John Curr (c. 1756 – 27 January 1823) was the manager or viewer of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries in Sheffield, England from 1781 to 1801. During this time he made a number of innovations that contributed significantly to the development of the coal mining industry and railways.[1]
Personal life edit
Curr was born in County Durham, England in around 1756.[2] He was raised and remained a Catholic throughout his life. He moved to Sheffield some time before 1776. In 1780 he was appointed superintendent of the Duke of Norfolk's Sheffield collieries.[2] He married Hannah Wilson (18 May 1759 – 10 June 1851[3]) in about 1785, and they had eight children, including Joseph Curr, a Catholic priest, and Edward Curr, who was Secretary of the Van Diemen's Land Company from 1824 to 1841. He died in Sheffield on 27 January 1823.[4]
Career edit
The career of John Curr has been subject to significant dispute, due to inaccurate statements by early authors about him and misinterpretation.[5] Older works (such as (or those quoting them) often give the date of his colliery inventions as 1776.[6] Curr probably came to Sheffield in 1778. That August, shortly before the expiry of the lease of Sheffield colliery (in Sheffield Park), he wrote a report on it for the Duke of Norfolk.[7] Contrary to statements by his son, he was probably not there in 1774, when there were riots against the colliery lessees, who insisted on selling coal only at a yard in Sheffield.[8] From Michaelmas 1779, he became superintendent of the Duke's Coal Works.[9]
In 1787, John Buddle, senior reported on the transport system introduced by Curr. He reported Curr's method using L-shaped cast iron plates cost 6¼d per waggon, whereas the old method cost 10½d per waggon, a saving of 3¾d. He also referred to Mr Curr's method of 'drawing 2 corves abreast up a shaft 8½ to 9-foot diameter by means of steadying conductors'.[10] Curr substituted small four-wheeled carriages for the sledges that had previously been used to transport coal underground,[11] but this meant that underground haulage by boys, rather than ponies.[12] The corf wheels and 'roadplates' came from Binks, Booth, and Hartop's nearby Park Ironworks.[13]
The use of these rails was subsequently promoted by Benjamin Outram and adopted at many other English mines,[2] quarries and ironworks. In south Wales, railways using his system were known as tramroads (or dramroads). Today, the term plateway is sometimes applied to them.
Patents edit
| Year | Number | Subject | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1788 | 1660 | For raising coals out of mines using "conductors" with tiplers at the surface | |
| 1792 | 1924 | For using double ropes | |
| 1798 | 1924 | For using flat ropes wound in coils on the winding drum[14] | 3711|Applying flat ropes to horse-gins |
Publications edit
See also edit
- Edward Micklethwaite Curr, John Curr's grandson
References and notes edit
- References
- ^ Alexander Lock, 'Curr, John (1756–1823)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2015)
- ^ a b c Day & McNeil 1996, p. 184
- ^ Miscellanea IV. Catholic Record Society. 1907. p. 366.
- ^ "Births, Deaths, Marriages and Obituaries". The Bury and Norwich Post. 5 February 1823.
- ^ The historiography of the subject is dealt with at Mott 1969, pp. 15–17 20–23 and Lewis 1970, pp. 316–9.
- ^ Galloway 1898, pp. 322–4
- ^ Mott 1969, pp. 3: citing Sheffield Archives, ACM/S217.
- ^ Universal Magazine, 2 December 1774: reprinted Mott 1969, pp. 16.
- ^ Mott 1969, p. 4.
- ^ Mott 1969, pp. 5, citing Sheffield Archives, ACMS223.
- ^ Galloway 1898, p. 322
- ^ Lewis 1970, p. 319
- ^ Lewis 1970, p. 318 Identification of ironworks from C. Ball et al., Water Power on Sheffield Rivers (2nd edn, South Yorkshire Industrial History Society, Sheffield, 2006), 192
- ^ Mott, 6.
- Sources
- Ashton, Thomas Southcliffe; Sykes, Joseph (1929). The Coal Industry of the Eighteenth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press. OCLC 3634819.
- Day, Lance; McNeil, Ian (1996). Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-06042-7.
- Galloway, Robert Lindsay (1898). Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal Trade: The invention of the steam engine and the origin of the railway. London: The Colliery Guardian Company, Limited.
- Lewis, M. J. T. (1970). Early Wooden Railways. Routledge & K. Paul. ISBN 978-0-7100-6674-9.
- Mott, R.A. (1969). "Tramroads of the eighteenth century and their originator: John Curr". Transactions of the Newcomen Society. XLII (1): 1–23. doi:10.1179/tns.1969.001.
- Medlicott, Ian R. (1983). "John Curr and the Development of the Sheffield Collieries, 1781–1805". Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society. 12: 51.
- Alexander Lock, Catholicism, Identity and Politics in the Age of Enlightenment: The Life and Career of Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 1745–1810 (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2016), ch. 5
- Alexander Lock, ‘Curr, John (1756–1823)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2015)