Monday, February 18, 1839

1839

February

Monday 18

6 50/..

12

Much snow on the ground, and a little driving small snow between 7 and 8 – Fahrenheit 36° at 8 inside and 30 1/2° at 8 10/60 outside – Wrote a line or two to Lady Stuart de Rothesay

Ann came for a minute or 2 at 8 3/4 – Breakfast at 9 5/.. in 1/2 hour – Then with Robert the joiner –

Had Holt before 11 –

He would have another set of men for the boiler setting – Had talked to Mr. Akroyd’s book-keeper, Ingham – Would employ Wilsons, the people who worked under Manchester people for Mr. Akroyd and set one boiler by themselves – I agreed – Holt to go up to Booth’s directly and tell him this and to have the flue pulled up and deepened at Booth’s expense, for he had not done it to order – I said if Holt would but get up spirit and order right, I should be satisfied – He promised he would, and would have boiler and flue all done in a fortnight –

Told him not to mention it, but to desire the Lowmoor Company not to send the Cylinder till this day 3 weeks that we might have time to air the chimney –

Told Holt I had now several applications for the coal (did not mention Stocks’s name) – The answer I had given and should give now was ‘that it was not at present my intention to set any price on the coal’ – Holt said he would let by ticket, and then they should all have a fair chance – But Mr. Holmes an awkward partner. I said hastily I would not have him – But why could not the concern be carried on as it is – in my own name – I should not like to grant a lease of 21 years – But told Holt to tell me beforehand and as soon as he could what bidding he and his brother meant to put in – He said he would talk to his brother about it – He said this colliery would make some money by and by – after the 1st two years were over –

They (at Holt’s colliery at the top of the hill) are now selling fifteen hundred loads a week and make a thousand a year –

Stocks has not more coal on Swales moor (for house fires) than will last 5 or 6 years – Is going to widen Wilson’s pit and lay out five or six hundred pounds upon it – Wilson will soon be driven out of the partnership – Holmes will stand stupid, and Stocks must pay him to get rid of him –

Holt does not like Holmes as a partner, but would like his nephew (Edleston); quite different sort of people and it is better to have a consumer, a partner who can and will take all the small coal – Holmes’s dyehouse burns £700 a year and they allow him a 1/2 pence at the load (i.e. for taking the small coal) –

With Ann a little while, and Hemingway, who had come to speak to her for Booth’s farm.

With Robert the joiner, boring a hole through from the landing into the north chamber to see about the new door opening into this room –

Then with Ann till the joiners returned from dinner, and then with them, or musing and looking about, or getting the tables set in the upper Tower closet for Ann, who had her glass and best China moved there this afternoon –

Gave Robert Norton orders about the great stairs-post, and looked about in the kitchen court and found him old oak to set the post on –

Came upstairs for 1/4 hour about 3 3/4 – Ann came to me for a few minutes –

Out at 4 1/2 – to Listerwick – Nobody there – Then to the garden house at the Conery – Sam Booth and his family got into it on Saturday afternoon and the garden.  Robert Rawlinson left it that morning –

Came in a little before 6 – Then in the cellar, John Booth getting out the rubbish the masons had left – Had the doors rehung –

Dinner at 6 3/4 – Ann read French in the dining room – Wrote so far of today till tea at 8 1/2 (fancied coffee made me bilious ⸫ therefore tea 1st time tonight) – then read to page 233, Volume 1, Murray’s Pyrenees –

Finish day overhead – Fahrenheit 32° inside at 10 40/.. and Fahrenheit 26° outside at 11 p.m. –

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/22/0127