Great Britain's coal legacy
Excerpts from an old book I found while poking around a book fair in Bangalore. The casing was that lovely old hardback with embossed gold writing on the spine, and the sentiments within were equally archaic.
'COAL', by F. H. Wilson, was published in 1921 in London.
Introduction:
"Great Britain undoubtedly owes her wonderful position among the great nations of her world to her vast store of that natural source of energy - coal. Without a cheap and plentiful supply of the mineral the industries of this country could never have attained their present prosperous condition and importance, and as a substitute equal in every respect to coal has not yet been discovered it can truthfully be said that the maintenance of the commercial supremacy of Great Britain depends on her coal mines."
Growth:
"It is difficult to obtain any accurate figures relating to the production of countries other than the UK for [earlier than 1871, from the present date of 1921], but it is during this period that coal-mining has developed so wonderfully."
In 1837 it is estimated that the production of coal in the United Kingdom amounted to 23m tons, and in 1850, 42m tons.
In 1860 the total world's production of coal was 134m tons, 60% of which was raised by the UK.
In 1875 the UK alone was raising 133m tons of coal, 48% of the total world production. No other country came close to that amount, the nearest being the US with 17% of world production, followed by Germany (13%), France (6%) and Belgium (3.5%). The US was soon to catch up though, producing 50% of the world's total 958m tons of coal per year, with Great Britain following second.
The world's coal output was nearly ten times greater in 1919 than in 1860, and nearly five times greater as compared with 1875.