IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0096 AL243
Held at: Senate House Library, University of London
Title: Bald, Robert: letter
Date(s): 1826
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 4 leaves
Name of creator(s): Bald | Robert | 1776-1861 | mining engineer
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
Robert Bald was born in Perthshire in 1776. He learnt colliery management and engineering under his father and Thomas Telford. He subsequently spent many years managing the collieries on the Earl of Mar's estate at Alloa, Clackmannanshire, and became Scotland's most highly regarded mining engineer. Bald was deeply concerned with improving both productivity and working conditions, particularly for women employed as coal 'bearers'.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Letter from Robert Bald of Edinburgh to Joseph Hume MP, 27 Apr 1826. Excusing his silence 'but ... I have been uncommonly pressed with mineral surveying and reporting thereon arising in a great degree from the conflicting elements which arise betwixt master and servant. Coals rise in price to an exorbitant rate, and the great manufacturing interests of Glasgow & chief consumers of coal there agreed to have the districts surveyed as to the means of supplying the City with abundance of coal at a moderate rate, and to lay rail ways into the coals fields which were the best'. He encloses "two copies of the treatise I wrote regarding the coal trade of Scotland and the slavish system of bearing coals by women. I have been attacked and run down for doing so: this I care nothing about ...'. Autograph, with signature.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
See hard copy catalogue.
Conditions governing access:
Access to this collection is unrestricted for the purpose of private study and personal research within the supervised environment and restrictions of the Library's Palaeography Room. Please contact the University Archivist for details. 24 hours notice is required for research visits.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies may be made, subject to the condition of the original. Copying must be undertaken by the Palaeography Room staff, who will need a minimum of 24 hours to process requests.
Finding aids:
Typescript catalogue available in the Library's Palaeography Room.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Accruals:
Archival history:
See archivist
Immediate source of acquisition:
Found enclosed in Bald's presentation copy to Hume of the treatise - see Bald, View of the Coal Trade (1812), classmark: [G.L.] 1808.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of copies:
A photostatic copy and a microfilm copy of the text are held by the University of Viriginia.
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Compiled by Anya Turner.
Date(s) of descriptions: July 2008