Gale and Gaveller

The Forest of Dean's own system of mineral tenure. A gale is a defined plot of underground mineral rights granted to a free miner; the Gaveller is the Crown officer who grants it, registers who may hold one, and collects the royalties.

Historical usage

The custom is medieval and the machinery is Victorian: the Dean Forest (Mines) Act 1838 put the whole arrangement on a statutory footing, defining a free miner as a man of 21 or over who had worked a year and a day in a coal or iron mine within the Hundred of St Briavels, and requiring the Gaveller to keep a register of them. It runs to this day — the Deputy Gaveller still keeps the register and still collects royalties on worked gales. The archive's own Forest records show it in operation: Hopewell's gale was first granted around 1824 to the freeminer George Powell, Cannop Colliery was built on deep gales bought from another company, and the Doward workings are known partly from maps held by the Deputy Gaveller.

How it worked

A registered free miner applied to the Gaveller for a gale, and what he received was a defined underground area with a licence to work coal, iron ore, stone or other minerals in it, in return for a galeage rent and a royalty to the Crown. The 1838 Act set limits: no miner could hold more than three working gales at once, gales could be transferred by deed or will, and rents and royalties were reviewable every twenty-one years, by arbitration if the parties disagreed. Failure to work a gale according to the rules risked forfeiture. The Gaveller's functions passed to the Forestry Commissioners in 1924.

Why it was used

It is the survival of a bargain rather than a design: the Crown owned the Forest, the miners had an ancient customary right to work it, and the gale system is the form that compromise took once someone tried to write it down. Nothing like it exists anywhere else in Britain.

Risks & limitations

A gale is only as useful as the qualification behind it, and the qualification is the problem: it depends on there being a working mine in the Hundred for a would-be free miner to serve his year and a day in. As Dean's deep mining has declined, the right has become progressively harder to acquire, which is why the free miners' position has been raised in Parliament more than once.

Regional variation

Wholly particular to the Forest of Dean and the Hundred of St Briavels. The Derbyshire lead field had its own equally distinctive system — the Barmote Court, meers and the lot and cope — but the two are separate customs, not variants of one.

Related terminology

Barmote Court, Coal, Free Miner, Iron, Liberty, Meer, Sett

Mines associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis — not every mine where this might plausibly apply.

• Cannop Colliery — Gloucestershire (well documented example)
  The Cannop Coal Co. was formed in 1906 by taking over the Union, Cannop and Prince Albert deep gales from Henry Crawshay & Co.
• Easdale Slate Quarries — Argyll and Bute (well documented example)
  Named in this record’s closure notes: “In the early hours of 22 November 1881, a severe south-westerly gale coincided with an exceptionally high tide; a rocky buttress…”
• Hopewell Colliery — Gloucestershire (well documented example)
  The gale here was first granted around 1824 to the freeminer George Powell, who leased it on.
• Doward Iron Mines — Herefordshire (historical documentary reference)
  Records held by the Deputy Gaveller of the Forest of Dean showed two small mines here dated to the last quarter of the 19th century.

Sources

1. (primary) Dean Forest (Mines) Act 1838 — legislation.gov.uk
2. (secondary) The Deputy Gaveller and his role in Forestry England — Forest of Dean Heritage Open Days

Record created: 25 August 2026 · Last researched: 25 August 2026