Forest of Dean FHT Forum - - William Stenson and Forest of Dean coal mining

William Stenson and Forest of Dean coal mining (reply)

dent — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:33:10 +0000

Many thanks for your message and particularly the helpful links. Quite a lot is kmown about William Stenson after he returned to Leciestershire in the 1820s, but I can't discover much about his earlier career, especially his links with the Forest. I'll certainly follow up the lines you suggest.
Christopher Dent

William Stenson and Forest of Dean coal mining (reply)

Jefff — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 22:54:50 +0000

Hi Christoper,
I see William Stenson is already well-served by various websites, I presume this is the same man ?. http://www.coalville-heritage.info/early_coalville.html etc
As you'll know the miners moved all around the UK, and further, to find work, so links between Leicestershire and the Dean are highly likely. I don't recall seeing or reading about William Stenson as regards the Dean, but to be honest this is a new name to me so I may well have missed the significance.

I'm sure you already know this, but I would suggest the Dean Heritage Museum would be a good place to enquire about William Stenson.

I also recommend contacting Ian Pope from Cinderford, of the FoD Coal Mines site and also the excellent Archives etc publications from Lightmoor Press. He's a Forest historian thro & thro, particularly railways and industry, his father Alec Pope was a wellknown Dean industrial historian and photographer before him.
http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/Coalopen.html

Similarly his friend/colleague Neil Parkhouse, also at Lightmoor or his new(ish) venture Archive Images. I've discussed FoD old photos with him by email and he was very helpful indeed, he used to post on this forum but I don't know if he still does.
http://www.archive-images.co.uk/index.php

Finally the FoD Local History Society. As a fellow son of Cinderford I can see I'll have to buy a copy of their latest "New Regard" magazine, thanks to you for making me aware of it !
http://www.forestofdeanhistory.org.uk/LHSnrlatest.html

Searches of the local papers (Mercury at Cinderford library) would possibly help you too.

Good luck !

William Stenson and Forest of Dean coal mining

dent — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 20:06:51 +0000

I've been trying to establish a link between the coal mining district in North-West Leicestershire and mining in the Forest of Dean. My Dent forbears worked in North-West Leicestershire mines at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and several later settled in the Littledean/Cinderford area working in forest mines in the mid-nineteenth century, where the Dent family remained for a further 100 years. William Stenson, who came from Leicestershire, migrated to the Forest of Dean early in the nineteenth century, but returned to N-W Leicestershire by about 1820 and founded an important mine at Whitwick. Did Stenson retain links with Forest mining? Did he retain agents in the forest? Did he recruit from N-W Leicestershire for forest mines in the 1830s and 1840s.

Christopher Dent