Robert Gildea, Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984-85

As Robert Gildea points out, coalminers were indeed the “Backbone” of the British nation for two hundred years, providing the essential fuel for the “workshop of the world,” the “first industrial nation.” This pattern persisted until the 1960s when oil began to replace coal internationally and UK mining began to retreat. Earlier in the twentieth century, mines were often poorly managed and there were disputes with unions about pay and conditions, notably sparking the unprecedented General Strike of 1926. Nationalization by the Labour government in 1947 improved management and conditions as well as relations between unions and the government-appointed National Coal Board (NCB) and disputes dropped. Then total national output of coal also declined from an average 224m tons in 1957 to 145m in 1970, the workforce shrank from over 700,000 in 1961 to under 300,000 in 1971, and decline continued due to competition from oil. …