I suspect women coalowners are a bit off [original] topic, in the
context of the north-east, at least. (I don't suppose Frances Anne
Vane Tempest, later Marchioness of Londonderry - whose pits had an
operating profit of £60,000 even in 1818 - did much putting!)
But if anyone has any information about the Hale sisters, who owned
collieries in Coxhoe and Quarrington in the early 19th century, I'd be
grateful to learn it. I believe they were the daughters of General
Hale, of Guisborough, who served with Wolfe in Canada. They get a
mention in histories of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, as they were
"pacified... by an offer to purchase Coxhoe and Quarrington collieries
which, it was contended, would be placed by the projected railway in a
state of inferiority as compared with other collieries" (Minutes of
S&DR committee meeting 20/2/1821).
But I wouldn't mind knowing how they came to acquire, and subsequently
dispose of, their interests in the Durham coalfield. (I'm pretty sure
the S&DR didn't buy them out. Was it William Hedley, perhaps?)
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