Anton Howes continues tracing the history of the rise of coal, and how it transformed not just heating practices but also the economy and daily life in growing urban centers. The essay provides rich historical detail, as it highlights the interplay between technology, culture, and societal change during a pivotal era.
But seven years on, the sulphurous stink of London’s breweries had become so great that it put the queen off from visiting the city at all if she could avoid it. Apparently assaulting her senses whenever her barge wended its way down the Thames, in early 1586 the authorities ordered the brewers to cease their burning of coal along the river. This time, however, the brewers responded in a way that reveals just far the use of the wood-saving art had spread. The city’s dyers and hatmakers, they said, as well as the brewers, had now all “long since altered their furnaces and fire places and turned the same to the use and burning of sea coal.” Dutifully, they offered to switch two or three of the breweries nearest to the Palace of Westminster back to burning wood, though pointed out that even just this would have a huge effect on the city’s fuel supplies, consuming a whopping 2,000 loads of wood per year.