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Notes on Harlton’s 19^th century coprolite industry

Following the discovery in the late-1840s that the fossils in the Cambridge Greensand were a matter of commercial proposition a new industry began that was to have enormous impact on many villages in the Eastern counties. Known by the trade name of coprolites, the fossil deposit contained not just phosphatised droppings of creatures living in the seas and on the coastal plains of Cretaceous Britain but also the teeth, bones, scales and claws of dinosaurs. The more famous dinosaurs of iguanodon, megalosaurus, dakosaurus, dinotosaurus and craterosaurus were found, as well as the marine lizards of ichthyosaurus, pliosaurus and plesiosaurus and the bird pterodactyl. But it wasn't just dinosaurs. Fossils of prehistoric elephant, hippopotamus, oxen, bear and horse were excavated as well as fossilised trees and numerous marine organisms - the most notable being ammonites.

Not only were they of interest to the students of the new science of geology but also the religious academics hotly debating Darwin's controversial theory of evolution. Many Victorian drawing rooms had their fossil collection in specially made glass cabinets and the country's museums had shelves filled with fossils from the Greensand. But the main reason why they were extracted was not for the pursuit of academic science but commercial reasons.

Britain's growing population during the Industrial Revolution needed feeding. Experiments to increase food production included adding a whole range of materials to the soil. Blood, bones, soot, fish, seaweed, chalk, clay and even rags were trialed. The most effective was animal bones but the nation's farmers couldn't supply the demand. The battlefields of Europe were scoured for bones, the pyramids of Egypt were emptied of mummified cats and even Italian catacombs were reported robbed for their bones. Loaded onto ships they were taken back to the “dens" of the coastal manure manufactories. Britain was described as a “ghoul searching the continents for bones to feed its agriculture." So, when a cheaper and abundant deposit of fossil bones was discovered in Cambridgeshire there was, as the local historian, Richard Grove, described, “The Cambridgeshire Coprolite Mining Rush."

Chemical analysis of the nodules showed them to contain between 50 and 60% calcium phosphate. Ground to a powder and dissolved in sulphuric acid the resultant mass was superphosphate of lime - the world's first artificial chemical manure. Manure manufacturers from Ipswich and London cashed in on this cheaper raw material than the other popular manure of its day - guano - phosphate rich bird droppings.

They were first worked in Burwell in 1846 and pits opened in Chesterton in 1849. The deposit was found a few metres beneath the chalk marl in a thin bed of Cambridge Greensand that lay above the Gault clay. It was simply a matter of a coprolite contractor getting an agreement with the landowner to raise the fossils. He then took on a gang of labourers, bought a horse or steam-operated washmill and some tools and started digging. On average £100 an acre was paid and about 250 tons were raised from each acre (0.404ha.). Once the depth and extent of the field was ascertained, mostly by boring but in some cases exploratory pits, a trench was dug at one side of the field with the removed topsoil and subsoil placed on the boundary side. As the fossil seam was exposed, pick axes and shovels were used to extract it and, thrown into wheelbarrows; it was piled near a mill ready for washing and sorting. The seam averaged about 30 inches (0.39m.) thick but in places it was up to six feet. (2.1m.). The soil above the seam on the new face was removed after undercutting and, for convenience, just thrown into the trench already worked. Backfilling meant the labourers gradually progressed across the field and onto adjoining property where a new lease was sought.

There is no indication as to when the coprolites were first dug in Harlton but it is most likely they were dug in the late 1850s when these phosphatic nodules were discovered in the Grantchester, Barton and Coton area. When landowners discovered the valuable coprolite deposit on their estates they would, in the most cases, have been very keen to have them raised. There are documented cases of workings going on in the Eversdens from 1856, Barton from 1857 but the first indication of diggings in Harlton came in June 1859.

Richard Foster, the owner of Thompson Lane Brewery in Cambridge had a sale of 59 Inns and Public Houses and one of them, “The Red Lion” in Harlton, also had 2a.1r.0p. which contained coprolites included in the sale. (CUL. PSQ.18.498) Given the demand for these fossils from the manure manufacturers it is most unlikely the new owner would have left them there long. Although no actual coprolite diggers were recorded in the 1861 census, it is possible that work had started as out of a male population of 157, 49 were agricultural labourers with 11 described as “labourers” who may have well been working a fossil pit in the parish. However, they must have been in operation for some time as in 1865 the following accident was recorded:-

“Harlton - Accident - On Wednesday, William Clark, a coprolite digger, met with an accident in this village. He was at work when a quantity of earth fell on him and fractured his thigh-bone. He was taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and is now getting on towards recovery.”

(Cambridge Chronicle 7th October 1865 p.8)

The first evidence of any formal agreement was in 1867. In the October of 1866 a Mr. Whitechurch had taken on a thirteen year lease of their farm in the parish and he must have suspected the coprolite seam was to be found under some of the fields. The Cambridge solicitor, Clement Francis, was called in and he prepared instructions to invite most of the big names in the coprolite industry in Cambridgeshire to test the land. They included the manure manufacturers, John Bennet Lawes, William Colchester and Edward Packard as well as coprolite contractors, Coxall, Mr. Heffer and Mr. Carver. Griffin, Wallis, Heffer and Roads. Only Wallis and Packard were prepared to test the land and it was Packard’s manager Mr. Johnson, who reported to Francis the bad news. There were no coprolites within a depth of about 21 feet except in about one acre in the corner of the field. (Cambs.R.O. Francis Bill Books 1867 p.267-268) Whether Mr. Whitechurch as tenant got the licence is not known.

James Jarvis, a Cambridge Coprolite Merchant, may have been involved in the earlier works as he was working some land in Haslingfield but evidence of his first agreement in this parish was not until May 1868. He won an agreement to raise them from the 4a.3r.4p. field belonging to St. Catharine’s College beside the Haslingfield parish boundary. He paid them £125 per acre and was given permission to erect a washmill and sink a well for the works. The college stipulated he had to have the work completed by Michaelmas the next year. (St.Catharine’s Coll.Mun; Whitaker,W. ’Water Supply of Cambs.’ Mem.Geol.Surv. London,1921,p74) Jarvis, it appeared, found this schedule “too tight” and the college’s surveyor reported,

“...he said he could not undertake to do so as the slurry and deposit might not be sufficiently dry. However if the land is not finished by Autumn 1869 it will be ready to sow with a spring crop and it is better to wait until the land is thoroughly dry in the autumn before it is levelled”.

(St. Cath’s. College Mun. XXX/4.)

In the June of 1868, on one of Bidwell’s many visits to College farms in the area, he met Jarvis at Harlton with the Rev. York, and a verbal agreement was made whereby he agreed he work an acre of Prime’s Farm at £80, and if the seam was good, he would pay £90, quite a reasonable agreement in the circumstances. (Cambs.RO. Bidwell’s diary May 1868 diary) In November St. Catherine’s College allowed him a further three roods at £110 so he was well supplied with work. This explained why, the next year, he was very keen to rent a small homestead and land in the village from the college. (St.Cath’s Mun. Harlton XXX/4) He must have been engaged in work on other property as the college accounts for Harlton revealed sums of £78, £63, £45, and £90 for the years from 1868. Although this was very little compared to some of the college’s they used some of this coprolite revenue on “permanent improvements” to their property in the parish, which was most likely their farm. (CUL.Rep.Com. Univ.Income (C. 856-11) p256, HC 1873 xxxvii.3)

In the May of 1868, given the success of his neighbouring farmers, the tenant of the 308a.0r.26p. Harlton Manor Farm, John Whitechurch, on taking over his father’s lease, gained a licence from the landlords, Christ’s Hospital, London to similarly raise the fossils. He was allowed to work 15 acres “near the house and buildings” paying £90 per acre and agreeing to work down to 13 feet until 1871. (Guildhall Library, London,Christ’s Hospital, Court Minute Book, Vol.17,p559) The agreement stipulated he work only two acres at a time and,

“...at his own cost to level the whole of the ground worked, and restore the surface after the digging, and to seed it down again in permanent pasture.”

(Ibid.)

The financial success of the coprolite works led the parish overseers and churchwardens to consider including them in the Poor’s Rate. In November 1868 the Court of the Queens Bench (under 12 and 13 Vict.,cap.45,see.11.) decided they should be because of the increased value of the land. This rate was a kind of tax on local businesses to raise funds to help the poor people of the parish. Those previously rated included coal mines, clay, sand, clunch and gravel pits, stone quarries and brick fields. Documents show that both Jarvis and Whitechurch had their works rated as did “Headley and others” in Haslingfield. What the rates were was not stated. Usually a horse-operated washmill was £50 and a steam operated one £100. When brickworks were rated at only £5 one can understand why there were objections by the contractors. When the rates were introduced in 1869 the coprolite contractors, merchants and even the manure manufacturers raised a storm of protest. At least fifteen appealed. Over the next few years, with the assistance of two solicitors, Messrs. Naylor and Mills, their legal objections saved them many hundreds of pounds but in January 1871 the Cambridge Sessions dismissed their appeals. This opened the way for parishes to increase their revenues from the coprolite works in the parish. (Cambs.R.O. Cambridge Session Orders 1869-1874 pp.97,127-8147-8,209-11,265; ;Camb.Independent Press 7th January 1871 p.5; also see Cambridge Chronicle 7th January pp.8-9; Leighton Buzzard Observer,17th January 1871)

By 1869 there were coprolite diggings going on quite extensively in the area providing work, according to one source, for only 11 men from the village, suggesting migrant labour was employed. (R.C.H.M., W. Cambridge, Harlton.) This had more than doubled a few years later when the 1871 census revealed there were two foremen, “on Coprolite Work•, John Watts, aged 50, and Frederick Bolton, 25, both Harlton men. As well as an “engine driver at the works” there were 21 coprolite labourers with an average age of 25. The eldest was 48 and the youngest 15 and with 61.5% born in the parish it suggested a number were attracted to the work from nearby villages; in fact, five of them were lodgers that year. It is interesting to note that there were only 20 agricultural labourers recorded so the farmers would have had to increase wages to ensure their fields were cropped and harvested. There is not much map evidence as to the exact location of these diggings but, as the fossils were found in the greensand strata between the Chalk marl and the Gault clay. They undoubtedly would have been raised all along this outcrop at the foot of the hill. Fields belonging to a Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Monk were found to contain coprolites and valued at £280 it’s likely they would have been dug over. (CambRO.R57.20.C.10) In the spring of 1871 following Whitechurch’s success Christ’s Hospital allowed William Dale

“to did and excavate during five years 7a.3r.27p. at Harlton...(and to) raise and sell for his own use the mineral known as Coprolite...”

(Christ’s Hospital Court Minute Book Vol.18,p36)

Interestingly, his royalty was only £30 an acre which suggests there was a degree of nepotism involved when others like Jarvis were paying £90 per acre. Four months later Whitechurch apparently having finished his 15 acres the hospital allowed him “to dig for raise and sell coprolites from a further quantity of land on not exceeding 10 acres,” part of the Manor Farm. He paid the same £90 per acre but was allowed to work them down to 18 instead of 13 feet. (Christ’s Hospital, Court Minute Book, Vol.18,p88) There is evidence that shows the glebe land was worked but exactly when is uncertain. Clearly the profits to be made from raising the coprolites were not lost on the vicar, Thomas Preston. He wrote to Jesus College, who had given him the living of the parish, enclosing the following note and its accompanying response:-

“I send you on the other side Dr. Travers Cross’ opinion, which secures, with two other superior authorities which I have consulted, to give me the sole and unreserved right to raise the coperlites [sic] and dispose of them. Whatever however the decision maybe, I am quite prepared to expend the money for the benefit of my successors and the spiritual interests of the parishioners. I am proposing to enlarge my Vicarage House, and as the sum to be expended is not sufficient to borrow from the Bounty Office, (They will not lend less than a year’s income), I was proposing to lay out a portion of the coperlite [sic] profits in this way and have my plans etc. all ready for the b/c [?] to see. Thomas Preston”

12th December 1857 Opinion Doctors Commons.

I am of the opinion that a fossil substance in the nature of coprolite comes under the... considerations of law as a mineral substance and that the raising of such substance to the surface of the Glebe is not waste nor is the incumbent liable to account for it to his successor, but may dispose of it to his own advantage.

Travers Cross.”

(Jesus Coll.Mun.livings 9. Harl. 2)

It would appear the bursar of Jesus College accepted this proposal and the glebe was dug but by whom is unknown. With the profits going direct to the vicar. The next incumbent, Rev. O. Fisher, similarly benefited from the coprolites as, in June 1873, he wrote to the master of Jesus College requesting some of the money from his coprolite account to be expended on 20 perches of land. His correspondence with his solicitor, Clement Francis, confirmed that there were coprolite royalties from as early as 1868. He authorised an investment of £10 of this coprolite money. (Francis Bill Books 1868 p.402)

He did not report the glebe having been dug in his correspondence with the bishop as he was probably quite aware that profits from the glebe normally went straight to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners with the vicar only getting the interest from the investment. What he did write was quite revealing though as it indicated the diggings had considerably expanded.. “The crowding in cottages is very great on account of the coprolite works. The coprolite diggers are very much influenced by one another and if one became a communicant he would be liable to persuade others.” Osmund Fisher, Incumbent. (CUL.EDR.C3/25) This was again confirmed in 1875 when the local trade directory pointed out, “The digging of coprolites for manure gives employment to many labourers here.” (Kelly’s Directory 1875 ) By 1877 it appeared that the deposit had not quite been exhausted as, on Samuel Miller’s death, the surveyor, Charles Bidwell, on his sketch on page .., indicated that coprolites might be raised as they had been dug out from adjoining property belonging to Trinity College. (Trin.Coll.Mun. Box 27, Harlton deeds; CambRO.296 B945.14 ) The tenant, Swann Marshall, was given notice to quit, partly because of 165 rent arrears, but more likely the new owner would in all possibility want to take over the farm for themselves. The land was then auctioned as,

“A very attractive, compact pleasure farm containing 79a.1r.34p. of highly productive tithe-free land. Intersected by the Cambridge and Oxford Road - part on clunch subsoil - and commanding extensive views of the Cambridge and Hertfordshire Hills - and part containing coprolites.”

(Cambs.R.O. 1877 296/SP51)

It realised £3,050, a lot of money for such a small area of land and the purchaser, apparently J. Carter Jonas, who like many others who speculated in coprolite land, would no doubt have covered the cost by having the land farmed and the coprolite extracted. This was a common occurrence during those days where speculators bought coprolite land and then sold the right to raise the fossils to contractors who farmed the land and raised the fossils. Jonas’s company had been started in 1871

“as a result of capital gained in buying , leasing, working and selling coprolite land all over the county. Much of the profit was derived from buying land before the boom, and speculating in its increasing value, and then selling it to another merchant at an inflated price for mining purposes. The company today is still one of the important Cambridgeshire auctioneers, estate agents and valuers, specialising in agricultural land.”

(R. Grove, The Cambridgeshire Coprolite Mining Rush, Oleander Press 1976 p47.)

The twenty perches bought previously out of the profits of the glebe being dug were dug in 1880, when John Whitechurch paid the college £120 per acre for the right as, at the time, he was working the coprolites in fields on both sides. (Jesus College Mun. Harlton) Possibly working in these pits were those recorded in the 1881 census. Twenty nine men were engaged in coprolite work, the eldest 58 and the youngest 16. Their average age was 33 showing how it had become mainly a job for the elder section of the employed and with just over 71% born in the parish it was primarily a job for the locals. Despite five describing themselves as general labourers the “diggers” amounted to 17% of the male population compared to 22.8% involved in agricultural work. Clearly it still played a significant role in the village’s economy. How long Whitechurch continued digging during the 1880’s again is not documented but there was no longer the demand of the previous decade. In September 1884 a 6a.2r.30p. plot with a cottage and a bed of coprolites only managed a bid of £200 so was not sold. (Camb.RO.296SP855) By July 1890 it appeared there had been a slight improvement in the market as Luke Griffin, who had worked in Barrington since 1863 was still advertising in Harlton as a coprolite merchant as late as 1900. In 1890 he wrote to the master of Jesus College:-

12 Brunswick Place, Cambridge.

“I have just commenced raising coprolites in a field at Harlton adjoining some land belonging to your college in the tenure of Rev. Fisher. There are some coprolites on this property which might be taken out during my work being carried. If the college would sell them I should be glad to purchase what quantity of land worth excavating or pay a royalty per ton. If you would consider my offer and let me know at your earliest convenience as it will make some difference in my present arrangement about fixing the mill for washing. Luke Griffin”

(Jesus.Coll.Mun.livings 9.Harl.2)

He was prepared to offer the undertenant, Charles Northsole, in order to gain the licence, the field he was then digging. The college deferred until July the next year when their surveyor reported,

Harlton Coprolites. I have inspected the above and find that there is only a quarter of an acre for which Mr. Griffin applies for the privilidge of digging. I consider that £40 would be the full value for this privilidge with the ordinary agreement for levelling, tenant’s compensation etc. It seems to be a question whether it is worthwhile to meddle with such a small piece, but you will be the best judge. There is other land adjoining belonging, I believe, to the same property which may eventually be worth digging, but this particular piece now adjoins Mr. Griffin’s present coprolite works and on that account is worth more to him than anyone else and more than it will be worth to him at any future time.”

(Jesus Coll.Mun. livings 9. Harl.2)

It seems likely he was given permission as £40 would have been a worthwhile return from a quarter of an acre. The 1891 census showed twenty nine men engaged in the work living in Harlton, with an average age of 32.1. With seventeen in Haslingfield, sixteen in Hauxton and three in Harston it is unclear they were working as one gang. 69 year old William Whitechurch, of The Limes, was recorded as “Farmer and Coprolite Merchant” with his 22 year old Sidney, as a coprolite carter. Samuel Patman, 38, was the only “coprolite foreman” in the area and William Patman,63, was a coprolite engine driver. Only six were born outside the parish showing it was still predominantly local men employed. (Cambs.R.O. 1891 census) Despite this revival, towards the end of the decade things must have been bad. The vicar, still O. Fisher recorded, “Wages at their lowest ebb. Many also inadequately employed during the winter.• (CUL.EDR.C3/37) Although there is some evidence showing Griffin continued working in the parish as late as 1902, whether he worked continuously throughout the last decade remains unknown. Trade in coprolites by that time had dropped so low that, “the only remaining coprolite workings in Great Britain were at Harlton, Cambridge, Horningsea and Hauxton, villages in the Cambridge area. The quantity raised amounted to only 86 tons and this was valued at £119.” (1912 Kelly’s Directory of Cambridge; Fox, C. ‘Archaeology of Cambs. Region’ 257-8)

It was pointed out that records of finds in Harlton in the Cambridge Museum and a brooch in the Ashmolean acquired in 1872 are probably from Haslingfield. As the diggers came from nearby parishes they took artefacts home and sold them. (Ashmolean Library, Oxford, Rolleston Papers; Meaney, Audrey ‘Gazetteer of Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites,’ London 1964 pp.66-7)