Blood is the Price of Coal: Coal Communities, Health & Welfare in Britain & Beyond from the 19th Century to the Present This free one day conference aims to bring together researchers from higher education, libraries, archives, museums and community and campaign groups to explore the history of health and welfare in Britain’s coal mining industry. Conference programme: Panel 1: Disasters, safety and commemoration Oaks Colliery Disaster, 1866 Paul Darlow, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Paul Hardman, former NUM National Executive Officer The Safety Men: the Colliery Deputies union in the British Coal Industry Professor Peter Ackers, Loughborough University (Emeritus) Welcomed to Wrexham Sarah Castagnetti, The National Archives The 1959 Auchengeich Disaster: class, community and commemoration in Scotland’s coalfields Professor Jim Phillips, University of Glasgow Chair: Dr Jörg Arnold, Universität Augsburg Panel 2: Health The Violent Realities and Multiple Temporalities of a Miner’s Life Liv Robinson, Northumbria University ‘A wonderful difference to the home life’: pithead baths, pitwomen, and disability in twentieth-century British coalmining communities Lucy Jameson, Durham University Pneumoconiosis, Environment, and the Politics of Coal Miners' Health in Twentieth Century Britain Dr Andrew Seaton, University of Manchester A Special Case? Miners’ Health, Wage Relativities and the Fall of Heath’s Government Robert Rayner, University of Birmingham Chair: Professor Mathew Thomson, University of Warwick
Panel 3: Welfare “Feeding on the job?” Pit canteens in 1940s Britain Dr Ariane Mak, Université Paris Cité & IUF The Warmth of Home: Concessionary Fuel and Domestic Energy in British Coalfield Communities, 1945-1995 Dr Kathy Davies, Northumbria University Class, Culture and Democracy: the Miners Libraries of South Wales John Pateman, University of Leicester Deindustrialisation and the recreational provision of the nationalised British coalmining industry (1950s-1984) Dr Marion Henry, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Chair: Dr Quentin Outram, Society for the Study of Labour History Panel 4: Legacies Now The Dust Has Settled James O. Davies, Historic England 'The Big K: The Pit that shaped a community' Its legacy, a decade after closure. Judi Alston, One to One Development Trust Union Poorhouse to Union Leader - Herbert Smith, President of the Miners Federation of Great Britain 1922-1929. Kathryn Stainburn, Castleford Civic Society The Afterlife of Coal in Barnsley: Youth, Community, and Intergenerational Legacies Dr Kat Simpson, The University of Huddersfield Chair: Professor Keith Gildart, University of Wolverhampton Showcase of exhibitions, displays and posters: On Behalf of the People: Work, Community and Class in the British Coal Industry 1947-1994 Professor Keith Gildart, University of Wolverhampton Coal: a record of an industry Gary Winter, Historic England Poster of Mrs Sheila Truman Daniella Law, Historic England Glamorgan’s Blood: Dark Arteries, Old Veins – Exploring the Coal Collections at Glamorgan Archives Rhian Diggins, Glamorgan Archives When Coal was Clean: Soap and Smoke in Nineteenth Century Britain Oliver Marshall Mining Disasters in the Village of Worsbrough Maureen Gennard, Peter Fairham and David Bullock, Worsbrough Library Heritage Group
🚨 Conference booking open 🚨
Blood is the price of coal: Coal communities, health and welfare in Britain from the 19th century to the present
18 June 2026, University of Warwick
Booking form and additional information about the programme available at
warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
