I'm not very familiar with practice in the Northern Coalfield, but my impression (from what I remember from reading Flinn, History of the British Coal Industry, Vol 2) was that in the early 19th Century, the viewer was, at least in some cases, the equivalent of a consulting mining engineer; John Buddle, Mathias Dunn, George Johnson, etc. As Mike said, the agent might have broader responsibilities.

David Poyner

-----Original Message-----
From: mining-history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Syer
Sent: 09 June 2008 14:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Mine Agents

I will be interested to see other replies to this query.  In the
meantime, I can only give what seems to me to have been the situation
in the Durham coalfield.

I think the Agent, in Durham, was the top man.  He was the owner's
representative responsible for all the collieries owned.  So his
importance presumably depended on the no. of collieries owned by that
person or partnership or company. Perhaps especially early in the 19th
century, he may, indeed, have been as much a land agent as a colliery
engineer. The Bishop of Durham's Agent, for instance, may have been
involved with the lease of farms and wayleaves as well as mineral
royalties.

I take the Viewer to have been a rank below the Agent, essentially the
manager of a single colliery or group of collieries.  Some Census
entries show Viewers as being no older than their early 20s -
especially before the NE Institute of Mining Engineers was founded (in
1852) and (later) colliery managers' certificates were introduced.

But then there were some very notable mining engineers who were Agents
but also Viewers... and indeed owners. Nicholas Wood, for instance,
the first president of the NEIMME, was Viewer of Killingworth
colliery, while also being Lord Ravensworth's general manager or Agent
in respect of his other collieries... and at the same time owned
interests in a number of collieries in his own right. To confuse
things a bit more, he left Killingworth, in 1844, and moved to Hetton,
as "Agent" of the Hetton Coal Co., in which he had been a partner
since 1822...

By the end of the 19th century, I think the term "Viewer" was much
less common and that by then the Agent was clearly the engineer
responsible for a company's collieries, while the manager was usually
in charge of just one. (Beneath him there may been one or more under-
managers and beneath them the overmen - with deputy overmen, or
deputies, coming next...  Except that you also had a colliery
engineer, for instance, who seems to me to have been as important as
the under-manager.  I mention these last points because "overman",
also, seems to me to have been a rather ambiguous term earlier on,
perhaps even equating to a colliery manager in some cases.  Perhaps
that, too, depended on the size of the enterprise.)

I'm sorry if this confuses more than it clarifies!  In answer to
Keith's query, though, I am pretty sure that Agents were senior to
Viewers and that the latter could be quite young, early in the 19th
century - in the Durham coalfield, at least.  The age, qualification
or experience required to be an Agent may have depended on the size of
the company, or the size of the estate of the land owner.

Mike

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On 9 Jun 2008, at 10:32, Keith Jackson wrote:

> Several of my ancestors have proved to be Mine Agents in various
> coalfields and I understand that this term effectively relates to
> the modern post of mine manager, though I don't know whether that
> would have meant what we'd currently think of as a manager or would
> also have applied to posts equivalent to under-managers. I would not
> have thought it would have applied to deputies and over-men because
> the term agent suggests he would have been an owners' representative
> and there would have been only one per mine or perhaps one per shift
> necessary. I don't know when mine management became a statutory
> occupation but I'd guess in the early- to mid-19th century that
> there would neither a national qualification nor national or local
> registration of officials. On that basis, would I be right in
> assuming that Mine Agents would be appointed entirely on the basis
> of experience and aptitude?
>
> Although there would have been many small pits in this period, each
> with at least one agent, I can't imagine that it would have been all
> that easy for a miner to rise to agent, even so, and that there
> would have been a fair number of dead men's boots to be filled on
> the way up. Is it be reasonable to assume that it would be unusual
> for anyone to become an agent before their mid-thirties at the very
> earliest and to be more likely not to happen until they were into
> their forties?
>
> Although I'm ex-NCB, I worked at the MRDE/TSRE near Burton on Trent
> so my knowledge of mine management is limited as I was never pit-
> based.
>
> Keith