| Description | Records of the National Coal Board (NCB) and the British Coal Corporation. Records are arranged by the creating department, with records concerning a variety of subjects found across the different series, such as reconstruction schemes, Warwickshire Miners' Convalescent Home, wages, and the Birch Coppice Opencast Inquiry. There are a large number of records relating to the development of the Warwickshire coalfield preparing for the South Warwickshire Prospect and plans for a new colliery at Hawkhurst Moor that were dropped following a Public Inquiry. Within the Mining Department papers there are plans showing underground workings across the Warwickshire coalfield.
Records created at individual collieries also feature within the collection and include accident registers, compensation registers and pay books. Some of this material was in use by pre-vesting colliery companies and continued by the NCB.
The NCB also deposited the pre-nationalisation records of individual colliery companies. These records include (but are not limited to) accident books, pay books, accounts, correspondence, minute books and title deeds. Alongside records created by the NCB, the collection includes a small amount of pre-vesting date records kept by the NCB. This material comprises records relating to coal mining and associated industries before nationalisation. Most notable within these records are the compensation registers of the Midland Colliery Owners' Mutual Indemnity Company, which record compensation payments for mineworkers across the Midlands. |
| AdminHistory | In 1945 the newly-elected Labour government announced its intention to nationalise the British coal industry. The Coal Industry Nationalisation Act was passed on 12 July 1946 and it provided for the establishment of a National Coal Board (NCB) in which all the assets of the coal industry would be vested. The NCB would be responsible for running the whole industry, split into the following eight Divisions: No.1 Scottish; No.2 Northern; No.3 North-Eastern; No.4 North-Western; No.5 East Midland; No.6 West Midland; No.7. South-Western; No.8 South-Eastern.
From the vesting date, 1 January 1947, the Warwickshire coalfield was managed by the West Midland Division, which consisted of 60 collieries with an annual output of 16.1m tons. Under the divisions the coalfields were grouped into Areas, each in the charge of an Area General Manager. Sixteen of the 60 collieries in the West Midland Division were in the Warwickshire coalfield.
In the early 1940s there had been a great demand for coal and many pits had been kept open although operating at a loss. The high demand for coal continued after nationalisation, and the National Coal Board distributed the available finances to the collieries that they believed would have the best returns. This led to the closure and merger of many collieries, including the closure of Exhall Colliery in 1948 and the merger of Alvecote, Amington and Pooley Hall collieries to create North Warwick Colliery in 1951.
Further closures occurred in Warwickshire throughout the 1950s and 1960s: Griff Clara in 1955, Griff No. 4 in 1960, Binley in 1963, Haunchwood in 1967 and Arley and Kingsbury in 1968. Alongside these closures, the Warwickshire coal industry began to focus more on the profitable and largely unworked areas toward the south of the coalfield. A new colliery, Daw Mill, was opened in 1964. In 1967 the National Coal Board underwent a major re-organisation and a new three-tier structure of regional and local organisation replaced the previous five-tier structure. Warwickshire became part of the new South Midland Area, which eventually became part of the Central Area in the 1980s.
Plans to increase the profitability of the southern part of the Warwickshire coalfield continued throughout the 1980s with efforts concentrated on the South Warwickshire Prospect and reorganisation schemes to expand the capacity of Coventry and Daw Mill collieries. A new mine was proposed at Hawkhurst Moor, though the plans were eventually dropped following the result of a Public Inquiry.
The steady decline in the profitability of coal mining in 1980s led to another wave of pit closures across the UK. On 1 January 1987, the National Coal Board became the British Coal Corporation. Following the closure of Coventry Colliery in 1991, only one colliery (Daw Mill) remained open in the Warwickshire coalfield.
The industry-wide administrative functions of British Coal were transferred to the Coal Authority following the passing of the Coal Industry Act 1994, and the British Coal Corporation was wound up in 1997. Mining operations in Warwickshire came to an end in 2013 with the closure of Daw Mill Colliery, the last deep mine in the West Midlands. |