East Dean 1851 Census - Cinderford, Coopers Tump ? (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, April 04, 2014, 03:21 (3888 days ago) @ Daffodil

You may know that in the Forest almost any small hill/hillock tends to be called a Tump. Often these are old spoil heaps from quarrying or mining. I've never heard of Cooper's Tump and despite extensive searching cannot find any reference to it, sorry. HOWEVER I suspect it's related to Cooper's Level, as per this entry in the definitive website re FoD COAL mining. (NB a "level" is a mine in FoD parlance).

"Cooper's Level
1841 Edward Protheroe (as mortgagee in possession under William Todd, who claimed through or under a Free Miner)
8 March 1841 That some interest in Cooper’s Level is claimed by William Crawshay and Moses Teague.
Cooper’s Level Colliery included Quidchurch Engine, Old Arles and Meerbrook High Delf gales.
Coal in the Trenchard and Hill Delf veins.
F3 286 c1847 Coopers Level. Ed Protheroe. Not worked.
22 November 1889 Gloucestershire Banking Co. registered owners together with Findall Mine Level and Wallsend (below).
F3 696 28 December 1897 Application George Morgan.
2 September 1898 Granted. Then sold to Mr. Albert Jones of Cinderford.
10 March 1899 Walmer’s Pit, Ruspidge for sayle by order of Albert Jones.
30 November 1903 Mr. Auguste Trapnell working Findall Mine Level (below) adjoining and was prepared to purchase Cooper’s Level from Morgan who was now over 80. Morgans’ sons working Foundry Colliery (below). The transfer to Jones had never been completed.
17 October 1904 Purchase had fallen through and George Morgan had died.
Forfeited. "

From the excellent http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/CoalCoopers.html
(NB reference to Edward Protheroe, of St John's School fame).

The same website carries this excellent map from 1894, black spots are coal mines and brown spots are iron mines.
http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/East%20Dean.JPG

Altho' Cooper's Level coalmine isn't specifically marked on the mines map the aforementioned Quidchurch is, all these workings eventually became part of the very extensive Shakemantle iron ore mine, which itself was the southernmost end of about 2miles of workings extending north below Littledean Hill & Ruspidge, including & linked-underground with St Annals and Buckshaft iron mines among others. Shakemantle was the Dean's biggest producer of iron ore, peaking in the 1880s and supplying Teague's Cinderford Iron Works.
The excellent book "The Forest of Dean Branch" by Ian Pope & Paul Karau, Wild Swan publications #, states that these mines were "held under a lease for 1000 years from 1834 granted by Richard Cooper", and by 1841 the gales(mines) were owned by Crawshay & Teague as stated above. I don't know more about Richard Cooper, altho this site's PRs contain several Coopers in the Cinderford St John area, and quite a few Richard Coopers, all predated by an 1803 Marriage for a Richard Cooper at Littledean (perhaps ref our discussion earlier wrt Churchgoing pre 1844 ??).

I can only guess that maybe "Cooper's Tump" was an early name for the Shakemantle / Ruspidge end of "Cinderford Tump" ie the part of Littledean Hill stretching south into Ruspidge ?

So, again nothing even remotely definitive regarding the census locations, sorry... ??

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# Cinderford Library has copies of this and other books in this local railway history series, Ian Pope is a wellknown Cinderford railway & industrial history writer, the books carry hundreds of superb old photos and maps and are highly recommended to anyone with an interest in local history.

The aforementioned Mines Map shows a brown line towards the top R/H corner, ie Ruspidge and Cinderford Bridge, this is the route of the Great Western Railway from Cinderford & Ruspidge via Soudley to Bullo, on the Severn near Newnham. A very short section of this can still be seen where the old Ruspidge Halt was, just above Cinderford Bridge towards Lightmoor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruspidge_Halt_railway_station
http://www.sungreen.co.uk/Cinderford-Glos/ruspidge_halt.html

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Can I suggest that if you get no luck at Cinderford Library or Gloster Archives, you write an open letter to the local newspapers with your queries - my sister works the front desk at The Forester in Cinderford for example, she says they're always happy to print such letters if time & space permits. Hopefully someone with much better local knowledge than me will help you. If you do please advise us your findings via this thread, thanks.