Coal agent or merchant

[Isabel H]

My father refers to his uncles as having been coal merchants, while the records I have found describe them as coal agents. Is there a difference? For example, could it be that a coal merchant supplied domestic coal to houses, and an agent was the link between colliery and merchant?

[DavidWW]

My father refers to his uncles as having been coal merchants, while the records I have found describe them as coal agents. Is there a difference? For example, could it be that a coal merchant supplied domestic coal to houses, and an agent was the link between colliery and merchant?

Hi Isabel

I'd see the terms as being broadly equivalent.

If there was a real difference, then I'd imagine that an "agent" was more likely to be an intermediary between a colliery and a merchant, exactly as you correctly suggest could have been the case.

Further, I'd imagine that a coal agent could also have been a merchant, but not always necessarily the reverse

David

[lesley.frame]

Hi Isabel,
A coal agent/factor was the middleman between the coal owner and the coal merchant, but as David correctly said quite often coal merchants were both. Lesley

[Russell]

Hi Isabel

Being old enough to remember the days of horse & cart stuff has its advantages.
Some railway sidings belonged to the railway company and a coal wagon would come in destined for a particular coal merchant. He had to offload the coal, weigh it, bag it, then load his carts so the wagon could be put back in circulation. This meant he might have to bring his own scales on the cart.
Some sidings were owned privately and the wagons could actually belong to the coal agent or the coal company who supplied him. He would offload the coal into timber holdings sorting it into the different grades. Some would be industrial, for hospital boilers, some commercial for sale to merchants, some domestic again for the merchants who were selling on to householders.
Merchants would come in and pick up a cartload; pre-bagged by the coal agent using the scales installed in his yard. Regulars would often have sacks printed with their name.
When a holding was empty there would be lots of small coal and coal dust left. This would be gathered up and, when there was enough it was mixed with a little cement and formed into briquettes. These were almost as good as lumps of coal and were actually cleaner to store but it meant you had no dross in your coal bunker to bank the fire overnight and had to use potato peelings etc instead.
Some agents also sold coke from coal gas production.
I would suggest trying for a local trades directory to see if they were recorded as agents or merchants or both.

Russell

[Isabel H]

Thank you for your explanations. It's funny how you suddenly begin to wonder about things. Hadn't got round to wondering how briquettes were made, but now I know that too!

Isabel