I decided to research through the UK's National Coal Board (NCB) which was a Labour nationalisation idea of British coal.
Coal was the power house for the UK and so the NCB was formed in 1946. In a short timespan, the NCB acquired 958 collieries. These varied in size and number of employees. But even in such a short timescale -
Atlee closed 101 between 1947 - 1951
MacMillian closed 246 between 1957 -1963
Wilson closed 253 between 1964 - 1976
Heath closed 26 between 1970 and 1974
Thatcher closed 115 between 1979 - 1990
(gaps in the dates due to some PM's not closing mines and others serving more than 1 term but not together because the dates puzzled me at first)
Then from then on, more closed by different governments. But why the closures? Well from 1957 coal demand started to decline. For example, steam railway engines were phasing over to diesel and electric, and electric production was phasing over to natural gas. More and more collieries became loss making, something the tax payer can't be propping up. Then with anything Left Wing, unions ran the show with many strikes. Heath bowed to the unions and if anyone is interested, reading about Arthur Scargill will give the background (link down below) about miner's unions.
So what does the planet just constantly hear about British coal? ThDS (Thatcher Derangement Syndrome is a real infliction)
"It was Thatcher's fault."
So by the time Thatcher came to office, the bulk of the collieries had already been closed with many a union strike with a few fisty cuffs at dawn. What this lead to was, Thatcher inherited the larger mines that had the bulk of the employees but coal was continuing to decline. What caught Scargill and the mines off guard was, Thatcher had testicles, unlike Heath. So as more closures were happening, the Great Miners strike of '84 ensued. Unfortunately they under estimated Thatcher, she didn't back down.
And since Thatcher's government, the mines continued to close. Her successor, John Major, had to close some 55 mines. The NCB dissolved in 1987 and the last deep coal mine closed in 2015. Due to unions, it was cheaper to import coal from Argentina!!
So that's the sad case of 77 years of the NCB, coal nationalisation, and the usual nationalisation dreadful idea. But there's many a web site out there, each cherry picking the history of coal to their agenda. If you see anything Welsh, they just concentrate on Welsh mines because that way, it means more mines were closed by the Tories. Plus, they then look at employee numbers lost under Thatcher (well, the biggest mines are going to have the most staff, not rocket science). I have scoured the internet but I cannot for the life of me find that site that listed all the closures from day one, overall Labour closed more mines.
So that's a brief history of UK's coal mines, but if you see/read in the future about coal, "It was Thatcher's fault", you now know why.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Coal was the power house for the UK and so the NCB was formed in 1946. In a short timespan, the NCB acquired 958 collieries. These varied in size and number of employees. But even in such a short timescale -
Atlee closed 101 between 1947 - 1951
MacMillian closed 246 between 1957 -1963
Wilson closed 253 between 1964 - 1976
Heath closed 26 between 1970 and 1974
Thatcher closed 115 between 1979 - 1990
(gaps in the dates due to some PM's not closing mines and others serving more than 1 term but not together because the dates puzzled me at first)
Then from then on, more closed by different governments. But why the closures? Well from 1957 coal demand started to decline. For example, steam railway engines were phasing over to diesel and electric, and electric production was phasing over to natural gas. More and more collieries became loss making, something the tax payer can't be propping up. Then with anything Left Wing, unions ran the show with many strikes. Heath bowed to the unions and if anyone is interested, reading about Arthur Scargill will give the background (link down below) about miner's unions.
So what does the planet just constantly hear about British coal? ThDS (Thatcher Derangement Syndrome is a real infliction)
"It was Thatcher's fault."
So by the time Thatcher came to office, the bulk of the collieries had already been closed with many a union strike with a few fisty cuffs at dawn. What this lead to was, Thatcher inherited the larger mines that had the bulk of the employees but coal was continuing to decline. What caught Scargill and the mines off guard was, Thatcher had testicles, unlike Heath. So as more closures were happening, the Great Miners strike of '84 ensued. Unfortunately they under estimated Thatcher, she didn't back down.
And since Thatcher's government, the mines continued to close. Her successor, John Major, had to close some 55 mines. The NCB dissolved in 1987 and the last deep coal mine closed in 2015. Due to unions, it was cheaper to import coal from Argentina!!
So that's the sad case of 77 years of the NCB, coal nationalisation, and the usual nationalisation dreadful idea. But there's many a web site out there, each cherry picking the history of coal to their agenda. If you see anything Welsh, they just concentrate on Welsh mines because that way, it means more mines were closed by the Tories. Plus, they then look at employee numbers lost under Thatcher (well, the biggest mines are going to have the most staff, not rocket science). I have scoured the internet but I cannot for the life of me find that site that listed all the closures from day one, overall Labour closed more mines.
So that's a brief history of UK's coal mines, but if you see/read in the future about coal, "It was Thatcher's fault", you now know why.
National Coal Board - Wikipedia
