At the beginning of the 18th century, a coal mine near Benwell, in Northumberland, took fire by a candle, and burned nearly thirty years. It’s progress was small at first, but it afterwards acquired so great strength as to spread into the Fenham grounds, and burst out in the manner of a volcano, in near twenty places. It covered the furze in its way with flour of sulphur, and cast up pieces of sal ammoniac six inches broad. [LRS]

July 29. — The keelmen petitioned the common council of Newcastle, for a piece of ground whereon to erect themselves a hospital. August 23rd, the hoastmen made an order that the lease for the above ground, which was sealed and executed on the 4th of October following, should be taken in the name of the governor, wardens, and fraternity of hoastmen, for the use and benefit of the keelmen. The charge of this hospital, which was finished in 1701, amounted to above two thousand pounds, towards the defraying of which each keelman paid four-pence a tide. [LRS]

December. — A society appears to have been established in Sandgate, in the suburbs of Newcastle, for the reformation of manners, consisting of twenty keelmen, who had entered into an agreement to exert themselves in preventing tippling upon the Lord’s day, and keeping Sandgate free of inmates. [LRS]

 

 

• LRS — Local Records or Historical Register of Remarkable Events by John Sykes, Published in 1833 in two volumes