The size of early modern European towns was constrained by the availability of firewood. London was the first city to escape this Malthusian trap: by pioneering the substitution of mineral coal for organic timber.

In c. 1500 London was not even one of Europe's ten largest towns. By c. 1800 it had about a million inhabitants, overtaking Beijing; thereafter it became the first megacity. This unprecedented growth was possible because London was the planet's first mineral-fuelled city, which enabled to escape a natural constraint on th

The north east coal industry was exporting to a market unprecedented in world history, with which it had developed in symbiosis: ^[1] a large urban area that had escaped the Malthusian trap imposed by the growth constraints of organic fuel.

Grain crops and firewood were two basic necessities of life for early modern European cities. ^[2] Fuel scarcity was a critical constraint upon their growth, ^[3] because firewood and grains competed for the same basic resource: land. "More land devoted to the production of timber ... meant less land available to produce food". ^{[4] [5]}

The demographer Tony Wrigley and Dutch scholars estimated that, for a town of only 10,000 inhabitants,

each day an average of thirty to forty horse-drawn carts would pass through the city's gates laden with firewood, along with a further ten carts laden with bread grain.

To produce such quantities, sustainably, needed a large ^[6] reserve of well-managed woodlands, plus at least as much land again for the bread grains. ^[7] As the town's population grew so would the cultivation area. A limit would be reached eventually. (It has been estimated that by 1860 England's domestic fuel requirements, supposing they had had to be satisfied by firewood, would have required nearly all English farmlands to be turned into woodlands.) ^[8] Besides, wood was bulky, so much of its final town price was represented by the cost of transporting it to market.

Hence there was a practical geographical limit ^[9] — the "accessible hinterland" — in which wood might usefully be cultivated, ^[10] or, in other words, a cap on the town's population growth. ^[11] It might be possible to bring more marginal land into production but this was subject to a law of diminishing returns. ^[12]

Though woodlands in south and east England were carefully managed as renewable resources, they could not keep up with the demand. Already by 1300 firewood prices were rising sharply, ^[13] and this in a region that contained some of the most wooded parts of medieval England. ^[14] Prices continued to rise in ensuing centuries and there may have been a fuel crisis. ^[15] By the 17th century sea coal (i.e. from Newcastle) had become the general fuel in London. ^[16]

By pioneering the substitution of mineral coal for organic wood, London managed to escape the law of diminishing returns altogether. ^[17] No longer was the town limited to the quantity of fuel that could be produced by the annual cycle of plant photosynthesis. With coal, although "the energy source continued to be plant photosynthesis, [it had been] accumulated over a geological age. *** The problem that haunted the classical economists in their discussion of growth possibilities" was avoided. However, the city was now living off capital not income, because the stock of energy built up over a geological era, though vast, was not a renewable resource. ^[18]

In c. 1500, London was not even among the ten largest cities in Europe; by 1700, it was the largest, with half a million inhabitants. ^[19] Around 1800 it had a million, ^[20] about then overtaking Beijing, and thereafter underwent unparalleled growth. ^[21] It was unique for its inward migration. Apprenticeship records show that, of young men who became citizens, only 17% were born in the town. The rest came from all parts of England. ^[22] The planet's first coal-fuelled city, its urban, economic and demographic growth was unprecedented. So was its smoke pollution. ^[23]

London was able to grow from a town to a metropolis only by switching from firewood to coal. Wrote Wrigley:

When London's population passed the half million mark towards the end of the seventeenth century, it would have needed the annual timber growth from an area of approximately 3,200 square kilometres of woodland ( c. 1,250 square miles) to meet its fuel needs on the assumptions set out above, ^[24]

so that already by 1700, without coal, a land area roughly equal to the county of Kent would have had to be devoted just to growing firewood.

London started importing coal from Newcastle upon Tyne in the middle ages, ^[25] there being a Sea-coal Lane near the River Fleet by 1228. ^[26] It was too acrid a fuel for warming the houses of the era, and was objected to as a noxious pollutant, ^[27] but it gradually substituted for the firewood consumed in the town's industries: brewing, which already in 1578 burnt 20,000 waggon loads (≈ 10,000 trees), ^[28] brick making, ^[29] lime burning, blacksmithing, ^[30] soap, sugar, ^[31] salt ^[32] and shipbuilding (since planks had to be heated to bend them). ^[33]

Though rarely publicised, the bricks of traditional London houses contain the ashes of coals carried from Newcastle by sailing ship.

London's expansion would have been impossible without making hundreds of millions of bricks annually, which probably ^[34] could not have been done without coal. ^[23] Bricks were normally made by baking clay forms in kilns, in which coal substituted for firewood. One estimate was that, using that conventional process, the brick industry of mid-Victorian London would have consumed an annual 100,000 tons of coal. ^[35] However, by 1800 Londoners had discovered a cheaper method: mixing brickearth (a local mineral) with cinders and coal ash; ^[36] the latter was imperfectly burnt coal, available as household waste, and could be made to burn again at high temperatures. Placed in a brick clamp and initially heated, the bricks ignited and fired themselves. ^[37] Contractors paid for the privilege of removing household rubbish with its valuable dust, ^[38] hence the expression dustmen.

The town rapidly expanded in the Georgian and Victorian era and was built in London stock brick. "At night a 'ring of fire' and pungent smoke encircled the City". It was a zone of outlying fields that were being turned into streets of new houses. The required bricks were manufactured on the spot, brickearth being dug up in the fields, and firing them in brick clamps. ^[39] A gang of 6-8 men could make a million bricks in a season, enough to build about 30-35 fourth-rate houses (three-storey artisan's dwellings). Firing these took 6-8 weeks. ^[40] Thus, coal not only directly substituted for wood as a fuel, but indirectly as a construction material, since it was used for firing brick, the prime building material of the new age. ^[41]

Lime (burnt with coal) was needed for the mortar, and glass for the windows, which with coal could be made at much lower cost. "English travellers on the continent in the eighteenth century were struck by the rarity of window glass in the villages and towns that they visited". ^[19]

London, built in coal-fired brick

1. Brick, the prime building material

2. Brick Lane

3. A Georgian terrace of artisans' houses.

1. Building in brick was always an option; after the Great Fire it became the norm. ( St James's Palace and Pall Mall, English school, c.1750, Lady Lever Art Gallery.)
2. Brick Lane is named for a 15th-century district where bricks were fired, well outside the City of London's walls. By then Newcastle coal was in use for making bricks.
3. Large parts of London are built in brick. A million bricks would build a modest street of fourth-rate houses, so-called for the tax band. (In this example: Sekforde Street, Clerkenwell.) To fire them, household waste (mainly coal ash, which was increasingly plentiful), was mixed with brickearth.

As wood became expensive Londoners evolved a new style of house. It could be heated by burning coal without choking the place with fumes. Instead of burning firewood in a central, ground-floor hearth, as hitherto, houses were planned around a central chimney with back-to-back fireplaces on the ground and first floors; grates of appropriate design allowed air to circulate around the burning coals. ^[42] That coal was burned inside houses astonished foreign visitors. ^[43]

After the Great Fire of London (1666) the town's houses were rebuilt in brick and mortar so there was a huge demand for quicklime, the burning of which required more coal. London's building boom encouraged builders to experiment, innovate, and learn from each other. ^[42] Robert C. Allen has argued that it was this collective innovation that first stimulated the expansion of the north east coal industry. ^[44]

The capital imported more coal than any other port in the world, ^[45] and from the Elizabethan era ^[46] a proverbial coastal trade developed from the port of Newcastle. ^[47] By the 17th century ^[48] London's households were warmed, and its industries were fuelled, ^[49] almost entirely by coal. ^[47]

In the Victorian era there were worries that coal would not last for ever and the London-type fireplace was criticised as wasteful. In his 1863 presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sir William Armstrong said:

In warming houses we consume in our open fires about five times as much coal as will produce the same heating effect when burnt in a close and properly constructed stove.

The money wasted, which effectively went up the chimney, exceeded the annual income tax. ^[50] The Society of Arts offered prizes for improved stoves; but after testing 107 specimens, rewarded none. The reason was this, said an author: the English people had an irrational prejudice for visibly cheery fires. "We, in England, like to see our fires, and the consequence is that we are never able to feel them". The method was fundamentally wrong: the updraft in the chimney inevitably drew into the room an equal volume of cold air, which was felt as draughts. ^[51]

Coal is not a homogenous product. ^[52] Coals suitable for different uses were mined in the north east and each was available in various qualities, with prices to match. Coals were quoted by the name of the mine, and many produced two or three grades.

Some of the main types exported to London were:

The most expensive in the London market was known as best Wallsend, because originally it came from Wallsend colliery, though later the name was applied generically. The ideal household coal, it was long-burning; the very best grades left absolutely no ash. They were also hard, an attractive feature, since coal tended to break in handling, forming small lumps that burned too quickly. ^[53] Some mines in other parts of the north east coalfield e.g. around the river Wear were capable of producing coal just as good, or even better, than Wallsend; but since their owners mixed their excellent coals with inferior grades, they failed to acquire the same outstanding reputation. A time came when the real best Wallsend coal was exhausted, and these mines decided to go for quality. ^[54]

After dark, European towns were illuminated — if at all — by burning whale oil, tallow candles and other animal products; these were unsatisfactory and expensive. ^[55] In early 19th century London a different concept was promoted by Anglo-German pioneer Frederick Albert Winsor: lighting towns by coal gas. A few factories had already been illuminated with gas made on the premises, but it was his vision that whole districts would be supplied with gas centrally made and piped under the streets — "as London is now supplied with water". His wildly optimistic financial forecasts set off a speculative bubble, but it did attract the needed investment capital; and in 1812 the London and Westminster Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company was incorporated as the world's first gaslighting company. Soon the streets of Westminster were lighted by gas, as were shops, pubs and theatres, and the concept was imitated in other towns. ^[56]

Now there was a demand for coal suitable for making gas. The ideal gas coal would be cheap, sulphur-free and productive. The best kind came from the Hutton coal seam north of the river Wear. It easily broke into fragments, making it inferior as household coal, but for gas making that was no objection. ^[57] By mid-19th century the north east was exporting two million tons annually. ^[58]

The new steamboats demanded yet another type of coal. It should ignite and burn rapidly — ships might need to get up steam in a hurry — without leaving too many clinkers, since these obstructed the firebars. ^{[58] [59]}

The best kind in the north east came from seams found in the north of the coalfield: ^[60] Hartley, Seaton Sluice and the River Blyth (see below). ^{[58] [61]}

Early railway locomotives were prohibited from burning coal because of the smoke nuisance, and were required to use coke instead. For manufacturing coke, the best coals in the northeast came from deep beds in various places, including Auckland. ^[62]

Yet other grades of coals were used in various industries, such as glassmaking, ironwork, and so forth.

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