† a. A laborer who unloaded coals from ships by heaving them from one stage to another. (obs.) b. A laborer employed in the moving or carrying of coal.
1763. Brit. Mag., IV. 555/1. A horrid murder and robbery were committed on a poor old coal-heaver.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. I. x. 109. Coal-heavers … exercise a trade which in hardship … almost equals that of colliers.
1847. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, ix. (1879), 93. Burly coalheavers.
1861. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, III. 268 (Hoppe). The coalheavers, properly so called, are now no longer known in the trade…. Formerly the coals were delivered from the holds of the ships by the labourers shovelling them on to a series of stages, raised one above the other till they ultimately reached the deck.
1884. Times, 4 Feb., 7/1. Saying in jest that nobility might demoralize some of his cousins, who, he believed, were coal-heavers in Paris.
So Coal-heaving vbl. sb.
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 4019/4. A tall raw-bon’d Man … often Employed a Coal-Heaving in the River.
1884. Times, 4 Feb., 7/1. The Auvergnats, who are mostly big men, still hold a sort of monopoly of coal-heaving and water-carrying in Paris.
