2015 Friday December 18: The Last Underground Coal Mine in the United Kingdom Closed
Exhibit by Bob Leathers
Hanna's last year of coal production was 2012.
Great Britain's last underground coal mine closed Friday December 18, 2015.
Great Britain's last underground coal mine closed Friday December 18, 2015.
United Kingdom coal mining had deep roots in Carbon and Hanna. Many of the coal miners that developed and worked the Carbon and Hanna mines were from Great Britain.
Pride Vies with Sadness as Britain's Last Coal Pit Closes
An unidentified miner comes off the last shift at Kellingley Colliery in Knottingley, northern England, on the final day of production, Friday Dec. 18, 2015. Once, coal fueled the British Empire, employed armies of men and shook the power of governments. On Friday, workers at Britain's last operating deep coal mine finish their final shift. The last haul of coal from the pit is destined for a museum, as a once-mighty industry fades into history. (John Giles/PA via AP)
LONDON (AP) — Coal once fueled the British Empire, employed armies of men and shook the power of governments.
On Friday, workers at Britain's last operating deep coal mine finished their final shift, emerging — soot-blackened and live on television news channels — to cheers, applause and tears.
Some of the men carried lumps of coal as mementoes from the Kellingley Colliery, 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of London. The last haul of coal from the pit is destined for a mining museum as a once-mighty industry fades into history.
"There's a few lads shedding tears, just getting all emotional," said miner Neil Townend, 51.
Defiant to the end, the Kellingley miners sang a hit by Tom Jones — the son of a Welsh coal miner — as they headed underground for the last time.
"This is what makes us very special, the mining community," said Nigel Kemp, who worked at the mine for more than 30 years. "The men have gone down today singing 'My, my, my, Delilah.' Every single man on the cage, you could hear them 400 feet down singing."
At its peak in the 1920s, Britain's mining industry employed more than 1 million people, as coal powered trains, fueled factories and heated homes. After World War II, the country still had 750,000 underground miners at almost 1,000 coal pits, but the industry's days were already numbered.
With gas and nuclear power on the rise, hundreds of coal mines had closed by 1984, when a showdown between the British government and the miners cemented the industry's central — and contested — place in Britain's national mythology.
Thousands of miners went on strike hoping to scuttle then-Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's plan to shut down 20 pits and lose 20,000 jobs in an effort to destroy the powerful mining unions, which for years had used their economic clout to extract concessions from British governments.
The bitter, yearlong struggle brought violent picket-line clashes and ended in victory for the government. Since then, changing economic demands and cheap imported coal have all but wiped out Britain's mining industry.
Britain still gets a fifth of its electricity from coal, although that is giving way to cleaner alternatives. Almost half the country's power now comes from nuclear or renewable sources like wind and solar, and Britain has agreed to sharply cut its greenhouse gas emissions under an international deal to limit climate change signed in Paris last week.
And it's not just Britain — the world as a whole agreed to move away from using fossil fuels, including coal, that are blamed for global warming.
With coal prices lower than they have been for years, it's cheaper to import coal from countries including Russia, Colombia and the United States than to dig it out of British soil. Critics say some of those countries have lower wages and worse safety records than Britain.
Britain still has several open-cast mines as well as a handful of idle pits that could be reopened if needed, but Kellingley was the last deep mine producing coal on a large scale. Its closure marks the end of an industry that was dirty and dangerous but brought pride and purpose to close-knit communities.
"Everything spread from the pit," said Andy Smith, acting director of the National Coal Mining Museum, which plans to put the last ton of coal from Kellingley on display.
"Community spirit came from working in the pit. If you didn't work in the pit, you were involved in making mine machinery, or supplying the mine canteen with bread or pork pies. (There were) sports and social clubs," he said. "Every pit that has shut over the last 50 years, the community has suffered." (Associated Press, December 20, 2015)
DEATH BY NUMBERS: SOME OF THE KEY STATISTICS BEHIND THE DECLINE OF DEEP COAL MINING IN BRITAIN
(Statistics from www.dailymail.co.uk)
(Statistics from www.dailymail.co.uk)
9 - the number of deep mines producing coal in 2015. When Kellingley Colliery closes, just eight will remain. According to data supplied to the Press Association by the UK Coal Authority, five of these eight mines are operational but have a very small staff and produce little coal. The remaining three are closed but can be reopened if necessary and still have a licence to produce coal.
- 635 - people employed by underground mines, as of September 2015. When the UK mining industry was nationalised in 1947, almost three-quarters of a million people (705,500) worked for underground mines.
- 1.16 million - the total number of miners in Britain in 1922, the highest for any year in history.
- 3,236 - average number of deep mines producing coal each year between 1893 and 1902, the highest number on record. Coal was first mined from deep pits in Britain as early as 1853. An average of 72 million tonnes of coal were produced each year in the middle of the 19th century.
- 292 million - tonnes of deep mined coal produced in 1913, the highest for any year on record. The total remained above 200 million until 1943.
- 707,700 - people employed by coal mines in 1947, the year the industry was nationalised. Some 99.7% of these worked underground.
- 18,600 - people employed by coal mines in 1994/5, when the industry was privatised. A total of 81% worked underground.
- 29% - proportion of miners working underground as of September 2015.
- 42 million - tonnes of coal imported into the UK in 2014. This was three and a half times the amount of coal produced within the UK (12 tonnes). (Statistics from www.dailymail.co.uk)
The Last Miners Part 1 - YouTube
A million men used to toil beneath the ground. Coal-mining fuelled the industrial revolution and brought about the biggest industrial dispute of the last fifty years. Now Britain's last deep coal mine, Kellingley Colliery in Yorkshire, has closed. (YouTube)
The Last Miners Part 2 - YouTube
Two-part documentary following the workers at Kellingley Colliery in North Yorkshire, the last deep coal mine in Britain, as it prepares to close. (YouTube)