150 NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM 
the face. As regards export trade, the pits have only 
light railway charges, and sometimes none, to add to their 
costs, and are therefore, like the collieries of South Wales, 
much more favourably situated than the Yorkshire and 
Derbyshire pits. In normal times they command a large 
foreign trade, in which gas coal plays.a leading part. For 
centuries coal has been raised from what used to be called 
the Newcastle district. Some of it found its way to London, 
in spite of edicts against the smoke-producing “ sea cole ” 
as it was called in the sixteenth century. 
The Northumberland collieries work the same seams 
of coal as those in Durham, but the coalfield is less extensive. 
They produce about 12,000,000 tons annually of gas, 
steam, house and coking coals. Among the leading firms 
are the Bedlington Coal Co., whose Chairman is Mr. H. C. 
Embleton, and the Broomhill Collieries, of which Viscount 
Furness is Chairman. Then there are the owners of 
Blackworth Collieries, whose Chairman is Mr. W. R, 
Lamb; the Burraton & Coxlodge Coal Co., whose Chair- 
man is Mr. R. W, Byas; the Cowpen Coal Co., whose 
Chairman is Mr. J. C. Straker; the Cramlington Coal Co., 
whose Chairman is Lt.-Col. R. Scott; the Seaton Delaval 
Coal Co., whose Chairman is Mr. E. Hurst; the Wallsend 
& Hebburn Coal Co., whose Chairman is Mr. J. C. 
Straker; and perhaps the most interesting of all, the 
Ashington Coal Co., which owns four large collieries at 
Ashington, Linton, Woodhorn and Ellington. A fifth is 
to be opened at Lynemouth. The present output of this 
firm is 12,000 tons a day. This coal was originally worked 
in 1848. In 1867 the first of the present shafts was sunk, 
and about 1870, Jonathan Priestman (of an old Quaker 
family related by marriage to the Rt. Hon. John Bright), 
one of the founders of the present business, became 
connected with Ashington. William Milburn, the ship- 
owner, afterwards joined the concern. Pits were sunk at