pattern of earlier generations of English ironmasters by vertically integrating his company, acquiring mines from which his furnaces could draw iron ore and coal, and establishing engineering shops where castings

group of Irish capitalists who were investing in collieries, notably the Hibernia mine in Gelsenkirchen and the Shamrock mine at Herne. Mulvany brought skilled miners from Britain into his collieries, and [...] chairman of the board of directors of the Shamrock mine. In 1866 he founded Preussische Bergswerkes- und Hutten-Aktiengesellschaft (the Prussian Mining and Ironworks Company, or PBHAG), a substantial company [...] and established the Erin mine and the Vulcan ironworks. The company went bankrupt in 1877 but Mulvany was highly regarded by fellow industrialists and by the government mining authorities in the Ruhrgebeit

of high-pressure steam, and was responsible for some of the first steam locomotives. The son of a mine manager in Cornwall, he was developing a high-pressure steam engine by 1796, which drove a road vehicle [...] the condensing single-cylinder beam engine, the first of which was installed at the Wheal Prosper mine in Cornwall in 1811-12. High-pressure steam from a cylindrical boiler, with an innovatory internal [...] The efficiency of the engine justified its high initial cost, and it was widely used for draining mines and for pumping drinking water and sewage. Trevithick left England for Peru in 1816, hoping to build

John Blenkinsop to make a more reliable locomotive. In 1815, he invented a safety lamp for use in mines (the same year Humphry Davy invented one). He then began to design complete railways. He built the

Drucki-Lubecki to the position of Chief Mechanic at the Mining Department of the Government. His task was to install mechanic appliances in mines and steelworks, and improve the existing ones. He modernized

(1802-48), whose origins were at Bazeilles near Sedan in Lorraine, gained control in 1836 of the mines and ironworks of Le Creusot in Burgundy, established under royal patronage with English technology

built in 1712 by the English ironmonger Thomas Newcomen. The value of engines in pumping water out of mines was immediately recognised and after 20 years about 100 were in use. Many inventors developed the [...] in Saxony. Continuing to work with Bückling, he built many beam engines to pump water from copper mines in the Mansfeld area and to power the salt works at Kötzschau, Schönebeck and Teuditz. Beyond Saxony [...] in North-Rhine Westphalia for the salt works at Unna near Dortmund in 1799, and the Bölhorst coal mine near Minden in 1803. In Brandenburg they worked with the Lauchhammer foundry. At Kołobrzeg (then in

of canals and railways in Sweden. He was born in 1802 in the mining region of Långban in central Sweden. His father, Olaf Ericsson, was a mine superintendent until 1810 when he moved to Forsvik and became

American Academy of Art and Sciences. He was knighted in 1812. Explosions were a great danger in coal mines. They occurred especially when methane mixed with air was ignited by the candles miners used to light [...] after a disaster in north-east England killed 92 men. He began experiments in his laboratory to test mine gas. A few months later he presented a paper to the Royal Society and demonstrated a successful lamp [...] His lamp was also a warning device: the flame would change colour if methane was present, or if the mine was short of oxygen it would die down. Others had been experimenting with lamps and some claimed that

and steel industry of the Ruhrgebiet, whose influence spread throughout Europe. He was born in the mining town of Eschweiler near Aachen. His father Friedrich Thyssen (1804-77) managed a wire rolling mill [...] Europe, known particularly in its early years for its large gas engines. He acquired coal and iron ore mines to supply the company’s furnaces, and when the First World War broke out had interests in the Netherlands

family moved to Glasgow where he was able to study mining engineering, and for a time he supervised the mining operations of Dunlop & Wilson, an iron-making company in South Ayrshire. In 1856 he took a lease [...] with the mining interests of Schomberg Kerr, 9th Marquess of Lothian (1833-1900) to form the Lothian Coal Co, which in the same year began to sink the Lady Victoria pit, now the Scottish Mining Museum. [...] operations was at Llwynpia in the Rhondda Valley, and he did much to expand mining in the upper parts of the Rhondda. One of his mines at Gilfach Coch was known as the Scotch Colliery. He did much to expand

the next ten years he built railways in the south-west of England and became involved with metal mining in Cornwall. He also built more than 300 kilometres of railways around Rome. His sons were also

age of 14 he worked as a labourer on a nearby farm. The next year he left home to work with an iron-mine prospector, then progressed to an apprenticeship with an ironmonger and other jobs related to ironworking

the management of the mines. The Eschweiler area became part of France during the Napoleonic Wars in 1794. The family took opportunities under French law to reorganise the mines and join them together [...] took over the commercial management of the mining operation. She was aged 47 and had ten children. One of the first things she did was to buy the share in the mines of her two sisters so that she would have [...] moved the mining property into an innovative joint-stock company with her ten children – the first such company in the Kingdom of Prussia. The Eschweiler Bergwerksverein (the Eschweiler mining company)

study of medical and social sciences at the University of Brussels. His company became involved in mining, producing coal, limestone and salt for use in chemical works, and still operates about 70 plants

the aid of his cousin, Percy Carlyle Gilchrist (1851-1935), who had studied at the Royal School of Mines, and was chemist at the Blaenavon Ironworks in South Wales. Edward Martin, the manager of the Blaenavon

1964, driving all the way in his Morris 1100 car. An account of his life is retained at the Big Pit mining museum.

for three years at the Concordia Mine, Oberhausen. Three years later he joined a German company, Schachtbau Thyssen, that specialised in sinking shafts for coal mines, and which had a series of contracts [...] pit ponies were still intact. He retired in 1988. An account of his life is retained at the Big Pit mining museum.

project by local prejudice against workers from overseas. In the 1630s he was involved with lead-mining in the Wirksworth region of Derbyshire, and with a scheme to make navigable the River Derwent in

around the life of Etienne Lantier, an unemployed railwayman who by chance secures employment in a coal mine called Le Voreux (the voracious beast), and La Bete Humaine (the beast in man) of 1890, a tale of [...] of tortured love, which focuses on the life of a railway engine driver. Zola visited coal mines in the course of writing the first, and made several footplate journeys while researching the background for