The principal item used from Tyne and Wear Archives, at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle is the Beaumont’s Chief Agent copy letter book covering the years 1800-08. This fills what was for many years a gap in the otherwise long run of letter books between 1754 and 1828, held at Woodhorn as part of the Allendale estate collection. The 1800-08 volume is clearly one of those items mentioned by Dr Mark Hughes in his 1963 Durham Ph.D thesis entitled ‘Lead, Land, and Coal as sources of Landlord Income in Northumberland between 1700 and 1850′ as having been lent to him by Lord Allendale in the 1950s. It was presented to Tyne and Wear Archives by Dr Hughes’ widow many years later, and is now filed as DF.HUG/149.
Amongst the Cotesworth papers are a small number of lead mining leases from the 1690s to 1708, mostly related to Weardale: TWA.3415/CA/19/23-38. The original lessee was William Ramsay, a Newcastle goldsmith and lead mining adventurer, whose daughter married into the Cotesworth family. They are given here for they survive from an important period of change in the Weardale lead industry, with Sir William Blackett II taking over the moormastership from the Wharton family in 1692. DF.HUG/45 includes a letter from Ramsay’s agent at Setlingstones lead mine in 1688
