The mine management professions in the Scottish coal industry, 1930-1966

With a few exceptions, colliery managers and other mining professionals (referred to collectively in this thesis as the mine management professions) have been excluded from the history of the British, and particularly the Scottish, coal industries. This thesis starts to redress that imbalance by examining these groups within the most crucial period of their ascendancy, 1930-1966, in the Scottish coal industry. It places them within the context of both private and state ownership and examines their role, status and behaviours through their relationship with their employers, and the prosecution of their functions in the fields of production, health and safety and industrial relations. It also examines their terms and conditions of employment and outlook of their professional associations, and, in the nineteen years under nationalisation, that of their union. This coincided with an intense public discussion, within the mining professions, over their future shape, principles and occupational standards. In so doing the thesis repositions the mine management professions as a distinct grouping rather than simply an adjunct to their employers. However, it shows the parameters within which mining professionals were constrained by both private colliery companies and the National Coal Board. Mining professionals' outlook and behaviours, like other social groupings within the industry, were permeated with both common themes and a diversity of approach. The absence of mine management professionals from the historical narrative of the coal industry is made all the more glaring because of the wealth of sources upon which to draw, particularly for the period after nationalisation and not least amongst the voices of those mining professionals whose invaluable testimony may be lost forever. This thesis has used these sources to weave into this tapestry.