【简译】英国工业革命中的煤炭开采

Coal mining boomed during the British Industrial Revolution as it provided fuel for steam engines of all kinds in factories, transport, and agriculture. Draining flooded mines to extract more coal was the reason the steam engine was invented. As lighting used coal gas, and coke was needed to make iron and steel, so the demand for coal kept on growing.

         采煤业在英国工业革命期间蓬勃发展，它为工厂、运输和农业的各种蒸汽机提供燃料。将矿井里的水抽出来以提取更多的煤是人们发明蒸汽机（真空蒸汽机）的初衷。后来照明使用煤气作为燃料，炼铁和炼钢需要焦炭，所以英国对煤的需求不断增长。

丰富的自然资源

Coal mining had been a major industry in Britain from the 16th century, ever since forests had been depleted and wood for fuel became scarce. There were four main coalfields: South Wales, southern Scotland, Lancashire, and Northumberland. All four produced high-quality coal, and all were conveniently positioned near waterways of one sort or another which could transport the coal to other regions. The abundance of coal and the early exploitation of it (half a century or more ahead of other European nations) meant that Britain already had the mining resources and know-how to fully exploit the arrival of industrial machines and other inventions which needed coal or its byproducts as a fuel. These coal-hungry inventions of the Industrial Revolution created a massive and sustained boom in coal mining.

          从16世纪开始，自从森林枯竭和用于燃料的木材变得稀缺之后，煤炭开采就成为英国的主要产业之一。英国有四个主要的煤田： 南威尔士、南苏格兰、兰开夏郡和诺森伯兰郡。这四个地区都出产高质量的煤炭，而且都位于交通便利的水道附近，可以将煤炭运往其他地区。丰富的煤炭和早期的开发（比其他欧洲国家早半个世纪或更长时间）意味着英国已经具备一定的采矿资源和专业知识，可以充分发挥那些需要煤炭或其副产品作为燃料的工业机器和其他发明的作用。工业革命中以煤炭为燃料的机器数量的增加，带动了一个巨大的、持续的煤矿开采热潮。

蒸汽机

The greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution was the steam engine, which transformed all manner of tasks and transportation from relying on human, animal, wind, or water power to using the far greater, cheaper, and more consistent power of machines. The steam engine was invented in the first place so that coal mines could be mined deeper and floodwaters pumped out of the shafts. By 1700, Britain already produced 80% of the coal in Europe. It was in 1712 that the first steam engine pump was built by Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) to drain coal mines of water in Dudley in the Midlands. The steam engine needed coal for its fuel, and so when the invention was made more efficient and adapted for other uses by such inventors as James Watt (1736-1819) and Matthew Boulton (1728-1809), so the demand for coal grew. Steam engines were used to power cotton looms, steam hammers, threshing machines, and any other kind of heavy machinery that saved the costs of human and animal labour.

          第一次工业革命中最伟大的发明是蒸汽机，它将各种工作和运输方式从依赖人力、动物力、风力或水力转变为使用更强大、更便宜、更稳定的机器力量。发明蒸汽机的初衷是为了使煤矿能够开采得更深，并将积水从矿井中抽出。到1700年，英国已经生产了欧洲80%的煤炭。正是在1712年，托马斯·纽科门（1664-1729）建造了第一台蒸汽机泵，用于从米德兰的杜德里煤矿抽水。蒸汽机需要煤作为燃料，因此，当詹姆斯·瓦特（1736-1819）和马修·博尔顿（1728-1809）等发明家提高了这项发明的效率并将其用于其他用途时，人们对煤炭的需求也随之增加。蒸汽机被用来驱动棉织机、蒸汽锤、脱粒机，以及其他任何一种节省人力和动物劳动成本的重型机械。

煤炭与运输

The boom in coal production caused a massive expansion in the canal system along and connecting all major rivers and their tributaries from 1750 as this was still the cheapest way to transport such heavy goods (at around half the cost of using roads). By 1830, "England and Wales had 3,876 miles [6,237 km] of inland canals, up from 1,399 [2,251 km] in 1760" (Horn, 17).

          煤炭生产的繁荣促使从1750年起沿所有主要河流及其支流连接的运河系统的大规模扩张，因为这仍然是运输重型货物最廉价的方式（成本大约是公路的一半）。1830年，“英格兰和威尔士有3876英里[6237公里]的内陆运河，比1760年的1399英里[2251公里]有所增加”（霍恩，17）。

From 1825, the railways and their steam trains needed coal. The idea of railways had been born from the short stretches of rails used for pulling along carts of coal from the mine entrance to where it could be transported elsewhere by barge or ship. George Stephenson (1781-1848) owned a company in Newcastle that specialised in building railway trains to transport coal over short distances at coal mines. Stephenson designed the Locomotion 1 train engine. This locomotive was powerful enough to pull carriages, and it transported the first steam railway passengers from Stockton to Darlington in the northeast of England in 1825. From there, the railway network grew to connect practically all of Britain's cities and major towns.

          从1825年起，铁路运输对煤炭的需求逐年增加。铁路的想法源于用于将煤车从矿井入口拖运到可以用驳船或轮船运到其他地方的短铁轨。乔治·斯蒂芬森（1781-1848）在纽卡斯尔拥有一家公司，专门建造铁路列车，短距离运输煤炭。斯蒂芬森设计了Locomotion 1（机车一号）火车。这种火车头的动力足以拉动车厢，它搭载了从斯托克顿到英格兰东北部达灵顿的蒸汽铁路上的第一批乘客。后来，铁路网络发展到几乎连接英国所有的城市和主要城镇。

From the mid-19th century, great new steamships like SS Great Britain (1843) and SS Great Eastern (1858) devoured hundreds of tons of coal each voyage as they crossed the Atlantic and other oceans. Even more traditional transport like canal boats were fitted with coal-eating engines.

          从19世纪中期开始，像SS大不列顛（1843年）和SS大东方号（1858年）等大型轮船在穿越大西洋和其他海洋时，每次航行都要消耗数百吨煤炭。即使是最传统的交通工具，如运河船，也配备了燃煤发动机。

煤气照明

Around 1792-4 the Scotsman William Murdock (1754-1839) first demonstrated coal gas could be used for lighting. Murdock had been alerted to the possibility when he had filled a smoking pipe with coal dust and the escaping gas lit when he placed it near an open fire. This new and brighter source of illumination replaced the burning of oil or tallow candles. The idea to use coal gas for street lighting was pioneered by the German inventor Frederick Albert Winsor (1763-1830) from 1807. Winsor spectacularly demonstrated the potential of his idea by setting up gas streetlights from Pall Mall to St James' Park in London, knowing that King George III of Great Britain (r. 1760-1820) would pass that way in his carriage. The demonstration caused a sensation, and Pall Mall received 13 permanent gas-lit lampposts and so became the first street in the world to be so illuminated.

          大约在1792-14年，苏格兰人威廉·默多克(William Murdock，1754-1839)首次证明煤气可以用于照明。默多克在一个烟斗里装满了煤粉，当他把烟斗放在明火附近时，逸出的气体点燃了烟斗，这时他就意识到了这种可能性。这种新的、更明亮的照明来源取代了油或牛脂蜡烛的燃烧。将煤气用于街道照明的想法是由德国发明家弗雷德里克·阿尔伯特·温索尔（1763-1830）在1807年开创的。温索尔知道英国国王乔治三世（1760-1820年）将乘坐马车经过那里，于是在伦敦的Pall Mall（伦敦市中心威斯敏斯特市圣詹姆斯区的一条街道）和圣詹姆斯公园之间架设了煤气路灯，从而展示了他的想法的潜力。这次演示引起了轰动，Pall Mall建设了13个永久性的煤气灯柱，因此成为世界上第一条煤气灯照明的街道。

Much wrangling with Parliament meant it was not until 1812 that Winsor won a contract to light more of London with his invention. Over the next decade, the capital was given 40,000 gas streetlights. The addition of light to previously dark streets transformed people's habits and, seen as much safer to go out at night, restaurants and entertainment establishments were able to attract far more customers than previously. The idea was a winner, and it soon spread to other British cities and abroad. In 1816, Baltimore became the first city in the United States to use coal gas street lighting; Paris followed suit in 1820.

          在与议会发生多次争执后，温莎直到 1812 年才获得合同，用他的发明照亮伦敦更多地区。在接下来的十年里，首都建设了40,000盏煤气灯。原本漆黑的街道变得明亮，灯光改变了人们的生活习惯，晚上外出似乎更安全，餐厅和娱乐场所也比以前吸引了更多的顾客。煤气灯很快就传到了其他英国城市和国外。1816年，巴尔的摩成为美国第一个使用煤气灯照明的城市；巴黎也在1820年效仿采用煤气灯照明街道。

Coal gas was also used for cookers in people's homes. By the 1850s, every major town had a gasworks. Coal and gas for heating meant that wood was no longer needed in such quantities, allowing land which had previously been reserved for forests to be used instead for agriculture.

          煤气也用于家庭烹饪。到19世纪50年代，每个主要城镇都有一个煤气厂。煤和煤气供暖意味着人们不再需要大量的木材，从而使以前保留给森林的土地转而用于农业。

煤炭的其他用途

Coke, made from burning coal in a furnace to remove as many impurities as possible, became an essential fuel for iron- and steelworks. The first working blast furnace using coke was used in 1709 at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, a works owned by Abraham Darby (1678-1717). Coke-fuelled blast furnaces could reach much higher temperatures than the traditional fuel of charcoal and did not introduce impurities into the furnace, two essentials for making the best steel. Coal, meanwhile, was used as a source of heat in anything from brickworks to breweries. The high concentration of factories in the West Midlands and their heavy use of coal meant the region became known as the 'Black Country'. Byproducts of making coke besides coal gas included tar and numerous chemicals. In the last quarter of the 19th century, coal was used, and still is, to generate electricity.

          焦炭是通过在炉子里燃烧煤炭以尽可能多地去除杂质而炼制成的，这成为钢铁厂必不可少的燃料。1709 年，亚伯拉罕达比（1678-1717 年）在什罗普郡的 Coalbrookdale 使用了第一座焦炭鼓风炉。以焦炭为燃料的高炉可以达到比传统的木炭燃料高得多的温度，并且不会将杂质带入炉中，这是制造优质钢材的两个基本要素。与此同时，从砖厂到啤酒厂，煤炭被用作各种设施的热源。西米德兰地区的工厂高度集中，大量使用煤炭，使该地区被称为“黑色乡村”。除了煤气，炼焦的副产品还包括焦油和许多化学品。在19世纪的最后一个季度，煤炭被用来发电，而且现在仍然如此。

Britain produced annually just 2.5 to 3 million tons of coal in 1700, but by 1900, this figure had rocketed to 224 million tons. In the 19th century, Britain was mining two-thirds of the world's coal. One French manufacturing inspector on a tour of Britain, Monsieur Ticquet, noted in 1738 that "Coal is one of the great sources of richness and abundance in England, and I regard it as the soul of the English manufactures" (Horn, 40). By the time of the 1851 census, there were 220,000 coal miners in Britain.

          1700年，英国每年仅生产250万至300万吨煤，但到1900年，这一数字已飙升至2.24亿吨。在19世纪，英国的煤炭开采量占世界的三分之二。一位法国制造业视察员Ticquet先生在1738年指出，“煤炭是英国财富的重要来源之一，我认为它是英国制造业的灵魂”（霍恩，40）。到1851年的人口普查时，英国有22万名煤矿工人。

Coal had become the lifeblood of the Industrial Age, its value demonstrable in statistics and charts but also more romantically in, for example, the decision of the exhibitors in the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London's Crystal Palace to include in their exhibits of the wonders of the modern era a 24-ton chunk of coal. Rather less wonderous was the great air pollution that the burning of coal created in cities and areas of heavy industry.

          煤炭已经成为工业时代的命脉，它的价值可以在统计数字和图表中体现出来，但也可以更浪漫地体现出来，例如，1851年在伦敦水晶宫举行的大展览会上，参展商决定在其现代奇迹的展品中出展一块24吨的煤炭。煤炭的燃烧在城市和重工业地区造成了巨大的空气污染，这反而不是什么奇迹。

矿场的工作条件

Working in a mine is never the pleasantest of environments, but in the 18th and 19th centuries, the conditions were particularly poor. Hard physical work, most coal faces were worked using pickaxes. The seam of coal being worked might be very narrow indeed so that a miner was forced to work in a space no higher than 30 inches (75 cm). Women and children were employed in the mines. Women were used to carry heavy baskets of coal from the face to carts for transportation, which usually involved walking through water.

          在矿井中工作从来不是最愉快的环境，但在18和19世纪，条件特别差。大多数采煤前线都使用镐进行作业。工作的煤层可能非常狭窄，因此矿工被迫在不超过 30 英寸（75 厘米）的缝隙中工作。矿场雇用妇女和儿童。妇女的任务是将沉重的煤炭筐从采煤前线搬运到货车上，这通常需要在水中行走。

Children as young as five years old were found useful to climb into narrow ventilation shafts and ensure trapdoors were regularly opened and shut. Most children, though, were employed to either shift the coal from the working level to the surface or to sort it out from other debris before it was shipped away. Those who pulled the coal in carts using a harness were known as 'hurriers', and it was back-breaking work detrimental to the child's physical development. Many parents were not opposed to their children working, despite the health hazards, since they brought in much-needed earnings for the family. In addition, over half of children working in mines kept their employment when they reached adulthood. From 1800 to 1850, children composed between 20-50% of the mining workforce. The consequence of working at such an early age was that most children employed in mines never had more than three years of schooling.

          年仅五岁的孩子在爬进狭窄的通风井并确保舱口定期打开和关闭方面很有用。然而，大多数儿童的工作是将煤从工作层运到地面，或者在运输前将煤与其他废物分开。那些用套车拉煤的人被称为“赶工”，工作很累，且不利于孩子的身体发育。尽管有健康风险，但许多父母并不反对孩子工作，因为这为家庭提供了急需的收入。此外，在矿山工作的儿童中，有一半以上在成年后仍保持这份工作。从1800年到1850年，儿童占采矿劳动力的20%到50%。这么早工作的后果是，大多数受雇于矿山的儿童从未接受过三年以上的学校教育。

Men, women, and children very often suffered health problems from the physical hard work and long, 12-hour shifts. Breathing in coal dust year after year caused many to develop lung diseases. As the historian S. Yorke emphatically notes, "The coal mining industry must represent one of the worst exploitations of men, women and children ever to have taken place in Britain" (98).

          男子、妇女和儿童经常因体力劳动和长期12小时的轮班而出现健康问题。年复一年地吸入煤尘使许多人患上了肺部疾病。正如历史学家S.Yorke所强调的那样，“煤矿业必须代表英国有史以来对男人、女人和儿童最恶劣的剥削之一”（98）。

安全指示灯

With more miners working ever deeper within the Earth, more accidents inevitably occurred. In 1838, there were 97 deaths from roof collapses; in 1864, there were 395. Ropes breaking and letting fall great weights was another common occurrence but was reduced after the introduction of steel cables in mines from the early 1800s.

          随着越来越多的矿工在地下深处工作，更多的事故不可避免地发生了。1838年，有97人死于屋顶坍塌；1864年，有395人。绳索断裂和重物落下致死是另一种常见的情况，但在19世纪初矿井引入钢缆后，这种情况有所减少。

Another serious threat to life and limb was the explosion of gases (called by miners fire-damp or mine-damp, a lethal mix of methane gas and coal dust) which built up during the mining process. The naked flame of the lamps used to illuminate the shafts igniting the gas was the cause of such explosions.

          对生命和肢体的另一个严重威胁是在开采过程中积累的气体爆炸（矿工称之为甲烷气体，甲烷气体和煤尘的致命混合物）。用来照亮矿井的灯的明火点燃了气体，这就是爆炸的原因。

In 1815, Humphrey Davy (1778-1820) and George Stephenson (1781-1848) independently invented the safety lamp for use by miners, which enclosed the flame in a fine mesh (allowing air in but not the flame to spread out). In addition, if the flame of the lamp turned from orange to blue it indicated that the gas levels were dangerously high in the shaft and it was time to leave. Thirdly, the lamp could detect a dangerous amount of carbon dioxide (choke-damp) in the air as the flame extinguished itself allowing miners to leave the area before that gas built up to a fatal quantity. Davy's lamp, the most effective of the two, was first used in a coal mine in County Durham in 1816. The lamp saved countless lives, but it is also true that miners grew to depend on the lamps so much that they often took risks in exploring potentially dangerous passages in a mine that otherwise would have been left alone. The safety lamp was not as bright as candlelight either, and so many miners refused to use the new invention even if candles were prohibited.

          1815年，汉弗里·戴维（1778-1820）和乔治·斯蒂芬森（1781-1848）发明了矿工安全灯，它将火焰封闭在一个细网中（允许空气进入但不排出火焰蔓延）。此外，如果灯的火焰从橙色变成蓝色，则表明井中的气体浓度高到危险的程度，是时候撤离了。当火焰自行熄灭时，该灯可以检测到空气中危险的二氧化碳（窒息性气体），使矿工在该气体积累到致命数量之前离开该区域。戴维灯是两种灯中最有效的一种，于1816年首次在达勒姆郡的一个煤矿中使用。这盏灯拯救了无数人的生命，但矿工们也确实越来越依赖这盏灯，以至于他们经常冒险探索矿井中潜在的危险通道。安全灯也没有烛光那么明亮，所以尽管蜡烛是被禁止的，但许多矿工仍拒绝使用这项新发明。

改革：1842 年矿业法

In 1842, the Mines Act was pushed through via the efforts of Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury (1801-1885), and public outrage at the increasing frequency of accidents and the knowledge that men and women were working together underground in a state of undress in the hot conditions. Ashley headed a Royal Commission that investigated working conditions in several mines and compiled testimony from those who worked in them. There were opponents to the Act, primarily mine owners and those who were against government interference in industry in principle. This opposition was the major reason why a recommendation to reduce working days from 12 hours to 10 never became a reality. Nevertheless, the Act now prohibited the employment of women, girls, and boys under 10 years of age from working underground. Safety regulations were to be better enforced, and only those over 15 years of age could operate machinery. Mine inspectors were employed by the government to ensure the new rules were put into practice. In the short term, the Act did mean that many women lost their jobs, and families with only daughters suffered severe financial hardship.

          1842年，在沙夫茨伯里伯爵阿什利勋爵（1801-1885）的努力下，以及公众对日益频繁的事故和知道男女在炎热的条件下不穿衣服在地下一起工作的愤慨下，矿业法得以通过。阿什利领导了一个皇家委员会，该委员会调查了几个矿场的工作条件，并收集了在这些矿场工作的人的证词。反对该法案的人，主要是矿主和那些原则上反对政府干预工业的人。这种反对意见是将工作日从12小时减少到10小时的建议从未成为现实的主要原因。尽管如此，该法案禁止雇用妇女、女孩和10岁以下的男孩从事地下工作。安全条例将得到更好的执行，而且只有15岁以上的人才能操作机器。政府雇用了矿山检查员，以确保新规则得以实施。在短期内，该法案确实意味着许多妇女失去了工作，只有女儿的家庭遭受了严重的经济困难。

For good or bad, coal mining was a mainstay of the British economy into the 20th century. The noted historian Alan Macfarlane summarises the importance of coal to the Industrial Revolution and life as we know it today:

Our civilization in the modern world is built first on coal and later of course on other carbon energy – oil, and so on. Without this, there could have been no Industrial Revolution, it couldn't have happened in England and we would still be living in an agrarian society.(Dugan, 67)

          无论好坏，煤炭开采都是英国经济的支柱，一直到20世纪。著名历史学家艾伦·麦克法兰 (Alan Macfarlane) 总结了煤炭对工业革命和我们今天生活的重要性：

          我们现代世界的文明首先建立在煤炭上，后来当然也建立在其他碳能源上：石油，等等。如果没有这些，就不会产生工业革命，它不可能发生在英国，我们仍将生活在农业社会。

煤炭开采对工业革命有什么作用？

          煤炭开采对工业革命至关重要，因为它创造了对蒸汽机泵的需求，并为蒸汽机机器、供暖和煤气照明提供了燃料。

在英国的工业革命中，煤被用来做什么？

          在工业革命中，煤炭被用作机器、火车和蒸汽船的燃料。煤被用于取暖，煤气被用于照明。煤炭燃烧产生的焦炭对钢铁工业至关重要。

 为什么煤炭开采对英国很重要？

          煤炭开采对英国很重要，因为它提供了廉价和稳定的燃料来源。

参考书目：

Allen, Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Armstrong, Benjamin. Britain 1783-1885. Hodder Education, 2020.

Dugan, Sally & Dugan, David. The Day the World Took Off. Channel 4 Book, 2023.

Forty, Simon. 100 Innovations of the Industrial Revolution. Haynes Publishing UK, 2019.

Hepplewhite, Peter. All About. Wayland, 2016.

Horn, Jeff. The Industrial Revolution. Greenwood, 2007.

Humphries, Jane. Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Shelley. Industrialisation and Social Change in Britain. PEARSON SCHOOLS, 2016.

Yorke, Stan. The Industrial Revolution Explained& Massive Wheels. Countryside Books, 2005.

原文作者：Mark Cartwright

          驻意大利的历史作家。他的主要兴趣包括陶瓷、建筑、世界神话和发现所有文明的共同思想。他拥有政治哲学硕士学位，是《世界历史百科全书》的出版总监。

原文网址：https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2201/coal-mining-in-the-british-industrial-revolution/