Misplaced Pages

#857142

50-621: Abernant was developed by the National Coal Board as one of the West Wales "super pits" alongside Cynheidre Colliery in the Gwendraeth valley , an investment intend to keep economic coal mining a viable industry in the area. The £10million development began in 1954, with the sinking of two of the deepest shafts in the coalfield to allow access to the Peacock anthracite seam. The North (upcast)

100-505: A committee on workplace health and safety. This led to the 1972 Robens Report which controversially championed the idea of self-regulation by employers. The Report itself led to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the creation of the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive . Following the Conservative victory in the 1970 general election , Robens found

150-561: A part-time member of the Board, rose to his feet and told Robens that in doing so he had acted correctly. In the wake of the disaster, Robens was asked that the NCB should fund the removal of the remaining tips from Aberfan. He was advised, however, that the cost of doing so would have obliged the NCB to exceed its borrowing limits, set by the government. He had acceded to a request from the bereaved mothers of Aberfan to meet them to hear their views, and he

200-416: A part-time member of the NCB, Richard Marsh was advised that Robens was "taking the coal industry through a period of painful contraction without big strikes" and the strong support for him within the coal industry and the union movement were crucial to the decision to retain him. When Robens told a meeting of the full Board that he had offered his resignation, there was surprise and consternation; Cecil King ,

250-586: A slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees. The NCB's Coal Research Establishment (CRE) at Stoke Orchard in Gloucestershire was founded in 1950 with Jacob Bronowski as Director of Research. It closed following privatisation of

300-567: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , has expressed the view that, had Robens persisted in politics, he, rather than Harold Wilson , would have become prime minister. Indeed, George Brown (the runner-up to Wilson in the election to succeed Gaitskell) stated in his autobiography that had Robens been in Parliament he himself would not have opposed him, and even if he had, Robens would have defeated him. Robens took up his appointment at

350-521: The House of Commons . Furthermore, Gaitskell felt him too left-wing . He was replaced as Shadow Foreign Secretary by Bevan, and felt that his political ambitions had been frustrated. Thus, when Harold Macmillan (Eden's successor as prime minister) offered Robens the chairmanship of the National Coal Board (NCB) in 1960, he accepted enthusiastically. Gaitskell died in January 1963. Geoffrey Tweedale, writing in

400-568: The Manchester and Salford Co-operative Society as a clerk ; he became a director when he was 22, one of the first worker-directors in the country. He was an official in the Union of Distributive and Allied Workers from 1935 to 1945; certified medically unfit for military service in the Second World War , he was a Manchester City Councillor from 1941 to 1945. He married Eva Powell on 9 September 1936;

450-647: The NCB and the formation of its successor, the British Coal Corporation . On 21 October 1966, a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip above the Welsh village of Aberfan , near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales caused the Aberfan disaster . The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the village and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as

500-512: The NCB in 1961 at a salary believed to be £10,000 a year (which was never increased throughout his ten years in office) and was created a life peer as Baron Robens of Woldingham , of Woldingham in the County of Surrey , on 28 June. Amongst those critical of this sudden elevation were his successor as MP for Blyth, Eddie Milne . Robens's leadership of the NCB was high-handed. He expected unflinching loyalty from colleagues and subordinates alike, and

550-405: The NCB was formally constituted on 15 July, with Lord Hyndley as its chairman. On 1 January 1947 a notice posted at every colliery in the country read, "This colliery is now managed by the National Coal Board on behalf of the people". Opencast operations were taken over on 1 April 1952. The NCB acquired 958 collieries, the property of about 800 companies. Compensation of £164,660,000 was paid to

SECTION 10

#1732880586858

600-549: The National Coal Board (defined by section 1 of the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946) were: (a) working and getting the coal in Great Britain, to the exclusion of any other person; (b) securing the efficient development of the coal-mining industry; and (c) making supplies of coal available, of such qualities and sizes, in such quantities and at such prices, as may seem to them best calculated to further

650-454: The Red Vein seam, resulting in the abandonment of the lower Peacock seams from 1963. The result was that during the 1970s, 900 men produced an average of 300,000 tonnes of coal per annum, from a system that covered 8 square miles (21 km) with over 40 miles (64 km) of roadway. The colliery was one of the first NCB pits to deploy retreat mining, whereby roadways were driven to the limit of

700-515: The United Kingdom's collieries on "vesting day", 1 January 1947. In 1987, the NCB was renamed the British Coal Corporation , and its assets were subsequently privatised. Collieries were taken under government control during the First and Second World Wars. The Sankey Commission in 1919 gave R. H. Tawney , Sidney Webb and Sir Leo Chiozza Money the opportunity to advocate nationalisation, but it

750-526: The Wilson Labour government. Industrial relations deteriorated during his tenure, and there was an unofficial strike in 1969 that lost £15 million and 2.5 million tonnes of coal as a result of walkouts at 140 of the 307 NCB collieries. Robens expressed concern at the poor occupational health and safety record of the coal industry, and championed campaigns to reduce accidents and to counter chronic occupational diseases such as pneumoconiosis . Although

800-399: The aftermath of the 1972 miners' strike envisaged that the coal industry would replace 40 million tons of obsolete capacity and ageing pits while maintaining its output. By 1983, the NCB would invest £3,000 million on developing new collieries. In 1984, it was alleged that the NCB had a list of collieries earmarked for closure and its chairman, Ian MacGregor indicated that the board

850-531: The coal mining industry. The Stoke Orchard library was safeguarded after closure and is now held by the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers . The Mining Research and Development Establishment was formed in 1969 by merger of the Central Engineering Establishment and Mining Research Establishment to undertake research into and testing of mining equipment and procedures. It

900-526: The coal reserves, and then the coal faces then worked towards the pit bottom. Abernant closed in 1988. In September 2011, Waste Recycling Group Ltd submitted plans for the development of an anaerobic digestion facility on the old colliery site. Proposed to run on food waste collected from 350,000 homes in Bridgend , Carmarthenshire , Neath Port Talbot , Pembrokeshire and Swansea, the 2.3 MW facility would be capable of generating enough electricity to meet

950-589: The country into divisions, corresponding to the major coalfields, and each division was divided into areas with an output of approximately 4 million tons. The board also took over power stations at some collieries and railway sidings. It managed an estate of more than 140,000 houses and more than 200,000 acres of farmland. At its inception the NCB employed nearly 800,000 workers which was four percent of Britain's total workforce. Its national headquarters were established in Hobart House, London. The formal duties of

1000-573: The couple adopted a son, Alfred (born 1935). Following the war, in the dramatic Labour landslide victory of 1945 , Robens was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for the mining constituency of Wansbeck in Northumberland . He started to rise through the parliamentary ranks, serving in junior posts at the Ministry of Transport (1945–1947) and at the Ministry of Fuel and Power under Hugh Gaitskell . In 1950, following boundary changes, Robens moved to

1050-564: The demands of approximately 5,000 homes, and producing fertiliser . 51°45′33″N 3°52′58″W  /  51.75917°N 3.88278°W  / 51.75917; -3.88278 National Coal Board The National Coal Board ( NCB ) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom . Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 , it took over

SECTION 20

#1732880586858

1100-549: The disaster, a blunder that was compounded by the actions of NCB staff, who falsely informed the Minister of Power , Richard Marsh , that Robens was at Aberfan. It was always his policy to send the most senior mining engineer to the scene of a disaster to coordinate rescue operations. Speaking to the media on the Sunday after the disaster, Robens was concerned that the initial shock and sorrow might give way to anger, possibly directed towards

1150-454: The disaster. This was later taken by the Aberfan disaster enquiry to imply that the Board was contesting liability, notwithstanding the 19th-century case of Rylands v Fletcher which meant that the Board had absolute liability for damage caused by a 'dangerous escape' of material. Conversely, in a later interview Robens claimed that the disaster had been caused by "natural unknown springs" beneath

1200-643: The end of the 1950s, and in 1957 the coal industry began to contract. Between 1958 and 1959, 85 collieries closed. In 1960, Alf Robens became the chairman of the NCB, and he introduced a policy concentrating on the most productive pits. During his ten-year tenure, productivity increased by 70%, but with far fewer pits and a much reduced workforce. In 1967, the NCB reorganised its structure into 17 new areas each employing about 20,000 men. In 1956, 700,000 men produced 207 million tons of coal; by 1971, fewer than 290,000 workers were producing 133 million tons at 292 collieries. The 1974 Plan of Coal produced in

1250-466: The event, when it was clear that his earlier comments to reporters had been misinterpreted at the Tribunal as a denial of responsibility, he offered to appear at the inquiry to set the matter straight. He conceded that the NCB was at fault, an admission which would have rendered much of the inquiry unnecessary had it been made at the outset, notwithstanding the advice of Lord Edmund-Davies that his appearance

1300-508: The home of the 7th Earl of Lucan . Robens suffered the first of two debilitating strokes in 1992, and died in 1999 aged 88. Robens's period at the National Coal Board was mentioned in the folk songs of the period. Ed Pickford, who was a miner in the Durham Coalfield , was highly critical of Robens: his song The Pound a Week Rise criticises the low wages paid to coal miners during Robens's reign, and his song One Miner's Life refers to

1350-736: The job with vigour and enthusiasm, visiting pits, arguing with miners at the coalface and developing a deep knowledge of the industry. In 1963 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland . He chose the subject "Coal - Its Place in the National Economy". As Chairman of the NCB, Robens oversaw substantial cuts in the mining industry, many of them reflecting market forces and government policies originated before he assumed

1400-424: The men who worked at the top of the spoil heaps. To avoid this, he said that those men could not have foreseen what happened. A television interview, during which he made that comment, proved to be unacceptable for broadcasting, owing to the atmospheric conditions; instead, the interviewer broadcast a paraphrase of the interview that wrongly made it seem that Robens had claimed that no one in the NCB could have foreseen

1450-442: The mid 1970s, the activities of Coal Products Division were transferred to two new companies; National Smokeless Fuels Ltd and Thomas Ness Ltd, although they remained wholly owned by the NCB. In 1952, the NCB established a film unit. The board was keen to train its staff and new recruits and initiated a scheme to produce technical films as well as commissioning films from outside companies. More than nine hundred films were made before

1500-484: The new administration's distaste for nationalisation at odds with his own rather paternalistic views. He fell into conflict with Prime Minister Edward Heath and Minister of State for Industry Sir John Eden . Robens left the NCB in 1971 but always insisted that his tenure was a success. Robens had become a director of the Bank of England in 1966 and a member of the board of directors of Times Newspapers in 1967. He

1550-556: The new constituency of Blyth , later Blyth Valley . He briefly replaced Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Labour and National Service following the former's resignation in protest of National Health Service prescription charges in 1951, but the Conservative Party won the general election later that year. In opposition, Robens continued to rise in the party, being appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary by Clement Attlee while Bevan

Abernant Colliery - Misplaced Pages Continue

1600-477: The number of fatal and serious accidents fell by over 60% during his tenure, there was also a fall in the workforce of over 50%, from 583,000 to 283,000. The largest single blow to his reputation came from his reaction to the catastrophic 1966 industrial accident at Aberfan , in the Taff Valley , South Wales. On the morning of 21 October, a massive spoil heap from the nearby Merthyr Vale Colliery collapsed onto

1650-481: The owners for the collieries and £78,457,000 to former owners and for other assets such as 55 coke ovens, 85 brickworks and 20 smokeless fuel plants. The collieries it had acquired varied considerably in size and output. Coal was mined from seams that varied from 20 to 200 inches thick and the average pit produced 245,000 tons annually. More than a third of collieries produced less than 100,000 tons and 50 collieries produced more than 700,000 tons. The coal board divided

1700-424: The post. Although he lobbied to protect the industry, his reputation as a socialist necessarily suffered: when he took over as NCB chair there were 698 pits employing 583,000 miners, but by the time he left the post 10 years later there were only 292 pits employing 283,000 miners. For a while Robens had a constructive working relationship with the miners' leader Will Paynter , but he had a combative relationship with

1750-691: The public interest in all respects, including the avoidance of any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage. In 1947, about half the collieries were in need of immediate attention and a development programme was begun. Between 1947 and 1956, the NCB spent more than £550 million on major improvements and new sinkings, much of it to mechanise the coal-getting process underground and by 1957 Britain's collieries were producing cheaper coal than anywhere in Europe. The Plan for Coal produced in 1950 aimed at increasing output from 184 million to 250 million tons by 1970. Competition from cheap oil imports arrived in

1800-519: The tip; but evidence emerged that the existence of these springs was common knowledge. The report of the Edmund-Davies Tribunal , which inquired into the disaster, was highly critical of the NCB and Robens. He had proposed to appear at the outset of the inquiry to admit the NCB's full responsibility for the disaster, but the Chairman of the Tribunal advised him that this would not be necessary. In

1850-553: The unit closed in 1984. The NCB was a major landlord , owning thousands of houses rented to miners and others involved in the industry. At the time of the 1984-85 miners strike, it owned around 170,000 houses of various ages. Shortly after this the government instructed the NCB to sell its stock of houses, some of which were bought by the miners or former miners, and others were sold to property speculators. Notes Bibliography Alf Robens Alfred Robens, Baron Robens of Woldingham , PC (18 December 1910 – 27 June 1999)

1900-517: The village of Aberfan, burying 20 houses and the Pantglas Junior School in a landslide, 30 ft (9.1 m) deep, of water-saturated slurry that killed 116 schoolchildren and 28 adults. Robens nonetheless went ahead with his installation as the first Chancellor of the new University of Surrey before going to Aberfan, and did not arrive until the evening of the Saturday following the day of

1950-731: Was Chairman of Vickers from 1971 to 1979, opposing the Labour plans for nationalisation that led to the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 . He was Chairman of Johnson Matthey from 1971 to 1983, and a director of Trust House Forte and several other companies. His lifestyle was increasingly at odds with his socialist beginnings and by 1979, he had become aligned with the Conservative Party. He left public life in 1982, retiring with his wife (who died in 2008) to Laleham Abbey in Surrey, once

2000-519: Was "unquestionably unlawful" under charity law – but the Charity Commission took no action to protect the Fund from this misappropriation of funds. There is no evidence that prosecution for corporate manslaughter was considered at the time. Robens was exonerated by the official history of the NCB but he remains condemned in other quarters. In 1969, Robens was selected by Barbara Castle to chair

2050-525: Was 837 yards (765 m) and the South 987 yards (903 m) deep respectively. Two insets were also driven, No.3 at 692 yards (633 m) and No.4 at 792 yards (724 m) deep respectively. Production started two years later, with coal extracted along the Amman Valley branch of the former Llanelly Railway and Dock Company , and on to the mainline at Pantyffynnon . In 1962, the colliery developed access to

Abernant Colliery - Misplaced Pages Continue

2100-511: Was an English trade unionist , Labour politician and industrialist . His political ambitions, including an aspiration to become Prime Minister , were frustrated by bad timing, but his energies were diverted into industry: he spent 10 years as Chairman of the National Coal Board , and later – despite the Aberfan disaster  – headed a major inquiry which resulted in the Robens Report on occupational health and safety . His outlook

2150-638: Was based in Bretby, Derbyshire. Following the rationalisation of the NCB from 1985, the MRDE merged with the Mining Department. The NCB operated extensive industrial railway systems at its collieries, employing steam traction until autumn 1982 when Bold Colliery ended regular use of steam locomotives. NCB subsidiaries managed coal based chemical products (Coal Products Division) and the production of helmets and other mining equipment (Tredomen Engineering Ltd). In

2200-456: Was confrontational with politicians. He enjoyed the trappings of power including a Daimler with the vehicle registration number "NCB 1", an executive aeroplane (a six-seater De Havilland Dove which he and other Board members used to visit the far-flung coalfields) and a flat in Eaton Square . His behaviour earned him the nickname "Old King Coal", a pun on Old King Cole . He threw himself into

2250-535: Was indisposed, and he began to be considered as a future candidate for party leader. Robens himself "yearned to become Prime Minister". However, he failed to impress during the Suez Crisis of 1956 because he had been briefed in confidence by the Conservative Prime Minister, Anthony Eden , on the night before the invasion; sworn to secrecy, he was unable to oppose the invasion effectively in the debate in

2300-461: Was looking to reduce output by 4 million tons, a contributory factor in the 1984-85 miners' strike . The strike was one of the longest and most bitter in history and caused great suffering for the striking miners. During the strike, the NCB lost markets and 23 collieries had closed before the end of 1985. On 5 March 1987, the Coal Industry Act 1987 received royal assent, signalling the end of

2350-608: Was not necessary. After the report was published in August 1967, Robens wrote to Marsh, the Minister of Power, offering his resignation; this was rejected by him and by the Prime Minister Wilson, although several cabinet members argued strongly that Robens ought to be removed. There have been allegations that the resignation offer was "bogus" and Robens had been assured that it would not be accepted. According to Ronald Dearing , then

2400-600: Was paternalistic; in later life, he moved away from his early socialism towards the Conservative Party . His reputation remains tarnished by his failure to have foreseen and prevented the Aberfan disaster, followed by actions widely regarded as grossly insensitive during the aftermath of the disaster. Robens was born in Chorlton-on-Medlock , Manchester, the son of George Robens, a cotton salesman , and Edith Robens ( née Anderton). He left school aged 15 to work as an errand boy, but his career truly began when he joined

2450-525: Was received by them with courtesy. Eventually the cost was met partly by the Board and partly by the Government, with a levy made on the charitable Aberfan Disaster Fund. The Trustees of the Disaster Fund, which had been raised by public appeal, were put under "intolerable pressure" to make a contribution of £150,000 (equivalent to £3,500,000 in 2023) to cover the cost of removing the tips – an action that

2500-590: Was rejected. Coal reserves were nationalised during the war in 1942 and placed under the control of the Coal Commission , but the mining industry remained in private hands. At the time, many coal companies were small, although some consolidation had taken place in the years before the war. The NCB was one of a number of public corporations created by Clement Attlee 's post-war Labour government to manage nationalised industries. The Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 received royal assent on 12 July 1946 and

#857142