Clearly, anybody who can write and count is literate/numerate, so anybody with these skills in the 16th century before these skills became more general, might have literally left their mark underground, (or elsewhere). The question is when did literate/numerate people start using arabic numerals, rather than when did it really become commonplace. And if such dates do survive underground, would the miners have written them, or the possibly more educated overseers?

literacy and numeracy aren't a yes/no issue but subject to considerable variation.

Roman numerals work well for people with limited numeracy and literacy, because they are to some extent graphic. IIII LOOKS like four, 4 gives you no clue. You can count to ten with three symbols ( I, V and X ) with one more ( L ) you can count to fifty and one more ( C ) to hundred. One more ( M ) and you can count to a thousand, which is about the conceptual limit for semi-literate or illiterate peoples..

If you are of limited literacy and accustomed to using a tally-stick or knotted-cord type of recording system, say for counting sheep, then a numbering system of the Roman type is actually quite a good one because it works in the same way as you count things.

Same goes for arithmetic using an abacus or similar device.

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This is where underground graffiti can lead

🔗Middlecleugh-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-34764[linkphoto]Middlecleugh-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-34764[/linkphoto][/link]

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The Man Who Drew the Camel?
At the A.G.M. of the North Pennines Heritage Trust on the 7th November 2009 at Nenthead, Pete Jackson gave a presentation of the work of the Trust. One of the photographs showed graffiti etched underground in Middlecleugh Level. The picture was of a man on a camel being led by another man; alongside this was written the name ‘H. Spott’ and the date ‘1794’.
This is the sort of thing that arouses the detective in me. Who was H. Spott? Could I find him? When I got home I went through my microfiche copies of the local church and chapel registers and found the man - and his family.
The first thing to find out was whether H. Spott was his real name and then, was he a local man? Whoever he was, there was a strong possibility that he was young and active about 1794 and perhaps producing a family. In the register of births, lo and behold there was Hugh Spot, the only one of that surname, father of James and Mary christened at St. Augustine’s in Alston in 1790. Was Spot his correct name? I knew already that Spotswood or Spottiswood occurred in the registers and, sure enough, there was Hugh Spotswood who married Margaret Elliot on 8th November 1789 and produced several more children until 1797.
Looking at other Spotswoods I saw about that time there were only two others on Alston Moor who were of about the same age as Hugh. There was a James (who had witnessed Hugh’s wedding), with no details of his christening on Alston Moor, and a John Spotswood, christened in Nenthead in 1768. Could they have been brothers? When James married Hannah Rumney of Kirkhaugh on 24th June 1790, he was described as being “of West Allendale”. Here was a clue, so I went to the IGI on the internet where I found that there are not many Spotswoods anywhere in the country, which made the task easier, and straight away I found Hugh, born in 1760, and James, born in 1766, as sons of John and Mary Spotswood of Allendale, as well as sisters Elizabeth and Mary and another brother, George (born 1763), but no John.
Back in St. Augustine’s registers, I had noted John, son of John Spotswood, born in Nenthead in 1768, and at first, because it was an isolated birth of that period, I made no connection, but then I realised that he was the youngest brother and father John must have moved from Allendale to Nenthead between the time of James’s birth in 1766, and John’s in 1768. John Spotswood married Sarah Waugh at St. Augustine’s in 1766. Perhaps John’s first wife, Mary, died after James’s birth and he re-married, John junior being the child of his second marriage. One witness to the wedding was George Spotswood, and John senior had a brother of that name.
Like James, George junior married a Kirkhaugh girl, Mary Snowdon on 6th January 1790. With regard to John, there is a possibility that he first married a girl from Blanchland in 1806, Esther Forster, in which case she must have died, possibly after childbirth, because he married Lucy Kidd in 1811. What else George did I don’t know but Hugh, James and John all became miners, although by 1800 Hugh had become a grocer.
The Births register also tells us that James and Hannah lived at Annat Walls, while John and Lucy lived at Greenends. Hugh and Margaret first lived at Hundyhead and then they moved to Nentsberry. After the christening of James and Mary in 1790 they changed their religious denomination from Church of England to Congregationalist and their later children were baptised at Redwing Chapel near Garrigill. Sadly, Margaret died at Nentsberry in 1800 at the age of thirty-six, and a few years later in 1807 John Spotswood, “a blind person”, died at Nenthead at the age of 69. The age is right for John the father, could this be him?
In old age the three brothers, with their younger families, lived at Skelgill near Alston where James died in 1813, Hugh in 1825 and John in 1834. The ages at death confirmed the years of the births of Hugh and James in Allendale.
So, from the etching in the mine via the church registers we have a brief life-history of H. Spott and his family. But what about the camel? My only guess is that when Hugh became a Congregationalist, sometime between 1791 and 1792, he became interested in illustrated Bible stories and during a break for bait he left us the accurate drawing that we admire over two hundred years later.
By Alastair Robertson

I bet the changeover from the use of Roman numerals was really slow and drawn out, I've seen carpenters using roman numerals to mark up frames even now.

I can't recall if I've seen any 1700/1800 dates in mines in roman numerals? What's the most recent date in Roman numerals found?

As you know, we have roman numerals in one or two places at Chaldon, but they are not dates.

I've heard there is some 17th century tourist graffiti in Poole's Cavern. Does anybody know of this? What date is it?

Thanks.

I bet the changeover from the use of Roman numerals was really slow and drawn out, I've seen carpenters using roman numerals to mark up frames even now.

OS maps (at least 25" and 6" scales) used a combination of Roman and Arabic numerals until mid 20th Century.

I've heard there is some 17th century tourist graffiti in Poole's Cavern. Does anybody know of this? What date is it?

Thanks.

I've not been in Poole's since I was a kid, I keep meaning to go back but that would involve being a tourist.... I'll ask John Barnatt if he knows of this, if there is any I'd guess it dates to the later decades of that century.

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The ultimate discovery of underground graffiti must be that recorded by Trevor Ford in the “red book” Title Lead mining in the Peak District published by the Peak District Mines Historical Society in 1970. He states on p110 that in Golconda Mine near Brassington the following was seen:
“I. Rawlinson 1777” and “Henry VIII” and “King Tut B.C. 19”
However, something made Trevor suspect that the last two might not be genuine.

My forthcoming Matlock book claims that a 1638 date in a part of the Masson pipe workings no longer accessible is the old genuine known date in a Derbyshire lead mine. Perhaps I need to revise this.

I bet the changeover from the use of Roman numerals was really slow and drawn out, I've seen carpenters using roman numerals to mark up frames even now.

OS maps (at least 25" and 6" scales) used a combination of Roman and Arabic numerals until mid 20th Century.

they are still used to provide distinct numbering sequences, especially where a part or document might carry more than one separate sequence of numbers which need to be distinguished. It's like the convention whereby sections through a drawing are defined by letters. There is no 'real' reason for this, it's just that it is generally understood.

A carpenter might number joints I-II-II-IV but he doesn't write VIII on his timesheet, he writes 8

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