Monday 8th December 1834

No entry today.

[up at] 8

[to bed at] 12 1/2 

no kiss boisterous rainy night – windy rainy morning and began snowing (1st time this winter) at 9 a.m. Fahrenheit 47° at 9 10/.. a.m. breakfast at 9 ¼ – Hinscliffe (James) came before 10 and staid till 1 – Long collier-talk – with respect to the business in question (Spigs colliery loose thro’ the Well royde holms) Hinscliffe thinks we had better wait 2 or 3 weeks till he can get more information – thinks Samuel Holdsworth must be working on the same level and will be benefitted by the loose – others, too, may be benefitted – hard to make Keighleys and company pay for this but yet some provision should be made against it – nothing to be done but by a barrier-wall of ashler stone 3 feet long x ___ and well puddled at the back – this very expensive but nothing else will turn – I said, I had considered the matter and thought the loose should be worth half as much as the coal – he said he had nothing to say against it – but the coal was too dear at 80 guineas lower bed and 70 guineas upper bed – well! said I, but value each bed at £50 per acre to the owner and each bed at £25 per acre loose = each bed £75 per acre coal and loose how is that – Hinscliffe said nothing against it – agreed, however, to wait till he gets more information when he will call again – said he did not wish to say behind his back what he would not before his face, but Mr. Rawson is not a gentleman – (i.e. for lowering his coal 2d a load) – I said he was foolish – he would worry up Wilson the little dog, and set Stocks, the great one, against him – Wilson cannot stand long – his loose and colliery will be put up to auction and Stocks will get it – I asked if it would be worth Stocks’s while to give £5000 for it engine and looses without the coal – Hinscliffe thinks not tho’ thinks Stocks has a 1,000 acres of coal (both beds) in Northowram but he can have as good a loose as Wilson’s in the same clough above and set up an engine of his own for £5000 – Hinscliffe however caught at my asking what it was worth, and said perhaps I should think of it – he would consider about it, get more information and let me know – I begged him not to name it – but said it would not be worth my while to give an out of the way price for it, tho’ I would not let Stocks have it for nothing – it then came out that perhaps Mr. Rawson might think something of it (thus confirming my guess that it would be so vide 24th ultimo page 215) – I said it would not pay Rawson for Joseph Wilkinson could give a loose, or if Stocks came to me I thought I could give him a tail-loose. Hinscliffe seemed to consider a little and then answered well! perhaps I could – He said he heard I had been told that Rawson had got 4 or 5 acres of my coal – well! said I, and who told me? Hinscliffe did not know – no! said I, nor do I know but the person who has told me must (tho’ I neither have told nor mean to tell it) is yourself. Hinscliffe stared – yes! said I you told me of their getting my coal – you told me of the water they would throw on me, and put into my head the penalty to guard against it – Holt has often wondered how I got to know about it so well – it is you who, in fact, put it into to sink the pit above – I know Mr. Rawson thinks you a friend of his and that you are in the same scrape about getting my coal – I know all this well enough – but I mean you to be my friend – you and I can agree – I don’t mind about your getting – Mr. Rawson’s is a different thing – we then talked over the expense of Rawson’s colliery £200 a year (said Hinscliffe) will not work the engines and keep them in repair and find gas etc. – well then allow £300 a year and 4 percent interest on £15000 expenses on the colliery from 1st to last = £900 a year to pay out before a shilling of wages or ordinary expenses is paid – we agreed this could not answer and Hinscliffe owned he thought the colliery could not go on long in this way – we made out that Wilson could not get more than 2 acres per annum (1 hard and 1 soft bed) and that he has £300 a year 4 percent interest to pay besides ordinary expenses and this cannot answer – Hinscliffe valued the Wyke coal (late Mere, now Carvin cum uxore Mere daughter of the former) when let to Rogers and Langley, at £300 per acre both beds and John Oates put £50 per acre additional on the 2 beds at which Hinscliffe supposes Rogers and Langley took it – got rid of it – sold their geer etc. to the Low moor company for £500 and lost £500 by the little bit of the concern they worked – If the Low moor company have got it cheap, they have paid a good deal of money down to Carvin who is a man of expense – Lampleugh Hird should go into the pits, and not merely ride to the pit’s mouths – they let their iron stone to be got by day, and give some men 2/. a day who do not earn 6d – they have let by the job and when the men have worked very hard so as to have a good bit to receive at the end, they (the company) have thought they (the men) had had too good a job and refused to pay them!!! – sat with Adney at her luncheon – from 1 1/2 to 6 siding papers plans prints etc. and helping Adney with her books – dinner at 6 20/.. – coffee – Adney and I 1/4 hour with my father and Marian – then won a gammon and lost a hit – Adney tired – sat talking and sat by her till she got into bed and then rubbed the back of her neck 13 minutes with spirit wine and camphor till 9 3/4 – then 1/2 hour with my aunt – then wrote all the above of today (in the dining room – cam down to the fire) till 11 35/.. – Rainy windy winterly day, – tho’ the snow that fell in the morning melted immediately and did not whiten the ground – 

[In margin]:

value of Spigs loose

Courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale SH:7/ML/E/17/0121 & SH:7/ML/E/17/0122