Coalfields of the United Kingdom in the 19th century
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and SouthWales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century.[1] The consumption of coal—mostly for electricity—fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to just 587,000 tonnes in 2023.[2] Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, 2,000 in 2015, and to 360 in 2022.[3]
Almost all onshore coal resources in the UK occur in rocks of the Carboniferous period, some of which extend under the North Sea. Bituminous coal is present in most of Britain's coalfields and is 86% to 88% carbon. In Northern Ireland, there are extensive deposits of lignite which is less energy-dense based on oxidation (combustion) at ordinary combustion temperatures.[4] According to Euracoal, the UK has 3.56 billion tonnes of identified hard coal resources with estimated total remaining coal resources possibly being as large as 187 billion tonnes.[5]
In 2020, the proposed Woodhouse Colliery gained planning permission but no works have begun, with legal challenges ongoing and no licence in place for seabed mining from the Marine Management Organisation. The planning permission for the mine was later quashed by the High Court.[6]
Stone and Bronze Age flint axes have been discovered embedded in coal, showing that it was mined in Britain before the Roman invasion. Early miners first extracted coal already exposed on the surface and then followed the seams underground.[9]
It is probable that the Romans used outcropping coal when working iron or burning lime for building purposes. Evidence to support these theories comes mostly from ash discovered at excavations of Roman sites.[10]
There is no mention of coal mining in the Domesday Book of 1086 although lead and iron mines are recorded.[11] In the 13th century there are records of coal digging in Durham[12] and Northumberland,[13] Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire, the Forest of Dean, Prestongrange in Lothian[14] and North[15] and South Wales. At this time coal was referred to as sea cole, a reference to coal washed ashore on the north east coast of England from either the cliffs or undersea outcrops. As the supply of coal on the surface became used up, settlers followed the seam inland by digging up the shore. Generally the seam continued underground, encouraging the settlers to dig to find coal, the precursor to modern operations.[9]
The early mines would have been drift mines or adits where coal seams outcropped or by shallow bell pits where coal was close to the surface.[16] Shafts lined with tree trunks and branches have been found in Lancashire in workings dating from the early 17th century and by 1750 brick lined shafts to 150-foot (45m) depth were common.
Industrial Revolution until 1900
Annual UK coal production (in red) and imports (black), DECC dataCoal mining employment in the UK, 1880–2012 (DECC data)
Coal production increased dramatically in the 19th century as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace, as a fuel for steam engines such as the Newcomen engine, and later, the Watt steam engine. To produce firewood in the 1860s equivalent in energy terms to domestic consumption of coal would have required 25million acres (100,000km2) of land per year, nearly the entire farmland area of England (26million acres (105,000km2)).[17]
A key development was the invention at Coalbrookdale in the early 18th century of coke which could be used to make pig iron in the blast furnace. The development of the steam locomotive by Trevithick early in the 19th century gave added impetus, and coal consumption grew rapidly as the railway network expanded through the Victorian period. Coal was widely used for domestic heating owing to its low cost and widespread availability. The manufacture of coke also provided coal gas, which could be used for heating and lighting. Most of the workers were children and men.[18]
Development of coal production in the UK, 1900–2019
At the beginning of the 19th century methods of coal extraction were primitive and the workforce – men, women, and children – laboured in dangerous conditions. By 1841 about 216,000 people were employed in the mines. Women and children worked underground for 11 or 12 hours a day for smaller wages than men.[19] The public became aware of conditions in the country's collieries in 1838 after an accident at Huskar Colliery in Silkstone, near Barnsley. A stream overflowed into the ventilation drift after violent thunderstorms causing the death of 26 children; 11 girls aged from 8 to 16 and 15 boys between 9 and 12 years of age.[20] The disaster came to the attention of Queen Victoria who ordered an inquiry.[19] This led to the Mines and Collieries Act 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 99), commonly known as the Mines Act 1842, an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which forbade women and girls of any age to work underground and introduced a minimum age of ten for boys employed in underground work.[19] However, the employment of women did not end abruptly in 1842; with the connivance of some employers, women dressed as men continued to work underground for several years. Penalties for employing women were small and inspectors were few and some women were so desperate for work they willingly worked illegally for less pay.[21] Eventually, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (c. 65), another act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, was passed protecting women – and men – from discrimination on the grounds of sex or marital status, including regarding employment as miners.[22] Also, children continued working underground at some pits after 1845. At Coppull Colliery's Burgh Pit, three females died after an explosion in November 1846; one was eleven years old.[23] The Mines (Prohibition of Child Labour Underground) Act 1900 was an act of Parliament that prevented boys under the age of thirteen from working, or being (for the purposes of employment) in an underground mine.[24] (The act was repealed in full by the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 (2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 70);[25] by such time the act was out of date and was no longer necessary due to the stronger provisions in the Employment of Women, Young Persons, and Children Act 1920 (10 & 11 Geo. 5. c. 65).[26]
Although it has been surmised that there were no Black miners in the UK, two chapters in the book by Norma GregoryJamaicans in Nottingham: Narratives and Reflections,[27] are on Black coal miners. The scarcity of resources on these workers led Gregory to curate an exhibition called The Digging Deep Project Exhibition at the National Coal Mining Museum, in Wakefield, West Yorkshire[28] and to found the Black Miners Museum.[29]
Nationalisation
Until 1 January 1947 the mines were owned by various individuals and companies. On that date most were nationalised by the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 (9 & 10 Geo. 6. c. 59) and were run by the new National Coal Board.[30] In March 1987 the legal name of the NCB was changed to the British Coal Corporation.[31] The name "British Coal" had been used by the NCB since 28 April 1986.[32]
Decline in volume
Aberaman Miners' Training Centre S.Wales 1951
UK coal production peaked in 1913 at 287 million tonnes.[4] Until the late 1960s, coal was the main source of energy produced in the UK, peaking at 228 million tonnes in 1952. Ninety-five per cent of this came from roughly 1,334 deep-mines that were operational at the time, with the rest from around 92 surface mines.[33]
In the 1950s and 1960s, around a hundred North East coal mines were closed.[34] In March 1968, the last pit in the Black Country closed and pit closures were a regular occurrence in many other areas.[35] Beginning with wildcat action in 1969, the National Union of Mineworkers became increasingly militant, and was successful in gaining increased wages in their strikes in 1972 and 1974.[36] Closures were less common in the 1970s, and new investments were made in sites such as the Selby Coalfield. In early 1984, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher announced plans to close 20 coal pits which led to the year-long miners' strike which ended in March 1985. The strike was unsuccessful in stopping the closures and led to an end to the closed shop in British Coal, as the breakaway Union of Democratic Mineworkers was formed by miners who objected to the NUM's handling of the strike.[37] Numerous pit closures followed, and in August 1989 coal mining ended in the Kent coalfield.[38]
In 1986, Kellingley colliery near Pontefract achieved a record 404,000 tonnes in a single shift but nevertheless, since 1981 production fell sharply from 128 to 17.8 million tonnes in 2009.[citation needed]
Between 1947 and 1994, some 950 mines were closed by UK governments. Clement Attlee’s Labour government closed 101 pits between 1947 and 1951; Macmillan (Conservative) closed 246 pits between 1957 and 1963; Wilson (Labour) closed 253 in his two terms in office between 1964 and 1976; Heath (Conservative) closed 26 between 1970 and 1974; and Thatcher (Conservative) closed 115 between 1979 and 1990.[39]
In 1994, then-Prime MinisterJohn Major privatised British Coal after announcing 55[39] further closures, with the majority of operations transferred to the new company UK Coal.[40][41] By this time British Coal had closed all but the most economical of coal pits.[42]
The pit closures reflected coal consumption slumping to the lowest rate in more than a century, further declining towards the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s. This coincided with initiatives for cleaner energy generation as power stations switched to gas and biomass. A total of 100 million tons was produced in 1986, but by 1995 the amount was around 50 million tons.[43]
In 2001, production was exceeded by imports for the first time. In 2014, coal imported was three times more than the coal mined in Britain.[44] In 2009, companies were licensed to extract 125 million tonnes of coal in operating underground mines and 42 million tonnes at opencast locations.[4]
Coal mining employed 4,000 workers at 30 locations in 2013, extracting 13 million tonnes of coal.[44] The UK Coal mines achieved the most economical coal production in Europe, according to UK Coal, with a level of productivity of 3,200 tonnes per man year as of 2012, at which point there were 13 UK Coal deep mines.[42] The three deep-pit mines were Hatfield and Kellingley Collieries in Yorkshire and Thoresby in Nottinghamshire.[1] There were 26 opencast sites in 2014, mainly in Scotland.[45] Around that time, most coal was used for electricity generation and steel-making. Its use for heating homes had already declined because of pollution concerns. The commodity was also used for fertilisers, chemicals, plastics, medicines and road surfaces.
Hatfield Colliery closed in June 2015, as did Thoresby, and in December 2015, Kellingley, bringing to an end deep coal mining in the UK. The occasion was marked by a rally and march attended by thousands of people.[46] The closure of coal mines left the affected communities economically deprived, unable to recover even in the long run.[47]
In 2020, the Woodhouse Colliery proposal gained planning permission but has outstanding legal challenges as of 2024 and as yet to begin any works. The plan was criticised by some MPs and environmentalists due to the incompatibility of coal mining with government commitments to reduce carbon emissions. The mine is proposed by West Cumbria Mining and plans to extract coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea until 2049.[48][49][50] The decision to grant planning permission for Woodhouse Colliery was overturned by the High Court in September 2024, leaving the application to be re-determined by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government at a later date.[6]
Complete phase-out for electricity generation
On 21 April 2017, Britain went a full day without using coal power to generate electricity for the first time.[51] In May 2019, Britain went a full week without coal power.[52] In 2019, German utilities firm RWE announced that it planned to close all its UK coal power plants by 2020, leaving only four plants operating by March 2020;[53] in 2018, eight were still in operation when the government announced plans to shut down all coal power plants in the UK by 2025.[54] In June 2021, the government announced it was bringing forward the shutdown to 2024.[55][56] Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the UK's last coal-fired power station, closed at the end of September 2024.[57]
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a "pit", and above-ground mining structures are referred to as a "pit head". In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine.
The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "vesting day", 1 January 1947. In 1987, the NCB was renamed the British Coal Corporation, and its assets were subsequently privatised.
The History of coal mining goes back thousands of years, with early mines documented in ancient China, the Roman Empire and other early historical economies. It became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, when it was primarily used to power steam engines, heat buildings and generate electricity. Coal mining continues as an important economic activity today, but has begun to decline due to the strong contribution coal plays in global warming and environmental issues, which result in decreasing demand and in some geographies, peak coal.
The South Wales Coalfield extends across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen. It is rich in coal deposits, especially in the South Wales Valleys.
UK Coal Production Ltd, formerly UK Coal plc, was the largest coal mining business in the United Kingdom. The company was based in Harworth, in Nottinghamshire. The company was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The successor company that contains the former property division, Harworth Group, is still listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The Maltby Main Colliery was a coal mine located 7 miles (11 km) east of Rotherham on the eastern edge of Maltby, South Yorkshire, England. The mine was closed in 2013.
Mining in Wales provided a significant source of income to the economy of Wales throughout the nineteenth century and early to mid twentieth century. It was key to the Industrial Revolution in Wales, and to the whole of Great Britain.
Kellingley Colliery, known affectionately as the 'Big K', was a deep coal mine in North Yorkshire, England, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) east of Ferrybridge power station. It was owned and operated by UK Coal.
The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.
Selby coalfield was a large-scale deep underground mine complex based around Selby, North Yorkshire, England, with pitheads at Wistow Mine, Stillingfleet Mine, Riccall Mine, North Selby Mine, Whitemoor Mine and at Gascoigne Wood Mine. All coal was brought to the surface and treated at Gascoigne Wood before being distributed by rail. The primary purpose of the pit was to supply coal for electrical power generation; much of it was used in the nearby Aire valley power stations.
Open-pit coal mining in the United Kingdom ended in November 2023.
The Lancashire Coalfield in North West England was an important British coalfield. Its coal seams were formed from the vegetation of tropical swampy forests in the Carboniferous period over 300 million years ago.
Ellington Colliery, was a coal mine situated to the south of the village of Ellington in Northumberland, England. The colliery was the last deep coal mine in the north east of England. At one time, the deepest part of the mine was 800 metres (2,600 ft) and it extended 15 miles (24 km) under the North Sea. During the 1980s, the pit was known as the biggest undersea mine in the world and produced 69% of the mined coal in Northumberland.
Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) is a coal producer based in India. The company was founded in 1975 after nationalisation of coal mines in India. It operates coal mines in Jharkhand and West Bengal states of India. It inherited all the private sector coal mines of the Raniganj Coalfield. It is one of the fully owned subsidiaries of Coal India Limited. The company has its headquarters at Sanctoria, in West Bengal.
Raniganj Coalfield is primarily located in the Asansol and Durgapur subdivisions of Paschim Bardhaman district of West Bengal. It spreads over to the neighboring districts of Birbhum, Bankura, Purulia and to Dhanbad district of Jharkhand.
Haig Colliery was a coal mine in Whitehaven, Cumbria, in north-west England. The mine was in operation for almost 70 years and produced high volatile strongly caking general purpose coal which was used in the local iron making industry, gas making and domestic fires. In later years, following closure of Workington Steelworks in 1980, it was used in electricity generation at Fiddler's Ferry. Situated on the coast, the underground workings of the mine spread westwards out under the Irish Sea and mining was undertaken at over 4 miles (6.4 km) out underneath the sea bed.
The coal industry in Wales played an important role in the Industrial Revolution in Wales. Coal mining in Wales expanded in the 18th century to provide fuel for the blast furnaces of the iron and copper industries that were expanding in southern Wales. The industry had reached large proportions by the end of that century, and then further expanded to supply steam-coal for the steam vessels that were beginning to trade around the world. The Cardiff Coal Exchange set the world price for steam-coal and Cardiff became a major coal-exporting port. The South Wales Coalfield was at its peak in 1913 and was one of the largest coalfields in the world. It remained the largest coalfield in Britain until 1925. The supply of coal dwindled, and pits closed in spite of a UK-wide strike against closures. Aberpergwm Colliery is the last deep mine in Wales.
Woodhouse Colliery, also known as Whitehaven coal mine, is a proposed coal mine near to Whitehaven in Cumbria, England. The coal mine has been advertised as bringing jobs to a deprived area, but has also come in for criticism by green campaigners. The mine is proposed by West Cumbria Mining and plans to extract coking coal from beneath the Irish Sea for 25 years. The plan has been criticised by some MPs, scientists and environmentalists due to the coal mine's environmental impact and the UK government's legal commitments to reduce UK carbon emissions.
The Prince of Wales Colliery was a coal mine that operated for over 130 years in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England. It was permanently closed in 2002 after geological problems were found to make accessing remaining coal reserves unprofitable, and most of the site was later converted for housing.
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1 2 Seddon, Mark (10 April 2013). "The long, slow death of the UK coal industry"(The Northerner blog). The Guardian. London. Retrieved 17 April 2013. Earlier this month Maltby colliery in South Yorkshire closed down for good. At the end of a winter that saw 40% of our energy needs met by coal – most of it imported – we witnessed the poignant closing ceremony
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Companies with headquarters and/or registered office in the UK but no applicable energy operations within the country shown in italics1Ultimate parent company is not UK-based 2Integrated in the United States, no generation or supply activities in the UK
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