Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country area immediately west of Birmingham, England.
Commentators spoke of the Black Country as a great coalfield, and of the earth turned inside out by all the mining activity.
Most of the mines were not large scale, but small rough and ready pits similar to the Racecourse Colliery exhibit at the Black Country Living Museum.
Steam-driven machinery, specifically the Newcomen engine was introduced to pump water from the pits, enabling the coal to be worked at greater depths.
The ability to transport bulk cargoes of coal was the impetus for the building of the Birmingham Canal Navigations network.
In the first half of the nineteenth century the area of coal mining expanded to Halesowen, Kingswinford and Oldswinford and towards West Bromwich.
[3] A small pit like the Racecourse Colliery would usually start up in the following way: a few men would get together and rent the mineral rights from whoever owned them; in this area that was often the Earl of Dudley.