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Investigating the Coal Question

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Steam Power and Sea Power

Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

The first chapter discusses the political issues resulting from a dependence on coal using the term “coal consciousness” to describe the increasing awareness of the importance of coal to British imperial and commercial security. Rather than discussing the coal issue in isolation, however, chapter 2 argues that it is imperative to consider how bodies created to investigate the coal question were both affected by, and crucial to, shifts in political thought about imperial defence. In particular, it considers how the Carnarvon Commission, in contrast to the earlier Colonial Defence Committee, created an enduring coaling knowledge. This was achieved through the sheer weight of evidence and data collected, thus reflecting a wider belief in the power and practical utility of information and knowledge.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    London Gazette, 12 September 1879.

  2. 2.

    Burroughs, “Defence and Imperial Disunity,” Porter, A.N. (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol. 3, the Nineteenth Century. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 335.

  3. 3.

    Beeler, “Steam Strategy and Schurman,” in Kennedy, Greg, Neilson, Keith and Schurman, Donald M. (eds.), Far-Flung Lines: Essays on Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman. (London: Frank Cass, 1996).

  4. 4.

    Malcolm Pearce and Geoffrey Stewart, British Political History, 1867–1990: Democracy and Decline. (London: Routledge, 1992), 143.

  5. 5.

    E.H.H. Green, The Crisis of Conservatism: The Politics, Economics, and Ideology of the Conservative Party, 1880–1914. (London: Routledge, 1995), 2.

  6. 6.

    Green, The Crisis of Conservatism, 67.

  7. 7.

    Ibid. 67–69.

  8. 8.

    Disraeli suggested that the working classes “are for maintaining the greatness of the kingdom and the empire, and they are proud of being subjects of our Sovereign and members of such an Empire. Well, then, as regards the political institutions of this country, the maintenance of which is one of the chief tenets of the Tory Party, so far as I can read public opinion, the feeling of the nation is in accordance with the Tory party.” Speech at banquet of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), cited in “Mr. Disraeli at Sydenham,” The Times, 25 June 1872.

  9. 9.

    Pearce and Stewart, British Political History, 39.

  10. 10.

    Anna Gambles, Protection and Politics: Conservative Economic Discourse, 1815–1852. (London: Royal Historical Society, 1999), 230; J.P. Parry, The Politics of Patriotism: English Liberalism, National Identity and Europe, 1830–1886. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 3–10.

  11. 11.

    See Richard Cobden, The Three Panics: An Historical Episode. (London: Cassell, 1884).

  12. 12.

    The breakdown of infrastructure has been explored for the recent past in Stephen Graham, Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructure Fails. (London: Taylor & Francis, 2009).

  13. 13.

    Paul Kennedy, “Imperial Cable Communications and Strategy, 1870–1914,” The English Historical Review, 86, 341 (1971), 728–752.

  14. 14.

    For example: Peter Putnis, Chandrika Kaul, and Jurgen Wilke (eds.), International Communication and Global News Networks: Historical Perspectives (New York: Hampton Press, 2011); Glen O’Hara, “New Histories of British Imperial Communication and the ‘Networked World’ of the nineteenth and Early twentieth Centuries,” History Compass, 8, no. 7 (2010), 609–625; Daniel R. Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); Iwan Rhys Morus, “The Nervous System of Britain: Space, Time and the Electric Telegraph in the Victorian Age,” The British Journal for the History of Science, 33, no. 4 (2000), 455–475.

  15. 15.

    The first was introduced in 1871. The introduction of steam engines had been gradual due to concerns about the performance and efficiency of steam engines, see: Quentin Hughes, Britain in the Mediterranean and the Defence of Her Naval Stations (Liverpool: Penpaled, 1981), 136. Although needed less regularly, they were also shackled to the dry dock, something that has been discussed in Andrew Lambert, “Economic Power, Technological Advantage, and Imperial Strength: Britain as a Unique Global Power, 1860–1890,” International Journal of Naval History, 5, no. 2 (2006).

  16. 16.

    Beeler, “Steam Strategy and Schurman,” in Kennedy, Neilson, and Schurman (eds.), Far-Flung Lines, 326.

  17. 17.

    Alabama successfully burned 65 Union vessels, most which were merchant ships. See, for example, Raimondo Luraghi, A History of the Confederate Navy. (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1996).

  18. 18.

    See, for example, the work of Daniel Baugh.

  19. 19.

    Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 168.

  20. 20.

    See, for example, ‘Memorandum on Colonial Defences’, TNA, CO 537/208.

  21. 21.

    Kennedy, Imperial Cable Communications and Strategy, 1870–1914.

  22. 22.

    Quoted in Beeler, ‘Steam Strategy and Schurman’, in Kennedy, Neilson, and Schurman (eds.), Far-Flung Lines, 33.

  23. 23.

    He served as First Naval Lord (the professional head of the Royal Navy) in 1866–1868, and again in 1872–1876.

  24. 24.

    Milne, quoted in in Beeler, ‘Steam Strategy and Schurman’, in Kennedy, Neilson, and Schurman (eds.), Far-Flung Lines, 34.

  25. 25.

    Beeler, ‘Steam Strategy and Schurman’, in Kennedy, Neilson, and Schurman (eds.), Far-Flung Lines, 34.

  26. 26.

    For an excellent history of Jervois and his fortifications, see Timothy Crick, Ramparts of Empire: The Fortifications of Sir William Jervois, Royal Engineer 1821–1897. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2012).

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 41–44; Andrew Lambert, ‘The Royal Navy: 1856–1914’, in Keith Neilson and Elizabeth Jane Errington (eds.), Navies and Global Defense: Theories and Strategy. (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), 209.

  28. 28.

    Beeler, ‘Steam Strategy and Schurman’, in Kennedy, Neilson, and Schurman (eds.), Far-Flung Lines, 35; Roger Parkinson suggests that this is the closest Britain came to war in the period 1856–1914: Roger Parkinson, The Late Victorian Navy: The Pre-Dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First World War. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008), 41.

  29. 29.

    T.G. Otte, ‘The Foreign Office and Defence of Empire 1856–1914’, in Greg Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence: The Old World Order 1856–1956. (London: Routledge, 2008), 11.

  30. 30.

    Pearce and Stewart, British Political History, 74; Stanley R. Stembridge, Parliament, the Press, and the Colonies, 1846–1880 (New York: Garland, 1982), 182.

  31. 31.

    Otte, ‘The Foreign Office and Defence of Empire 1856–1914’, in Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence, 10.

  32. 32.

    Greg Kennedy, ‘The Concept of Imperial Defence 1856–1956’, in Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence, 1.

  33. 33.

    Peter Baldwin, ‘The Victorian State in Comparative Perspective’, in Peter Mandler (ed.), Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 65; Simon Gunn and James Vernon, ‘Introduction’, in Simon Gunn and James Vernon (eds.), The Peculiarities of Liberal Modernity in Imperial Britain. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011), 8.

  34. 34.

    See J.P. Parry, ‘Liberalism and Liberty’, in Peter Mandler (ed.), Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain, 99; John M. MacKenzie, Popular Imperialism and the Military, 1850–1950. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 12.

  35. 35.

    Andrew Lambert, ‘The Royal Navy and the Defence of Empire 1856–1918’, in Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence, 115.

  36. 36.

    Britain’s economic power was sustained by secure markets, the empire, and the pre-eminence of the City of London. See Lambert, ‘Economic Power, Technological Advantage, and Imperial Strength’.

  37. 37.

    A.N. Porter, Victorian Shipping, Business, and Imperial Policy: Donald Currie, the Castle Line, and Southern Africa. (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1986), 7–8.

  38. 38.

    Donald Currie, Maritime Warfare: The Importance to the British Empire of a Complete System of Telegraphs, Coaling Stations and Graving Docks. A Lecture. (London: Harrison and Sons, 1877).

  39. 39.

    P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688–1914. (London: Longman, 1993).

  40. 40.

    C.H. Nugent, ‘Memorandum on the Relative Importance of Coaling Stations’, TNA, PRO 30/6/122.

  41. 41.

    Donald M. Schurman and John F. Beeler, Imperial Defence, 1868–1887. (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 55–56.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., 61–63.

  43. 43.

    R.H. Vetch, ‘Simmons, Sir John Lintorn Arabin (1821–1903)’, rev. James Lunt, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008. (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36094. Accessed 3 July 2012).

  44. 44.

    John Benyon, ‘Barkly, Sir Henry (1815–1898)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008. (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1424. Accessed 25 Oct 2011).

  45. 45.

    ‘Memorandum of Inspector General of Fortifications’, TNA, CO 537/208.

  46. 46.

    ‘Reports and Correspondence of the Colonial Defence Committee’, TNA, CAB 7/1.

  47. 47.

    Ibid.

  48. 48.

    ‘Correspondence Respecting the Defences of the Colonies’, TNA, CAB 7/1.

  49. 49.

    Peter Dennis, The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 163.

  50. 50.

    British Parliamentary Papers, 1878 (26) Navy estimates for the year 1878–79, with appendix. (Account of naval old store moneys and extra receipts in 1876–77).

  51. 51.

    Ibid.

  52. 52.

    For example, the permanent (and unconnected) Colonial Defence Committee founded in 1885.

  53. 53.

    ‘Memorandum of Inspector General of Fortifications’, TNA, CO 537/208; Brian P. Farrell, ‘The Dominions and Imperial Defence 1856–1919’, in Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence, 263. See also John Edward Kendle, The Colonial and Imperial Conferences. 1887–1911. A Study in Imperial Organization. (London: Longmans, 1967).

  54. 54.

    ‘Carnarvon Commission Correspondence’, TNA, CO 323/356; Hugh M. Clokie and J. William Robinson, Royal Commissions of Inquiry: The Significance of Investigations in British Politics. (London: Octagon Press, 1969), 75, 123.

  55. 55.

    Clokie and Robinson, Royal Commissions of Inquiry, 123.

  56. 56.

    Although he may have not always toed the party line, he had performed well enough during his two terms as Colonial Secretary for Disraeli to feel sufficiently comfortable to leave colonial policy largely to him.

  57. 57.

    Peter Gordon, ‘Herbert, Henry Howard Molyneux, fourth earl of Carnarvon (1831–1890)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008. (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13035. Accessed 3 July 2012).

  58. 58.

    P.J. Cain, ‘Radicalism, Gladstone, and the Liberal Critique of Disraelian “Imperialism”’, in Duncan Bell (ed.), Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

  59. 59.

    Gordon, ‘Herbert, Henry Howard Molyneux’; Benyon, ‘Barkly, Sir Henry’.

  60. 60.

    ‘Carnarvon Commission Correspondence’, TNA, CO 323/356; William Carr, ‘Childers, Hugh Culling Eardley (1827–1896)’, rev. H.C.G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008. (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5296. Accessed 13 March 2012).

  61. 61.

    V.W. Baddeley, ‘Brassey, Thomas, first Earl Brassey (1836–1918)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006. (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32047. Accessed 13 March 2012).

  62. 62.

    P.J. Cain, ‘Radicalism, Gladstone, and the Liberal Critique of Disraelian “Imperialism”’, in Duncan Bell (ed.), Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Peter Gordon, ‘Herbert, Henry Howard Molyneux, fourth earl of Carnarvon (1831–1890)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

  63. 63.

    He also would return as Permanent Secretary after the Commission. A.F. Pollard, ‘Hamilton, Sir Robert George Crookshank (1836–1895)’, rev. David Huddleston, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, October 2005. (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12124. Accessed 18 May 2011).

  64. 64.

    Schurman and Beeler, Imperial Defence, 85–87.

  65. 65.

    TNA, CO 323/356.

  66. 66.

    Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, in Porter (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, 334.

  67. 67.

    ‘No. 8, Appendix 1, First Report of the Carnarvon Commission’, TNA, CAB 7/2; W.T. Stead, ‘The Truth About the Navy and Its Coaling Stations by One Who Knows the Facts’, The Pall Mall Gazette, 16–17 October 1884.

  68. 68.

    ‘Minutes of Evidence, First Report of the Carnarvon Commission’, TNA, CAB 7/2; ‘Minutes of Evidence, Third Report of the Carnarvon Commission’, TNA, CAB 7/4. Prominent figures among those giving evidence were shipping interests such as Donald Currie (Castle Mail Packets Company), Alfred Holt (Blue Funnel Line), Charles McIver (Cunard), and T.H. Ismay (White Star), colonial representatives such as Thomas George Baring (politician and Viceroy of India), Henry Bartle Frere (High Commissioner for Southern Africa), and Sir John Alexander Macdonald (Prime Minister of Canada), and high-ranking members of the armed forces such as the Duke of Cambridge (Commander-in-Chief of the British Army) and Admiral Sir Astley Cooper Key (First Naval Lord). Just as important was the evidence of technical experts such as Thomas Gallwey (Inspector General of Fortifications), Sir Charles Tilston Bright (telegraph engineer), Sir Peter Scratchley (military engineer and colonial administrator), and the chief engineers of various colonial ports.

  69. 69.

    ‘Appendix 1 of Second Carnarvon Report’, TNA, PRO 30/6/131; ‘Appendix 9, Third Report of the Carnarvon Commission’, TNA, CAB 7/4. These figures were most likely taken from the Admiralty Foreign Intelligence Committee.

  70. 70.

    Ibid., 115.

  71. 71.

    Lambert, ‘The Royal Navy and the Defence of Empire 1856–1918’, in Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence, 112.

  72. 72.

    ‘Summary of Carnarvon Reports’, TNA, PRO 30/6/131.

  73. 73.

    Ibid.

  74. 74.

    Lambert, ‘The Royal Navy and the Defence of Empire 1856–1918’, in Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence, 126.

  75. 75.

    Of course, such charts benefitted enormously from Admiralty expertise as well as a long history of surveying, exploration, and hydrography.

  76. 76.

    ‘Report by Sir L. Simmons 21 June 1882’, TNA, PRO 30/6/125; Third Report Appendix’, TNA, PRO 30/6/125.

  77. 77.

    ‘Third Report Appendix’, TNA, PRO 30/6/125; ‘Report by Sir L. Simmons, 21 June 1882’, TNA, PRO 30/6/125.

  78. 78.

    ‘Summary of Carnarvon Reports’, TNA, PRO 30/6/131.

  79. 79.

    See Duncan Bell, ‘The Victorian Idea of a Global State’, in Bell (ed.), Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 159–185; Charles Wentworth Dilke, Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866 and 1867 (London: Macmillan, 1868); Duncan Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

  80. 80.

    ‘Third Carnarvon Report’, TNA, PRO 30/6/131.

  81. 81.

    Thomas Richards, The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire. (London: Verso, 1993), 3–5.

  82. 82.

    W.C.B. Tunstall, ‘Imperial Defence, 1870–1897’, in J.H. Rose, A.P. Newton, E.A. Benians, and H. Dodwell (eds.), The Cambridge History of the British Empire. Vol. 3: The Empire–Commonwealth. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 232–234.

  83. 83.

    Schurman and Beeler, Imperial Defence, 86.

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    Steven Gray

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Gray, S. (2018). Investigating the Coal Question. In: Steam Power and Sea Power. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57642-2_2

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