Britain without coal

[Catiline]

Early steam engines actually ran off of wood, not coal, so a coal shortage would not have stifled its invention.

THat's the case in the US, but it's not in the UK, steam engines ran mainly on coal right from the start. Smeaton, and Boulton and Watts engines all ran on coal.

[TinCow]

THat's the case in the US, but it's not in the UK, steam engines ran mainly on coal right from the start. Smeaton, and Boulton and Watts engines all ran on coal.

I was not talking about on an actual production level but rather on an invention/prototype level. My point was that the lack of coal would not have prevented the invention of the steam engine. Certainly its use as an industrial product required coal, but at that point the need for large quantities of coal would have been known and the coal would have been procured from imports if it could not have been procured domestically.

[El Barto]

Very probably so. I'd forgotten about the Lancashire mills and their imports of cotton from al over the (English-dominated) world.

[Catiline]

Smeaton and Baulton Watts were the prototypes.

You're probably right that the technology would have been invented separately, but a big driver for the development of early steam was the need to drain mines so it's all a bit chicken and egg.

[Greyblades]

As others have pointed out, it's unlikely that the lack of local coal would have been a particular detriment to Great Britain technologically or otherwise.
I believe that history would have carried on as it did up until the great wars, in both cases Britain's ability to import was hampered by both iterations of Germany's navy. The absence of local coal on top of all the other material shortages could have been enough to affect it's performances, if not in the first, certainly it would have made the second world war a much more close affair perhaps even spelling defeat for the still somewhat coal reliant Royal navy.

[El Barto]

I've belatedly realised that one must also wonder what'd've happened to Thatcher's government if she hadn't had any coal miners on home soil to rail against.