All of that has changed of course.
The history of coal mining and its impact on the people and communities is well preserved at The Scottish Mining Museum.
A quick ride on the "3A" bus from Dalkeith, the museum is set at the Lady Victoria Colliery, in Newtongrange, Scotland. Some students, another faculty member, and I loaded up to go see it as part of an assignment. (a "colliery" is the term for a mining center)
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| Students at the bus stop waiting to depart for the mining museum |
The place itself is most recognizable by an iconic wheel in the sky that can be seen from a distance. It is part of the vast mechanism that was used to pull small iron coal carts up the mine tracks to waiting trains.
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The big wheel today above & yesteryear below |
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| Steam engine that ran the big wheel |
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| Coal carts on the tracks |
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| The last of the waiting trains |
It was quite the deal. One could easily see what had transpired there on a mechanical level. To the museum's credit, it also told a story about how this industry has affected the lives of the people of this country, and the world, both economically and politically.
It is a long and detailed story of course, and it is like the United State's own industrial revolution story, as many of the players and scripts are the same.
Looking back first, evidence of Scot's digging for the coal goes back at least to the 13th century as evidenced by the discovery of "Bell Pits" throughout the region. It has been shown that monks and other groups collected and used the coal through inspection of their old living quarters. The first people collected the easy stuff, and others went further and further into the earth to continue collecting it.
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| How would you like to be the guy on that ladder? |
AS DEMAND RISES, SO DO WORKERS AND TECHNOLOGY
As time and technology moved on, the demand increased, so people dug deeper and were able to get more coal out of the ground at faster rates. The 3 million tons extracted from Scottish mines in 1830 increased to 42 million tons by 1913. During this same time period the town of Newbattle nearly doubled, growing from 3,346 to 6,493 according to Lothian Company records.
It is not surprising that the mining company's records were used as a resource for the museum as the communities where mines were located became "company towns." When talking to a few of the local residents about the mining they clearly and consistently indicate that the town was run by the mine bosses and there was no trouble in town because if a worker or someone in his family was causing trouble - the worker could get "sacked."
The extent to which the mining companies and culture influenced communities is evident in the following excerpt:
Reporting to Parliament in 1849, the Commissioner says:- "In the Lothians, where new colliery houses have been built, they are of a much-improved kind, as at the Marquis of Lothian's, and some excellent specimens on the property of the Duke of Buccleuch. The houses are occasionally inspected, and those families who neglect the opportunity of living in decency and cleanliness are threatened with dismissal from the works. Excellent gardens are attached to the cottages, and also ground for recreation." The Commissioner adds that admirable schoolhouses had been built by the Duke of Buccleuch and the Marquis of Lothian.
BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME
In the 18th and 19th centuries mining companies were building communities to develop a work force. Despite the hard, dirty work of mining - people were able to make a decent living and have a home. This very fact brought immigrants in from all over the world to fill the positions needed in the expanding trade. Some countries of note include Irish, Polish, and Lithuanian influxes.
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| Hard |
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| Dirty |
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| Work |
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| The gangs all here |
DECLINE OF THE COAL COMMUNITY
Time marches on of course. The coal industry was nationalized in 1947, to be run by the National Coal Board, but by the 1950's other sources of energy were taking form and the demand for coal was on the decline. The restriction of profits in the industry caused friction between workers and management.
Now, we have to keep in mind that most workers in the mining industry had been unionized since the 1800's, and there had been many incidents and strikes over the decades. For example, after many smaller unions were unable to smooth out the bumps incurred during the boom and bust times of the industry, the Miners Federation of Great Britain was born in November 1889. This organization was intrumental in obtainging one of the biggest concessions of the time - showers on the work site.
It would prove to be the first national trade union to survive the ferocious attacks of those who opposed organised labour in the coal industry. But the turmoil didn't end there.
There was the great lock-out of 1921 that had government troops working in the mines when an agreement couldn't be reached during a downturn in the economy. There was the General Strike of 1926 that had the Labor party and Tory party at odds over wages, and safety conditions. There were hunger marches in the 1930's when 40% of miners were out of work.
The 1960's and 70's saw both the Tory and Labor parties supporting imported oil and investment in nuclear energy as the energy of the future. This caused many mine closures, which left the mine workers moving from pit to pit looking for work. These became known as "pit-gypsys."
It all came to a head, and was witnessed internationally, during the 1984/1985 miners strike which produced an unprecedented conflict between the State and the Miner's Union. During the first week of the strike a young Yorkshire miner, David Jones, was killed on a picket line at Ollerton in Notts; a few months later Joe Green, also of Yorkshire, was killed on a picket line outside Ferrybridge Power Station.
Margaret Thatcher is known for being the Prime Minister who spent 12 billion pounds of the nations money to fight the unions. Many locals I've talked to about the history of the economics of this area still equate the loss of a way of life in Scotland with this political era.
The result, there is still a mining union, but the number of jobs for regular people is a fraction of what it used to be. Mining of coal is now done by scraping away all of the surface to get down to the coal vs. making tunnels down to it. This is called "Openface" mining.
Another result is that there is a generation of ex-miners, who have not worked since 1987, living in this community - many still on the dole, and their children, on the dole. Three ex-miners (a far cry from the thousands who used to work the mine) were giving tours today. The gentlemen giving the tours had all started working at the Lady Victoria in the 1950's. They were kind and gracious, and seem to have accepted that the way of life that they had been born into, worked at, was gone now, and not coming back. "Aye, tis' a shame" they said "But its no caimin' back."
The community of Newtongrange, which is still there, is much like the one we are living in, Dalkieth, in that the mining history is integral to its sense of place. There is a generation who knew a way of life and could not adjust to the new. It is up to the current generation to revive the sense of pride and community that once flourished along side these incredible engineering feats known as Colliery's.
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| Main Street Newtongrange |
Again, to its credit, the museum gave a fair enough look at the past for the students and I to try to get a hold of it. Like our country's own industrial boom and bust story, it is a bit long and twisted - among community, politics, profits, and workers rights. In the end, as I was passing by the local schools on the way back to Dalkieth, I hoped that the students there would all learn their history well.
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| Cobwebs on the ol' boaring bit |
As was the case with the Falkirk Wheel, there is a link for instructors to follow to gain more information and lesson plans connected to Scottish Mining. Here it is:
http://www.nationalminingmuseum.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=108&Itemid=61
I like the iron age bit, and the mining stuff!
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