I'm sorry to ride upon David's original message, as this is probably not of interest to him in his enquiry about Barnabas Brough. But can anyone advise how common were such "fire engines" in the North East at that time - i.e. late middle 18th century?
An agreement and release held by Durham County Record Office (Ref. D/X 769/1), dated 12 August 1778, records that that John Burdon of Hardwick had "for many years worked Quarrington Colliery adjoining the Coxhoe estate and has erected and used a 'Fire Engine', engine house, engine man's house, smith's shop etc. standing on the Coxhoe estate when John Swinburn purchased the estate from him, and that some of the coals were led for a short distance over the estate".
The location of what must surely (from the sketch included) be a Newcomen steam engine is shown in Quarrington, on a map dated 1797, of the estates of the executors of the late John Burdon. (I don't know the source of this map, a copy of which I found among documents in a 1995 opencast planning application. If anyone's interested, the NZ map coordinates are something like 431738 / 537059.) I did think this must have been the same engine as the one mentioned earlier, until I realised that it was about 500 yards north of the Quarrington-Coxhoe boundary. (Quarrington and Coxhoe were not just different townships; they were different royalties. Burdon owned the freehold of the Coxhoe one (as well as the estate) and leased the Quarrington royalty from the Bishop of Durham.)
Mike
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On 9 Feb 2015, at 15:08, Poyner, David wrote:
> Thanks; I will contact Les. Brough was only ever a minor player, but he does seem to have had some interesting contacts. From what I can see, he lived to be nearly 100 and was active well into his 70s, so he spanned the generations.
>
> David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mining-history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ian Winship
> Sent: 09 February 2015 14:18
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Steam engine erection
>
> Hi
>
> I asked the Librarian at the Mining Institute in Newcastle to do a quick check and I looked at their lists of archive material and checked the Durham Mining Museum site, but we have found nothing.
> Apparently local historian Les Turnbull is working on a book on William Brown, so may be able to help. You can contact him via the Institute - mail [log in to unmask]
>
> Hope this is of use.
>
> Ian Winship
>
> ============
>
>
> On 9 Feb 2015, at 08:41, Poyner, David <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear All,
> I am trying to trace the career of Barnabas Brough. He was born in Chester-le-Street in 1731 and according to a memoir he published, around 1765/6 he was employed to erect a "fire engine"; this was when he met his wife, Sarah Hemple, who he married in Newcastle in 1766. Does anyone know of a steam engine that was being assembled at a Tyneside (or at least, North-east) colliery at this time? My guess is that he worked for William Brown, the leading colliery engineer in the Great North Coalfield at this time, but I have no direct evidence for that.
>
> Thanks
>
> David Poyner
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