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== Britain ==

Deep shaft mining in Britain started in the late 18th century, although rapid expansion occurred throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.  The location of the coalfields helped to make the prosperity of Lancashire, of Yorkshire, and of South Wales; the Yorkshire pits which supplied Sheffield were only about 300 feet deep. Northumberland and Durham were the leading coal producers and they were the sites of the first deep pits. In much of Britain coal was worked from drifts, or scraped off when it outcropped. Small groups of part-time miners used shovels and primitive equipment.  Before 1800 a great deal of coal was left in places as support pillars. As a result, in the deep Tyneside pits (300 to 1,000&nbsp;ft. deep) only about 40 percent of the coal could be extracted. The use of wood props to support the roof was an innovation first introduced about 1800.  The critical factor was circulation of air and control of explosive gases. At first fires were burned to create air currents. 

Coal was so abundant in Britain that the supply could be stepped up to meet the rapidly rising demand. About 1770-1780 the annual output of coal in was some 6¼ million tons (or about the output of a week and a half in the twentieth century). After 1790 output soared, reaching 16 million tons by 1815.  The miners, less menaced by imported labour or machines than were the cotton operatives, had begun to form unions and fight to control wages and working conditions against the coal owners and royalty-lessees.<ref>J. Steven Watson; ''The Reign of George III, 1760-1815.'' 1960. p, 516.</ref>


===Technology===
Technological development throughout the 19th and 20th century helped both to improve the safety of colliers and the productive capacity of collieries they worked in.

Scott examines the importance of path dependence effects in impeding the diffusion of high throughput mechanized mining systems in the British coal industry. Evidence shows that the industry had become "locked in" to low throughput underground haulage technology because of institutional interrelatedness between Britain's traditional practice of extensive in-seam mining and its unique system of fragmented, privately owned mineral royalties. Fragmented royalties prevented the concentration of workings and introduction of high throughput main haulage systems that underpinned the rapid productivity growth of European producers. Meanwhile, technical interrelatedness between the haulage systems taking coal to the pit shaft and operations further "upstream" created bottlenecks that both slowed the overall rate of mechanization and limited the productivity gains from the mechanization that did occur.<ref>Peter Scott, "Path Dependence, Fragmented Property Rights and the Slow Diffusion of High Throughput Technologies in Inter-war British Coal Mining."  ''Business History'' 2006 48(1): 20-42. Issn: 0007-6791 Fulltext: in Ebsco</ref>

In the late 20th century, improved integration of coal extraction with bulk industries such as electrical generation helped coal maintain its position despite the emergence of alternative energies supplies such as oil, natural gas, and, from the late 1950s, nuclear power used for electricity. More recently coal has faced competition from renewable energy sources and bio-fuels.

However, the 1980s and 1990s saw much much change in the coal industry within the UK, with the industry contracting, in some areas quite drastically.  Many pits were 'uneconomic' to work at current wage rates compared to 'cheap' North Sea oil and gas, and in comparison to subsidy levels in Europe. The Miners' Strike of 1984 and subsequent strikes helped shrink the industry . The National Coal Board (by then British Coal), was privatized by selling off a large number of pits to private concerns through the mid 1990s.<ref>Fine (1990); Bridget Woodman, ''The Burning Question: Is the UK on Course for a Low Carbon Economy'' (2004)</ref>

===Miners===
Pretty (2001) profiles Welsh mining labor leader David Morgan (1840-1900) and explores the dynamics of labor relations in the Welsh coal mining industry during 1851-1901. First elected to the executive committee of the Amalgamated Association of Miners (AAM) in 1872, Morgan was active in numerous strikes for better wages, working conditions, and hours. His role in the arbitration of an 1875 labor dispute won him respect both from his fellow miners and from mine owners. With the demise of the AAM that same year, Morgan turned his attention to working-class politics. Although often at odds with fellow miners and unions, Morgan maintained his popularity in the community, taking a seat on the school board in 1883. At the same time Morgan acted as the miners' agent for several miners' associations. During the 1890s, Morgan attempted to forge a peace between rival trade unions, but continuing animosity with mine owners caused his arrest and eventually his loss of influence over Welsh miners.<ref>David A. Pretty, "David Morgan ("Dai O'r Nant"), Miners' Agent: a Portrait of Leadership in the South Wales Coalfield." ''Welsh History Review'' 2001 20(3): 495-531. Issn: 0043-2431</ref>

Coal became a political issue, as the miners formed the National Union of Mineworkers, in 1888, which claimed 600,000 members in 1908.  Much of the 'old left' of British politics can trace its origins to coal-mining areas.  The failed General Strike of 1926 was led by the miners.  The Labour government in 1947 nationalized coal into the National Coal Board, giving miners access to control of the mines via their control of the Labour party and the government.<ref>Fine (1990)</ref>

===Health and safety ===
McIvor and Johnston (2005) analyze the gap between knowledge of occupational lung diseases and actions by industry officials and workers to limit their exposure to the life-threatening conditions in British coal mining and asbestos work during the 20th century. Although respiratory diseases had been medically documented in the 19th century, it was not until the 1910s that research institutions such as the Industrial Fatigue and Industrial Health research boards were formed to offer recommendations for occupational health. Workplace regulation of some asbestos work began in 1931. Legislation regarding disability payments for coal miners was not enacted until 1943. Many miners and asbestos workers were reluctant to implement the use of safety gear as an assertion of manliness, despite increasingly recognized health concerns and regulatory efforts throughout the mid-20th century to improve workplace conditions.<ref>Arthur McIvor, and Ronald Johnston, "Medical Knowledge and the Worker: Occupational Lung Diseases in the United Kingdom, c. 1920-1975." ''Labor'' 2005 2(4): 63-86. Issn: 1547-6715</ref>  When legislation was first introduced to protect workers from silicosis (1919), coal mining was not a serious target of the regulation. By the late 1920s, scientific investigation had determined that coal mining could create a silicosis threat. The South Wales Miners' Federation fought individual compensation cases in the 1920s and in the 1930s lobbied civil servants and legislators. By the late 1930s, the Medical Research Council recognized increased claims of coal miners, and its report in 1945 provided a significant reappraisal of respiratory diseases among coal miners and colliery workers. Bufton and Melling reconsiders the class-based argument versus the perspective that bureaucrats and policymakers were making conscientious attempts to achieve consensus solutions to the complex issue of respiratory health problems. During the interwar years, the problems of individual miners became part of a broader political and intellectual struggle over the responsibility for workplace health.<ref>Mark W. Bufton, and Joseph Melling, "'A Mere Matter of Rock': Organized Labour, Scientific Evidence and British Government Schemes for Compensation of Silicosis and Pneumoconiosis among Coalminers, 1926-1940." ''Medical History" 2005 49(2): 155-178. Issn: 0025-7273 [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1088217&blobtype=pdf Fulltext online]</ref>

In spite of significant improvements in occupational health and safety standards in Scottish coalfields during the 20th century, the underground working environment remained dangerous until the coal industry's ultimate demise. There was a gap between state and employer action to improve safety and health in the pits, which largely explains this dangerous continuity. The coal industry's nationalization in 1947, which brought Great Britain's small privately owned pits under the new National Coal Board's (NCB) control, ushered in concern for miners' health and safety. Despite the NCB's efforts, however, safety underground had increased little by 1962 due to cost cutting and an intense productivity drive in the industry, resulting in a greater occurrence of the disease pneumoconiosis, caused by inhaling coal dust. In 1947 the NCB began implementing dust suppression measures, such as fitting coal-cutting machinery with water sprays and issuing masks. While the mines inspectors' reports note the miners' reluctance to wear the masks, the oral evidence suggests that the miners rejected them because they were just a piece of gauze. The oral testimony is especially enlightening when it comes to ascertaining the personal impact of coal miners' lung diseases and disability, which included an erosion of their sense of masculinity.<ref>Based on interviews conducted with twenty miners who labored in the Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, and Fifeshire coalfields in the years 1945-80, plus documentary evidence; see Arthur McIvor, and Ronnie Johnston, "Voices from the Pits: Health and Safety in Scottish Coal Mining since 1945." ''Scottish Economic and Social History'' 2002 22(2): 111-133. Issn: 0269-5030</ref>