IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/indeco/v52y2015i4p463-499.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dynamics of Bengal coal mining in the nineteenth century: Dissemination of mineralogical knowledge and railway networking

Author

Listed:
  • Indrajit Ray

    (University of North Bengal)

Abstract

This study seeks to analyse the pattern of development of the coal mining industry in Bengal during the nineteenth century, and also its underlying causations. It reveals that though attempted for the first time in 1774, regular excavation of coal mines took off only around the mid-nineteenth century. I argue that mining in Bengal suffered initially from the adverse attitude of colonial governance and its institutions, and afterwards, from the lack of mineralogical knowledge, inefficient transport networks and the scarcity of labour. Once the style of governance shifted from the Company State to the rule of the British Crown, those impediments disappeared. These deliberations show how those successive events established a comparative cost advantage in favour of Bengal coal, enabling it to compete with British coal in the domestic market. The export ventures of the industry, especially in South and Southeast Asia, are also briefly discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Indrajit Ray, 2015. "Dynamics of Bengal coal mining in the nineteenth century: Dissemination of mineralogical knowledge and railway networking," The Indian Economic & Social History Review, , vol. 52(4), pages 463-499, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:indeco:v:52:y:2015:i:4:p:463-499
    DOI: 10.1177/0019464615603892
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464615603892
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0019464615603892?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Parthasarathi,Prasannan, 2011. "Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521168243, September.
    2. M. J. Daunton, 1981. "Down the Pit: Work in the Great Northern and South Wales Coalfields, 1870–1914," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 34(4), pages 578-597, November.
    3. Elaine S. Tan, 2009. "Market structure and the coal cartel in early nineteenth‐century England1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(2), pages 350-365, May.
    4. Parthasarathi,Prasannan, 2011. "Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107000308, September.
    5. Arthur J. Taylor, 1961. "Labour Productivity and Technological Innovation in the British Coal Industry, 1850-1914," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 14(1), pages 48-70, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chilosi, David & Federico, Giovanni, 2015. "Early globalizations: The integration of Asia in the world economy, 1800–1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-18.
    2. Bassino, Jean-Pascal & Broadberry, Stephen & Fukao, Kyoji & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Takashima, Masanori, 2019. "Japan and the great divergence, 730–1874," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-22.
    3. Roy, Tirthankar, 2021. "Useful & reliable: technological transformation in colonial India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113442, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Pim de Zwart & Jan Lucassen, 2020. "Poverty or prosperity in northern India? New evidence on real wages, 1590s–1870s," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 644-667, August.
    5. Rafael Torres Gaviria, 2022. "Horsemen of the apocalypse: The Mongol Empire and the great divergence," Documentos CEDE 20533, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    6. Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty, 2021. "Global Income Inequality, 1820–2020: the Persistence and Mutation of Extreme Inequality [Global Inequality of Hourly Income, 1980–2020]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(6), pages 3025-3062.
    7. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata & Wei, Jinlin, 2023. "Railways and cities in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    8. Alka Raman, 2022. "Indian cotton textiles and British industrialization: Evidence of comparative learning in the British cotton industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(2), pages 447-474, May.
    9. C. Knick Harley, 2013. "British and European Industrialization," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _111, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Sagnik Bhattacharya, 2020. "Monsters in the dark: the discovery of Thuggee and demographic knowledge in colonial India," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-9, December.
    11. Peter Maw & Peter Solar & Aidan Kane & John S. Lyons, 2022. "After the great inventions: technological change in UK cotton spinning, 1780–1835," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(1), pages 22-55, February.
    12. Bassino, Jean-Pascal & Broadberry, Stephen & Fukao, Kyoji & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Takashima, Masanori, 2015. "Japan and the Great Divergence, 725-1874," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 230, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    13. Roy, Tirthankar, 2014. "Technology in Colonial India: Three Discourses," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 198, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    14. Broadberry, Stephen, 2021. "Accounting for the Great Divergence: Recent Findings from Historical National Accounting," CEPR Discussion Papers 15936, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Deirdre McCloskey, 2013. "A neo-institutionalism of measurement, without measurement: A comment on Douglas Allen’s The Institutional Revolution," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 363-373, December.
    16. Yuzuru Kumon, 2020. "The Labor Intensive Path: Wages, Incomes and the Work Year in Japan, 1610-1932," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1154, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    17. Broadberry, Stephen & Custodis, Johann & Gupta, Bishnupriya, 2015. "India and the great divergence: An Anglo-Indian comparison of GDP per capita, 1600–1871," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 58-75.
    18. Deng, Kent & O'Brien, Patrick, 2014. "Clarifying data for reciprocal comparisons of nutritional standards of living in England and the Yangtze Delta (Jiangnan), c.1644 – c.1840," Economic History Working Papers 59303, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    19. Broadberry, Stephen, 2013. "Accounting for the great divergence," Economic History Working Papers 54573, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    20. Jacob Assa & Ingrid H. Kvangraven, 2018. "Imputing Away the Ladder: Implications of Changes in National Accounting Standards for Assessing Inter-country Inequalities," Working Papers 1813, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:indeco:v:52:y:2015:i:4:p:463-499. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.