Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T16:16:42.154Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fifty Years of Coal-mining Productivity: The Record of the British Coal Industry before 1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

David Greasley
David Greasley
Affiliation:
The author is Lecturer in Economic History at the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A downward trend in British coal-mining productivity was reversed between the world wars. Declining productivity before 1914 was accompanied by wide regional differences, especially at the coalface. Scotland attained the best overall. productivity, while coalface productivity was highest in Durham and Northumberland. Regional differences narrowed by the 1920s but re-emerged in the 1930s, as mines in the North Midlands outpaced the productivity gains made elsewhere. Only a multifaceted interpretation can explain these distinctive patterns—over time, between regions, and at different stages of the coal-mining operation.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 877 - 902
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Taylor, Arthur J., “Labour Productivity and Technological Innovation in the British Coal Industry, 1850–1914”, Economic History Review. 14 (08 1961). pp. 48–70:CrossRefGoogle ScholarWalters, Rhodri, “Labour Productivity in the South Wales Steam Coal Industry, 1870–1914,” Economic History Review, 28 (05 1975), pp. 280–303Google Scholar.

2 McCloskey, Donald N.. “International Differences in Productivity? Coal and Steel in America and Britain before World War 1,” in McCloskey, Donald N., Essays on a Mature Economy: Britain after 1840 (London, 1970). pp. 285–304:Google ScholarMitchell, Brian R.. Economic Development of the British Coal Industry (Cambridge, 1984):Google ScholarHirsch, Barry T. and Hausman, William J., “Labour Productivity in the British and South Wales Coal Industry, 1874–1914”, Economnica, 50 (05 1983). pp. 145–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Church, Roy. The History of the British Coal Industry 1830–1913 (Oxford. 1986)Google Scholar.

4 Buxton, Neil K.. “Entrepreneurial Efficiency in the British Coal Industry between the Wars,” Economic History Review, 23 (02 1970). pp. 476–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Report of the Technical Advisory Committee (P.P. 1944–1945, IV, London).Google ScholarReport of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry (P.P. 1926, XIV. London):Google ScholarKirby, Maurice W.. “Entrepreneurship in the British Coal Industry between the Wars,” Economic History Review. 25 (11 1972), pp. 655–57:CrossRefGoogle ScholarJohnson, Walford. “Entrepreneurial Efficiency in the British Coal Industry between the Wars: A Second Comment,” Economic History Review. 25 (11 1972). pp. 665–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Boyns, Trevor. “Rationalisation in the Inter-War Period: The Case of the South Wales Steam Coal Industry,” Business History. 29 (07 1987). pp. 282–303;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDintenfass, Michael, “Entrepreneurial Failure Reconsidered: The Case of the Interwar British Coal Industry,” Business History Review, 62 (Spring 1988). pp. 1–34:Google ScholarFine, Ben. The Coal Question (London. 1990)Google Scholar.

7 Supple, Barry. The History of the British Coal Industry 1914–1946 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar.

8 McCloskey. “International Differences,” p. 294Google Scholar.

9 Greasley, David, “The Diffusion of Machine Cutting in the British Coal Industry, 1902–1938,” Explorations in Economic History, 19 (07 1982), pp. 246–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Taylor, “Labour Productivity.” p. 53Google Scholar.

11 Hirsch and Hausman, “South Wales Coal,” pp. 145–59: Walters, “Labour Productivity,” pp. 288–91Google Scholar.

12 Greasley, David, “Wage Rates and Work Intensity in the South Wales Coalfield, 1874–1914,” Economica, 52 (08 1985), pp. 383–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Church, British Coal Industry. p. 477Google Scholar.

14 Royal Commission on Labour (P.P. 1890, LXVIII, London):Google ScholarReport of the Eight Hours Day Committee (P.P. 1907, XIV, London)Google Scholar.

15 Taylor, Arthur J., “The Coal Industry,” in Aldcroft, Derek H., The Development of British industry and Foreign Competition (London, 1968). p. 54Google Scholar.

16 McCormick, Brian and Williams, John, “The Miners and the Eight Hour Day,” Economic History Review, 12 (1959–1960), pp. 223–37Google Scholar.

17 Evans, Eric, The Miners of South Wales (Cardiff, 1961), p. 191Google Scholar.

18 McCormick and Williams, “Eight Hour Day,” p. 235Google Scholar.

19 The Act became effective in most areas, including South Wales. on July 1, 1909. In Durham and Northumberland the legislation was applied from Jan. 1, 1910Google Scholar.

20 Daunton, Martin J., in “Down the Pit: Work in the Great Northern and South Wales Coalfields, 1870–1914,” Economic History Review, 34 (11 1981), p. 593. took the alternative viewGoogle Scholar.

21 Increased refinement in the division of labor in the northeast created greater interdependence between hewers and other underground workers. Reduced hours for support workers generally disrupted face operationsGoogle Scholar.

22 Buxton, , “Entrepreneurial Efficiency,” p. 482Google Scholar.

23 Buxton, Neil K., “Avoiding the Pitfalls: Entrepreneurial Efficiency in the British Coal Industry Again,” Economic History Review, 25 (11 1972). pp. 669–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Buxton, Neil K., The Economic Development of the British Coal Industry (London, 1978). p. 180Google Scholar.

25 Kendrick, John W., Productivity Trends in the United States (Princeton, 1961), p. 152Google Scholar.

26 Only two-thirds of collieries were covered by the sample, and those data specifically pertained to June 1914Google Scholar.

27 Prewar output per labor year in Britain and Germany was almost identicalGoogle Scholar.

28 For details see Royal Commission (1926). p. 170,Google Scholar and International Labor Office Yearbook 1937–38 (Geneva, 1938)Google Scholar.

29 The noncoal productivity data is from Matthews, Robin C., Feinstein, Charles H., and Odling-Smee, John C., British Economic Growth, 1856–1973 (Oxford, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 See Daunton, “Down the Pit,”Google Scholar

31 Dintenfass, “Entrepreneurial Failure”: Slaven, Anthony, “Earnings and Productivity in the Scottish Coal Industry during the Nineteenth Century,” in Payne, Peter. Studies in Scottish Business History (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

32 Mayor, Samuel, Colliery Guardian (London, 1924), p. 1510Google Scholar.

33 Bamforth, K. and Trist, H., “Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Longwall Method of Coal Cutting,” Human Relations, 4 (1951), pp. 3–38Google Scholar.

34 Greasley, “Machine Cutting,” p. 252Google Scholar.

35 Fuel and Power Statistical Digest (P.P. 1944–1945, IV, London)Google Scholar.

36 Report of the Technical Advisory CommitteeGoogle Scholar.

37 The number of working places was reduced from 23,178 in 1926 to 10,005 in 1930 and to 3,749 in 1938. Output per working place increased eight times in the Ruhr between 1926 and 1938. See Report of the Technical Advisory CommitteeGoogle Scholar.

38 Supple, British Coal industry, p. 364Google Scholar.

39 Defensive new investment may also have occurred. See Lamfalussy, Alexandre, Investment and Growth in Mature Economies (London, 1961)Google Scholar.

40 The workings of this legislation is described by Kirby, Maurice W. in “The Control of Competition in the British Coal-Mining Industry in the Thirties,” Economic History Review, 26 (05 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Days worked are from the Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines (Board of Trade, London, 1937)Google Scholar.

42 Treble, John G., “Sliding Scales and Concilliation Boards: Risk Sharing in the Late Nineteenth Century Coal Industry,” Oxford Economic Papers, 39 (1987), p. 696CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 See Greasley, “Machine Cutting,” pp. 264–66. for the price seriesGoogle Scholar.

44 For machine prices, see Lancashire Records Office. Preston. Box NCBw 4/1. Reports in the technical journals indicate a 3- to 5-year life for rotary machines. See. for example, Report of the North of England Mining Engineers' Committee on Machine Mining (Newcastle, 1905)Google Scholar.

45 For a discussion see Greasley, David, “The Diffusion of a Technology: The Case of Machine Cutting in the British Coal Industry, 1900–1938” (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of Liverpool, 1979), p. 230. The data are from the Mining Engineers' CommitteeGoogle Scholar.

46 See Greasley, “Diffusion of a Technology.” pp. 255–56Google Scholar.