Records concerning industrial relations at Wearmouth Coal Company Ltd of County Durham, 1925-1946

The collection contains records generated and received by the Wearmouth Coal Company Ltd solely in connection with deputations made by the Monkwearmouth Lodge of the Durham Miners' Association. They describe in detail complaints and grievances made by members of the lodge. Although the records do not provide details about the constitutional history, financial position or production methods of the company, they illustrate labour relations in the coal industry and the operational procedures undertaken by miners at the time. The records in the collection cover a period containing the depression years of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the second world war and the run up to nationalisation of the industry in 1947.

The collection consists of volumes of deputations made by the Monkwearmouth Lodge of the Durham Miners' Association and minutes of meetings where representatives of the company and the lodge were present, describing in detail complaints and grievances made by members of the lodge, November 1925-December 1946.

According to tables compiled by HM Inspector of Mines for the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne district, Wearmouth collieries A and B were operated by the Wearmouth Coal Company Ltd in 1896 producing coal for gas and for household use. 1649 miners were employed underground in collieries A and B in that year with a further 339 working on the surface. In 1939, The Wearmouth Coal Company still owned two pits, at Wearmouth and Hylton, and employed over 3,000 miners. It had a directorate connection with Horden Collieries Ltd, a directorate association of Dorman Long, a mining combine linked with heavy industry. The Wearmouth collieries and the coal industry in general transferred to public ownership in 1947.

The Durham Miners' Association was formed in 1869 to represent the miners on rates of pay and conditions. In 1945, the Association became the Durham Area of the National Union of Mineworkers. The Durham Miners' Association was divided into branches called 'lodges' based on the workplace unit. The dates of formation and winding up of the Monkwearmouth lodge have not been ascertained.

The items in this collection have been arranged chronologically.

ACCESS: Accessible to all registered readers.

REPROGRAPHIC: Reprographic copies can be supplied for educational use and private study purposes only, depending on access status and the condition of the documents.

COPYRIGHT: Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections (email mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk). The Department will try to assist in identifying copyright owners but this can be difficult and the responsibility for copyright clearance before publication ultimately rests with the person wishing to publish.

LANGUAGE: English

The fate of the core archives of the Wearmouth Coal Company Ltd is not known. The present small collection of records once formed part of the collections of the Museum of Mining at Retford, Nottinghamshire, (established in 1970) and was among other records passed to University of Nottingham following its closure. The collection was acquired by The University of Nottingham's Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections in January 1990.