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Miners Federation Of Great Britain
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' unions in England, Scotland and Wales whose associations remained largely autonomous. At its peak, the federation represented nearly one million workers. It was reorganised into the National Union of Mineworkers in 1945. Founding conference and membership In 1888 after colliery owners rejected a call for a pay rise from the Yorkshire Miners' Association, several conferences were organised to discuss the possibility of forming a national union. At the conference held in the Temperance Hall in Newport, South Wales in November 1889, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was formed. Ben Pickard of the Yorkshire Miners' Association was elected president and Sam Woods of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation (LCMF) its vice-president. Enoc ...
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Bristol Miners' Association
The Bristol Miners' Association was a trade union representing coal miners in Bristol and Bedminster, Bristol, Bedminster in England. The union was founded in June 1889 with around 2,000 members. It recruited Northumberland miner William Whitefield as its first agent and secretary. He was immediately successful, winning a 10% pay increase for members, leading to membership rising to 3,035 in 1892. This proved to be the union's high point; the gradual closure of local mines reduced membership to 2,167 by 1910.University of the West of England,Trade unions, Bristol Historical Resource From its foundation, the union was a member of the Miners Federation of Great Britain, and from 1894 until 1904, it participated in the loose South Western Counties Miners’ Federation with the Somerset Miners' Association and the Forest of Dean Miners' Association. Whitefield retired in 1921 and was succeeded by the union's treasurer, Charles Gill. However, membership continued to decline, to 1, ...
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Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre A national trade union center (or national center or central) is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. In some regions, such a ..., a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are 48 affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.5 million members. Frances O'Grady, Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway, Frances O'Grady became General Secretary of the TUC, General Secretary in 2013 and presented her resignation in 2022, with Paul Nowak (trade unionist), Paul Nowak becoming the next General Secretary in January 2023. Organisation The TUC's decision-making body is the Annual Congress, which takes place in September. Between congresses decisions are made by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, General Council, which meets every two mont ...
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British Newspaper Archive
The British Newspaper Archive web site provides access to searchable digitized archives of British and Irish newspapers. It was launched in November 2011. History The British Library Newspapers section was based in Colindale in north London, until 2013, and is now divided between the St Pancras and Boston Spa sites. The library has an almost complete collection of British and Irish newspapers since 1840. This is partly because of the legal deposit legislation of 1869, which required newspapers to supply a copy of each edition of a newspaper to the library. London editions of national daily and Sunday newspapers are complete back to 1801. In total, the collection consists of 660,000 bound volumes and 370,000 reels of microfilm containing tens of millions of newspapers with 52,000 titles on 45 km of shelves. After the closure of Colindale in November 2013, access to the 750 million original printed pages was maintained via an automated and climate-controlled storage facilit ...
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Leeds Mercury
The ''Leeds Mercury'' was a newspaper published in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was published from 1718 to 1755 and again from 1767. Initially it consisted of 12 pages and cost three halfpennies. In 1794 it had a circulation of about 3,000 copies, and in 1797 the cost rose to sixpence because of increased stamp duty. It appeared weekly until 1855, then three times a week until 1861 when stamp duty was abolished and it became a daily paper costing one penny. Edward Baines (1774–1848) bought the paper in 1801, and his son Sir Edward Baines (1800–1890) succeeded him as editor and proprietor. In 1923 the ''Leeds Mercury'' was acquired by the Yorkshire Conservative Newspaper Company Limited (now Yorkshire Post Newspapers), publishers of the ''Yorkshire Post'', but it continued to be published as a separate title until 26 November 1939, after which a combined paper was published as the ''Yorkshire Post'' with the ''Mercury'' name kept as a subtitle for some years. The me ...
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Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908
The Coal Mines Regulation Act 1908 (c. 57), also known as the Eight Hours Act or the Coal Mines (Eight Hours) Act, was a piece of social legislation passed in 1908 in the United Kingdom by the Liberal government. It limited the hours a miner could work to eight hours per day. See also *Liberal reforms The Liberal welfare reforms (1906–1914) were a series of acts of social legislation passed by the Liberal Party after the 1906 general election. They represent the emergence of the modern welfare state in the United Kingdom. The reforms demons ... References {{reflist Further reading Coal Mines (Eight Hours) Actvia Historic Hansard United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1908 United Kingdom labour law Coal mining in the United Kingdom 1908 in labor relations Coal mining law ...
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James Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and served as its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908. Hardie was born in Newhouse, Lanarkshire. He started working at the age of seven, and from the age of 10 worked in the Lanarkshire coal mines. With a background in preaching, he became known as a talented public speaker and was chosen as a spokesman for his fellow miners. In 1879, Hardie was elected leader of a miners' union in Hamilton and organised a National Conference of Miners in Dunfermline. He subsequently led miners' strikes in Lanarkshire (1880) and Ayrshire (1881). He turned to journalism to make ends meet, and from 1886 was a full-time union organiser as secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Union. Hardie initially supported William Gladstone's Liberal Party, but later concluded that the working class needed its own party. He first stood for parliament in 1888 as an indepe ...
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Thomas Ashton (trade Unionist)
Thomas Ashton (23 March 1844 – 12 October 1927) was a British trade unionist. Born in Openshaw, Ashton worked as a coal miner from the age of 12, and in 1865 became secretary of the Bradford and Clayton miners' lodge. This dissolved two years later, but Ashton re-established it in 1873, facing victimisation, but also being elected as checkweighman. He subsequently led the formation of the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation, and was its secretary from 1881. Ashton next worked with Ben Pickard to establish the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, and he was appointed as its first secretary. Although he personally supported the Conservative Party, he did not attempt to influence the union's political views, which initially followed Pickard's liberalism. He also worked with Pickard to establish the Miners' International Federation, and was its secretary from 1890 until 1914. In 1917, Ashton was appointed to the Privy Council A privy council is a body that ...
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Enoch Edwards (politician)
Enoch Edwards (April 1852 – 28 June 1912) was a British trade unionist and politician. Biography Edwards was born at Talk-o'-the Hill Staffordshire on 10 April 1852. He was the son of a pitman, and worked as a boy in a coal-mine. In 1870 he became treasurer of the North Staffordshire Miners' Association and was elected secretary to the same body in 1877. In 1880 he became president of the Midland Miners' Association; he was later president of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain in 1904. In 1884 he went to Burslem, where he became a member of the school board and town council in 1886, and later he became alderman and mayor. He was also a member of the Staffordshire County Council. He was elected to Parliament as the Lib-Lab MP for Hanley Hanley is one of the six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Fenton, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. Hanley is the ''de facto'' city centre, having ...
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Sam Woods (politician)
Sam Woods (10 May 1846 – 23 November 1915) was a British trade unionist and politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the 1890s. Born at Peasley Cross in St Helens, Woods began working in coal mining at the age of seven. He was elected as a pit checkweighman in 1875 and became strongly involved in trade unionism, joining the Lancashire and Cheshire Miners' Federation in 1881. When this merged into the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) in 1889, Woods became the organisation's first vice president. In the 1892 general election, Woods was elected as a Lib–Lab MP for Ince. In Parliament, he agitated for the Eight Hours Bill, and in 1894 he was elected as the Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). He lost his seat at the 1895 general election, but was re-elected for Walthamstow at a by-election in 1897. However, he lost the seat in 1900 following confusion over his stance on the Second Boer War. While b ...
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Ben Pickard
Benjamin Pickard, usually Ben Pickard (26 or 28 February 1842 – 3 February 1904), was a British coal miner, trade unionist and Lib–Lab politician. Early life and family Pickard was born in Kippax near Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire the son of a collier. He started work as a pit-boy at the age of twelve years. He earned a reputation as a studious boy and attended Kippax School. He also received religious training as a Wesleyan, becoming a local preacher and was connected with the Lord's Rest Day Association throughout his life. He was associated from an early age with the trade union movement becoming lodge secretary at the age of sixteen. In 1864 he married Hannah Elizabeth Freeman of Kippax and they had four sons and four daughters. His wife died in 1901. Trade union official In 1873 Pickard was appointed assistant secretary of the West Yorkshire Miners' Association and in 1876 he became secretary. He was responsible for uniting the West and South Yorkshire Miners' ...
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Newport, South Wales
Newport ( cy, Casnewydd; ) is a city and county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, northeast of Cardiff. With a population of 145,700 at the 2011 census, Newport is the third-largest authority with city status in Wales, and seventh most populous overall. Newport became a unitary authority in 1996 and forms part of the Cardiff-Newport metropolitan area. Newport was the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Great Britain, the Newport Rising of 1839. Newport has been a port since medieval times when the first Newport Castle was built by the Normans. The town outgrew the earlier Roman town of Caerleon, immediately upstream and now part of the borough. Newport gained its first charter in 1314. It grew significantly in the 19th century when its port became the focus of coal exports from the eastern South Wales Valleys. Newport was the largest coal exporter in Wales until the rise of Cardiff in the mid-1800s. ...
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National Union Of Mineworkers (Great Britain)
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is a trade union for coal miners in Great Britain, formed in 1945 from the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The NUM took part in three national miners' strikes, in UK miners' strike (1972), 1972, Three-Day Week, 1974 and UK miners' strike (1984–85), 1984–85. After the 1984–85 strike, and the subsequent closure of most of Britain's coal mines, it became a much smaller union. It had around 170,000 members when Arthur Scargill became leader in 1981, a figure which had fallen in 2015 to an active membership of around 100. Origins The Miners' Federation of Great Britain was established in Newport, Wales, Newport, Monmouthshire (historic), Monmouthshire in 1888 but did not function as a unified, centralised trade union for all miners. Instead the federation represented and co-ordinated the affairs of the existing local and regional miners' unions whose associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation, ...
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