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    Oil Under Sherwood Forest
    Oil Under Sherwood Forest
    Oil Under Sherwood Forest
    Ebook56 pages36 minutes

    Oil Under Sherwood Forest

    By Janet Roberts

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    About this ebook

    Britain is an island so supplies have to be imported. During both World Wars the Germans decided starvation - food for the people, oil for machinery, would be effective.
    By 1941 the situation was becoming desperate but oil had been discovered in the middle of Nottinghamshire. However, getting the equipment needed, and the experts to drill for it, was a real problem.
    The solution was found by going to the USA
    This is the story of the 44 men who came to England on a 365 day contract.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJanet Roberts
    Release dateDec 16, 2011
    ISBN9781465729880
    Oil Under Sherwood Forest
    Author

    Janet Roberts

    In Janet Roberts' books, you’ll often find someone spending a bit of time by a lake, river or ocean somewhere in the world. Born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, on the Great Lakes, she loves an endless view of water for as far as the eye can see. Janet graduated from Temple University with a degree in journalism. After working as a journalist and later as a paralegal, she obtained her masters in communications from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Janet began writing fiction and poetry as a child and never let go of her dream of publishing a novel.  Although her current job as a security awareness program lead has meant moving to a variety of cities, she often returns to her Western Pennsylvania roots in her writing.  

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      Book preview

      Oil Under Sherwood Forest - Janet Roberts

      Oil

      Under

      Sherwood Forest

      Janet Roberts

      Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 Janet Roberts

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

      ***

      History

      The history of oil production in Britain goes back to 1847. Up until that time whale oil, predominately from the sperm whale, had been used for illumination, as it gave a bright light with little smell or smoke. However, it was expensive and only the fairly wealthy could afford to buy it regularly.

      Then in 1847 Professor Lyon Playfair, a chemist to the Geological Survey, and later Professor in the new School of Mines, came to visit his brother-in-law James Oakes in Riddings near Alfreton, Derbyshire. Oakes owned a coal pit, and had noticed a black oily substance oozing out of the walls of the mine. Playfair immediately sent a sample to his old friend James Young, who in his first scientific paper, dated the 4th January, 1837 had described a modification of a voltaic battery invented by Michael Faraday. Playfair included with the sample an explanatory note

      ‘It yields about 300 gallons daily. It has the consistency of thin treacle and with one distillation it gives a clear colourless liquid of brilliant illuminating power.’

      He went on to say ‘Perhaps you could make a capital out of this industry.’

      James Young needed no further encouragement and promptly left his employment in Manchester where he had devised a method of making sodium stannate directly from tin-stone. He then set up oil works, with his friend and assistant Edward Meldrum, at Alfreton, adjoining the pit, and began a small business refining the crude oil for illuminating and lubrication purposes. He found a ready market in the cotton mills in Manchester, but just as demand began to rise, the source of the oil dried up.

      By the beginning of the 20th century Britain was importing all its oil, mainly from America and Iran. It was the First World War which brought home the extreme vulnerability of allied oil tankers to enemy submarines and consequently moves began to establish Britain’s own source of oil.

      Hardstoft in Derbyshire had a single oil well drilled on October 15th 1919. In 1938 it produced 100 tons of oil. It had the rare distinction of being the only privately owned oil well in the country, being owned by the Duke of Devonshire.

      In 1934 the Petroleum Production Act provided an impetus for oil exploration by simplifying the legal and administrative aspects and BP (then known as Anglo-Iranian) launched a major exploration programme through its subsidiary the D’Arcy Exploration Company. Geologists studying colliery data in the Eakring area recognised that deep coal measures

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