Selling, carrying or taking coal(s) to Newcastle is an idiom of British origin describing a foolhardy or pointless action.[1] It refers to the fact that historically, the economy of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-eastern England was heavily dependent on the distribution and sale of coal—by the time the phrase was first recorded in 1538,[2][3] 15,000 tonnes of coal were being exported annually from the area[4]—and therefore any attempt to sell coal to Newcastle would be absurd.[1]
Timothy Dexter, an American entrepreneur, succeeded in defying the idiom in the eighteenth century. Renowned for his eccentricity and widely regarded as a buffoon, he was persuaded to sail a shipment of coal to Newcastle by rival merchants plotting to ruin him. However, he instead yielded a large profit after his cargo arrived during a miners' strike which had crippled local production.[5][6] More prosaically, the American National Coal Association asserted that the United States was able to profitably sell coal to Newcastle in the early 1990s,[7] and 70,000 tonnes of low-sulphur coal was imported by Alcan from Russia in 2004 for their local aluminium smelting plant. However, this was in the context of Newcastle's traditional coal industry having stagnated so much by the end of the twentieth century that the last exports from the area were six years prior to Alcan's venture.[8]
Although the coal industry of Newcastle upon Tyne has declined in its relative importance to the city since its historic heyday, the expression can still be used today with a degree of literal accuracy, since the harbour of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia (named for Newcastle in the UK after abundant coal deposits were discovered there and exploited by early European settlers [9]) has succeeded its UK namesake by becoming the largest exporter of coal in the modern world.[10]
With the increasing onset of globalization, parallels in other industries are being found, and the idiom is now frequently used by the media when reporting business ventures whose success may initially appear just as unlikely. It has been referenced in coverage of the export to India of Saudi Arabian Saffron and chicken tikka masala from the United Kingdom,[11][12] the sale of Scottish pizzas to Italy,[13] the flowing of champagne and cheese from Britain to the French,[14][15] and the production of manga versions of William Shakespeare from Cambridge for Japan.[16]