Britain’s Black Miners: Unearthing an overlooked history

By George Dean, Third Year History and English

In light of widespread and ongoing industrial action in the UK, we may be reminded of the resistance against Margaret Thatcher’s government during the 1980s, opposing its privatisation of British industry and assault on the livelihoods of working-class communities. This resistance was epitomised by the 1984-5 miners’ strike, which has been etched into the legend of labour and leftist history in Britain.

However, traditional narratives have neglected the stories of non-white miners, and these experiences have been historically omitted from the National Mining Museum of Wakefield, Yorkshire.

Gedling colliery’s union banner

Uncovering the stories of Black British miners

This injustice in the historical archives perpetuates frequently narrow-minded representations of working-class Britain, which are dominated by white masculinity, as opposed to the diverse reality. The historian Norma Gregory has sought to rectify this. She has founded the Nottingham News Centre, which aims “to support a more realistic African inclusive, historical discourse”, asserting that “The black miner in the UK should and must be acknowledged” (2016).

Through the project Coal Miners of African Heritage: Narratives from Nottinghamshire, Gregory has brought to light the stories of Britain’s Black miners in the post-war period. The longevity of the project has been solidified by the establishment of the Black Miners Museum. Through the Digging Deep display at the National Mining Museum running 2019-20, the histories of Black British miners have been brought to the centre of Britain’s industrial labour history, where they belong.

Norma Gregory, pictured at Digging Deep exhibition

Gregory’s research has relied upon the oral histories of former miners, as worker ethnicity was not recorded by the collieries and many documents were destroyed during the closedown of pits during the 1980s. This has enabled the uncovering of “unexplored, personal insights” (2019).

‘Brothers beneath the surface’

Gregory has focused upon Nottinghamshire’s Gedling Colliery, which produced over 1 million tonnes of coal during the 1950s and 60s. Its workers came from 15 different countries, earning it the name ‘Pit of Nations’; around 25% of Gedling miners were of African and Caribbean heritage between the 1950s and 80s.

In the wake of post-war labour shortages, coal was nationalised in 1947, and Britain encouraged the migration of workers from Commonwealth countries. Most miners who came from Africa and the Caribbean did not have prior experience in the industry, but “settled into mining communities through determination” (Gregory, 2019).

Garrey Mitchell, whose father Clifton introduced Nottingham to its first Caribbean food shops during the late 1950s, worked at Gedling 1976-86. He spoke of how “You had to watch each other’s backs. Colour didn’t come into it” (2016), indicating that there was cross-racial solidarity underground, and camaraderie was critical in facing the dangerous working conditions.

Lincoln Cole, Gedling miner 1965-87 and father of England footballing legend Andy Cole, supports this notion: “It was scary and rough […] But if your finger hurt, there was somebody there to give you a helping hand” (2016). However, Cole illuminated that racial division re-surfaced once miners were above ground again.

Gedling Miners

In and outside of the mining profession, Nottingham’s Black community suffered from racial oppression. On 23rd August 1958, there was a ‘race riot’: 1,000 people participated and eight were hospitalised, a week before similar unrest in Notting Hill.

‘Brothers beneath the surface’, the slogan adopted by Gedling Colliery, did not always reflect the reality for Black miners. Promotion opportunities for non-white miners were minimal, and a blind eye was often turned to racist behaviour. Fitzalbert Taylor, miner for 25 years, tells of an incident in which a Polish worker hit a Jamaican miner named ‘Greeny’ with a ringer (an iron tool which releases coal), and the chargehand (supervisor) did not interfere.

Racism also impacted industrial action. Nottingham’s Black miners participated in the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) strikes of 1972 and 74, but most did not during 1984 and 85. Black striking workers were at disproportionate risk of falling victim to police violence; Taylor thus refused to stand at the front of the demonstration when he picketed in 1972, and felt alienated when white strikers and white police drank soup together from the pot that had been prepared to feed the picketing miners.

The testimonies of Black miners also offer an alternative perspective on Arthur Skargill, NUM President 1982-2002. Frequently heroized by labour activists as making a courageous stand for working-class communities against the Thatcher government, Taylor expressed his frustrations that Skargill ordered the 1984-5 strike without a vote being taken by all NUM members.

Legacy

The unsafe nature of mining was stark, with 131 workers having lost their lives at Gedling Colliery. Gregory (2016) illuminated that “many ex-miners are now senior citizens with recurring ill health issues such as emphysema, pneumoconiosis or ‘black lung’ (coal dust in the lungs) and chronic bronchitis”. To this day, elderly ex-miners are neglected by the political establishment and lack sufficient care, as debate on the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme rolls on in the House of Commons.

In his ode to striking miners during the 1980s, Billy Bragg sings in Between The Wars of the worker who “raised a family / In time of austerity / With sweat at the foundry / Between the Wars”. Whilst this anthem is an admirable form of support for workers whose livelihoods were under attack, and a celebration of their contributions to British society, the story of Britain’s Black miners does not marry with this narrative.

Bragg sings of the miner who toiled in the inter-war period, but there is no mention of those who migrated from Africa, the Caribbean, and other British colonies in the post-war period. On the lack of historical coverage of Black British miners, Mitchell commented that “I feel hurt by it all, because black people have contributed a lot to the mining industry” (2016).

Gregory’s project has an international scope; through sharing research findings in Caribbean and Jamaica, she hopes to “help people understand the work that their men were doing to send money back home” (2016).

Gedling Colliery closed in 1991, and the space was converted into a park during March 2015. But it is vital that we remember the stories of those who worked on this land, and uncover the experiences of non-white workers who have been historically excluded from traditional narratives of British labour history.