On Sunday BBC Sounds repeated a 2022 abridged reading of Jeremy Paxman’s “Black Gold” on Radio 4 Extra. It is a social history of how coal “made Britain”. Like the slavery which also helped to make Britain, it is an element of history which many will ignore or dismiss as irrelevant in a future where we aim to put the extraction of fossil fuels and the enslavement of human beings behind us.
I worked in Barnsley between 1979 and 1986, as well as being the Liberal parliamentary candidate for Barnsley Central in1983. I also lived across the road from the Yorkshire HQ of the National Union of Mineworkers. This left me with some distinctive memories of the 1984-1985 coal strike. Perhaps one of the most dramatic was a rare joint meeting of Methodist ministers from Yorkshire, where miners were strongly in favour of the strike, and from Nottinghamshire, where the majority of miners were opposed. We invited Peter Walker, the Secretary of State for Energy. Unsurprisingly he turned up late, but at least he came. He announced himself as “Peter Walker, the wettest member of the Cabinet” and then went into a ten minute rant about Arthur Scargill. I jumped in as soon as he finished. “I’m sorry,” I said, “We’re not here to discuss Scargill. We’ve come to discuss the future of the mining communities in the aftermath of the strike”. Bizarrely his response was “Those are the most disgraceful words I have ever heard from a Methodist minister.” It struck me that he must have had a sheltered upbringing! Naturally I have worn his comment as a badge of honour ever since.
Since returning to Barnsley a couple of years ago (two years after completing my stint on Bradford Council), I have been struck by the way in which evidence of coal mining has been erased from the landscape. Pit head buildings and other structures have been totally removed and the flat land used for other purposes, often retail parks, such as that at Cortonwood, where the strike started. I had assumed that this was basically a bit of political theatre, drawing a line under the era of coal. However in his history Paxman refers to a more sinister tampering with evidence, namely the way in which the concrete poured down some mine shafts was covering up operational papers which could never become part of any history or inquiry.
At this point there is a reference back to the Aberfan disaster of 1966 when a collapsed coal spoil tip engulfed a junior school and its surroundings, killing 144 people, including 116 children. The chair of the National Coal Board, Alf Robens, gave an ambiguous reply to media questions and in a later interview he claimed that the disaster had been caused by “natural unknown springs” beneath the tip. Evidence emerged that the existence of these springs was common knowledge but Robens was never prosecuted.
Remember that during his journalistic career Jeremy Paxman famously posed the question “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” He had an eye (and an ear) for such behaviour, knowing the difference between spin and lying or needless secrecy.
There have always been politicians around the world who have believed that lying is OK provided that people voted for you (actually or allegedly). However they are now getting closer to home and the lying is perhaps more blatant than it used to be. It seems to me that it has become an increased danger in a highly centralised state like the United Kingdom. Yes we have limited devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland along with executive mayors in England, but local government has been decimated. Transparency and accountability, often in short supply at national level, become more possible when it is easier to get at the decision makers locally.
In recent debates about piffling changes to membership of the House of Lords, it was Lib Dem speakers who, quite rightly, were banging on about transparency and accountability. Sometimes our opponents criticise us for being obsessed with constitutional reform. However expanding freedom has always been dependent on improving constitutional arrangements to give people a better voice and a larger capacity to challenge their rulers. Getting the lying out of politics, like getting the big money out of politics, will not happen without constitutional change.
Meanwhile I warmly comment “Black Gold.” It is easily retrievable.
* Geoff Reid is a Methodist minister who spent the first twelve years of retirement from the day job as a Bradford City Councillor but has lived in Barnsley since 2024.
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The Mining Remediation Authority has supported the council-owned Gateshead Energy Company and contractors to deliver a mine water heating scheme that will feed into an existing district heating network. Funded by the Heat Network Investment Project (HNIP) and Gateshead Council, the scheme took about 3 years to deliver and went live on the 29 March 2023. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/mine-water-heat
This is something that should have been done decades ago once we made the decision in 2008 to reach net zero by 2050 as 25% of UK homes and businesses are in areas where there was coal mining.
I don’t think it appropriate to seek to link the extraction of coal with slavery as is done in this article. Without doubt, the exploitation of coal reserves allowed the Industrial Revolution to occur and, in turn, huge economic progress. It is certainly true that the workers who powered the Industrial Revolution saw very little of the wealth their efforts produced but, we today, living in what has become an advanced developed economy, are hugely better off than would have been the case had the Industrial Revolution not occurred. We are now wealthy enough as a country to be able to afford to move away from fossil fuels while still enjoying the lifestyles our economy allows.
Slavery, on the other hand, was absolute exploitation that made some individuals very wealthy at the expense of others. Period.
@ Brenda I’, sorry, Brenda, but I must disagree with your interpretation of Geoff’s article for two reasons :
First, in modern times, not much has been done to improve the local economies and infrastructure of former colliery areas under every government (including 2010-15) since the Thatcher era. ‘Levelling Up’ was a mirage.
Second, on a family level, I know what happened in my own family in the Durham coalfield. Great Granddad died of miner’s lung, age 28, in Houghton-le-Spring. Four young kids (Granddad was just four), a widow… no pension, no compensation, though the Salvation Army helped a bit.
Eight years on (age 12) Granddad had to leave school – and go down the pit. Within months he suffered severe leg injuries and wore a surgical boot for the rest of his life. In 1921, ‘Black Friday’, after miners’ wages were cut, every window in the village was smashed by troops sent in by the Lloyd George Government ‘to maintain order’ (Mum, age six, was terrified). Five years later (now 11) her finger nails were broken and permanently scarred picking out slack for the cottage fire in the 1926 General strike – after yet another miners pay cut.
Yes, Brenda, it’s strictly correct to say, “I don’t think it appropriate to seek to link the extraction of coal with slavery”. Maybe not, but severe and cruel exploitation by wealthy coal owners….. many of whom inherited wealth and land from forbears who did benefit directly from slavery and the compensation paid out after abolition.
@ Brenda Will Just to add to the point, my old Alma Mater, University College, London, published the ‘Legacies of British Slavery project’ a few years ago. UCL’s database contains details on 47,000 individuals who received UK government compensation in the 1830’s and allows one to trace ownership histories.
One can also consult the Bank of England archive holdings for the original compensation records or conduct extensive genealogical research on wealthy families with coal interests in County Durham during the 19th century.
The compensation was distributed widely among Britain’s elite, including individuals with significant landholdings. In addition to slave owners, bankers, lawyers, and other intermediaries also gained from the compensation process by managing or trading the government stock.
Profits from colonial slavery and the compensation received by individuals were often reinvested into British industries, including manufacturing and infrastructure, which would have benefited coal companies throughout the U.K.
So, Brenda, slavery indirectly fuelled the Industrial Revolution.
Geoff,
I think as Lib Dems we need to acknowledge that Great Britain began its journey to leave the enslavement of human beings behind well over 200 years ago, starting our journey with William Wilberforce in the 1780s and the campaign for the abolition of the slavery.
In 1791 Wilberforce introduced the first bill to abolish the slave trade, a battle he repeatedly returned to until the Slave Trade Act was passed which abolished the slave trade in the British Empire and culminated in 1833 with the Slavery Abolition Act which likewise ended slavery itself, a process finally completed in 1838.
However, by far the most important act was the establishment by Great Britain of the West Africa Squadron in 1808 (later called West Coast of Africa Station) to suppress the Atlantic slave trade of all nations by patrolling the West African coast. Based in Freetown, Sierra Leone, it continued to operate until 1867 during which time the squadron captured over a thousand of slave ships and freed over 150,000 slaves.
In truth, we all know the most difficult steps in any journey are the first and many of the battles against slavery were fought and won as a result of Great Britain leading those battles in so many ways, so I think while the bad in the past must never be forgotten, the permanent good we did is continuing still (across most of the world) and we should never let ourselves forget that either.
I think the journey could be said to have started over 250 years ago. Granville Sharp and others were publishing and bringing test cases culminating in Somerset v Stewart in 1772.
Just a few comments on this interesting article, although as usual I am posting too late!
I lived in Mexbrough (Geoff will know where it is, twixt Doncaster and Rotherham) for about 3 years, my father was a police sergeant so we lived in the police house joined onto the police station. There was a cellar, and my mother was convinced there was gas coming up from the coal mine underneath, but this was consistently denied by the Police Architect (who also said there was no woodworm, we had been poking pins into the wood).
first of all the geranium cuttings in the cellar died.
Then my mouse in a cage in the cellar died.
Then we were all going blue round the lips.
We did get a move to Cusworth, Doncaster where we were all healthier.
I have never forgotten this, and along with some other experiences there has probably moulded part of the Liberal I am, and a deep distrust in authority that says everything is OK.
Living in Mexbrough also makes me very happy indeed to see nice clean wind farms, after living amongst the slag heaps.
Another interesting issue though, for anyone still reading. I am doing my family history and find that in the late 1780’s my 3rd Great Grandfather moved from Halifax to Rudland Rigg (middle of North Yorkshire Moors, very remote) to be a collier in a coal mine up there. He seemed to make lots of money! left £100 each to his 14 children! his son was a collier too, but the coal must have been running out as he took on farming too, as did the rest of my direct ancestors. So whilst I am fully aware of the terrible conditions miners worked under, with no support when they were killed or injured, a different type of mine was obviously very lucrative.
The rise and fall of coal mining shows the importance of reskilling and mobility. If the coalminers who were forced out of the only career they knew had a route to a different future, most would have taken it. In an increasingly uncertain economic future the ability to move to where the work is and be reskilled makes everyone’s future more certain with all the benefits that come with that.