In
the eighteenth and early nineteenth century colliers in every coal-mining
area attempted to form unions. Colliery owners refused to negotiate
with these organizations and the colliers were invariably defeated.
During this period miners obtained a reputation for militancy and
were accused of being followers of the revolutionary doctrines of
Tom Paine. In an attempt to avoid the In
an attempt to avoid the Combination Acts
early colliery unions went under the name of friendly societies. In
the early part of the nineteenth century, there were 21 miner's friendly
societies in central Lancashire alone.
The 1830s saw a growing market for coal. This improved the bargaining
position of the colliers and in 1831 and 1832 miners in Northumberland
and Durham joined together to gain a reduction in hours and the abolition
of the truck system. This encouraged miners from other parts of the
country to form district associations.
With the development of the railways in the 1840s, it became increasing
difficult for district organizations to apply the necessary pressure
on colliery owners. In 1842 colliers formed the Miners Association
of Great Britain and Ireland. Certain areas such as Yorkshire and
East Midlands failed to join and the mass importation of strike-breakers
during industrial disputes continued to undermine local unions.
In some mining areas important trade unionists began to emerge. In
1880 James Keir Hardie led the first ever
strike of Lanarkshire miners. He also became secretary of the Ayrshire
Miners' Union and later, with the help of another outstanding union
leader, Robert Smillie, helped establish
the Scottish Miners' Federation.
Miner's leaders were aware that they needed workers from their industry
to put their case in the House of Commons.
In the 1874 General Election two miners,
Alexander MacDonald (Stafford) and Thomas
Burt (Morpeth) were elected. After the passing of the 1884
Reform Act most miners could vote in parliamentary elections.
Colliery trade unionists were selected as Liberal
Party candidates in several mining constituencies and six of them
were elected to Parliament: Charles Fenwick
(Wansbeck), William Crawford (Mid-Durham);
John Wilson (Houghton); Ben
Pickard (Normanton) and William Abraham
(Rhondda).
In the summer of 1888 the price of coal began to rise. All over Britain
miners began to talk about the need for a pay increase. When colliery
owners rejected the claims of the Yorkshire Miners' Association, its
leader, Ben Pickard, sent out a circular
inviting all miners "to attend a conference for the purpose of
considering the best means of securing a 10% advance in wages and
of trying to find common ground for action." The Conference took
place in Derby on 29th October, 1888 where
the formation of a new national union was discussed but no agreement
was reached.
Ben Pickard called another conference
in Newport on 26th November 1889. Pickard selected Newport as it was
fiftieth anniversary of the Chartist Newport
Uprising. Those attending included James
Keir Hardie, Thomas Burt, Herbert
Smith, Sam Woods, Thomas
Ashton and Enoch Edwards. At the
conference it was decided to form the Miners' Federation of Great
Britain (MFGB). Officers elected included Pickard (president), Woods
(vice-president), Edwards (treasurer) and Ashton (secretary).
From the beginning the Miners' Federation of Great Britain attempted
to have all the colliers' trade unions united in a single body. South
Wales joined in 1898 but Northumberland and Durham, with a quarter
of all Britain's miners, refused to become part of the MFGB. Negotiations
continued and first Northumberland (1907) and Durham (1908) agreed
to join. The membership of the MFGB was now over 600,000. This gave
the MFGB tremendous strength in the Trade Union
Congress, as the organisation represented over a quarter of all
trade unionists in Britain.
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain became the National Union
of Mineworkers (NUM) on 1st January 1945. It now had a membership
of 533,000. With the decline in the demand for coal, numbers in the
industry continued to fall and by the early 1980s membership of the
NUM was under 250,000.
Banner of the National Union of Mineworkers
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