iron stone to be got by day, and give some men 2/. a day who do not earn board – They have let by the job and when their men have worked very hard so as to have a good bit to receive at the end, they (the Company) have thought they (the men) had had too good a job and refused to pay them !!! –

Sat with Ann at her luncheon –

From 1 1/2 to 6, siding papers, plans, prints, etc., and helping Ann with her books –

Dinner at 6 20/.. – Coffee – Ann and I 1/4 hour with my father and Marian – Then rubbed her back 13 minutes with spirit of wine and camphor – till 9 3/4 – Then 1/2 hour with my aunt – Then wrote the above of today (in the dining room – came down to the fire) till 11 35/.. –

Rainy, windy, winterly day, though the snow that fell in the morning melted immediately and did not whiten the ground –

 

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/17/0121 and SH:7/ML/E/17/0122