Spaven, Patrick John, 1949- (1978) Accommodating the miners: a comparative study of industrial relations and community involvement in some South Yorkshire coalmining townships, 1855-1894. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis is a social history of coalminers in an area which comprised the greater part of the developed South Yorkshire coalfield by the end of. the period under study, 1855-1894. Mining did not become the dominant industry in this area until the 1850s and the influx of men and capital was superimposed on a network of communities, many economically and politically advanced. Industrial relations were shaped by the ease with which the union and its institutionalisation of collective bargaining took root in these open, mobile, communities, in the absence of a large residential coalowning class. This generalisation, however, masks some important contrasts. One or two powerful landed coal proprietors did exist and maintained effective paternalistic regimes which were not conducive to unionism. Other coalowners, mostly absentee, invoked the anger of their employees by attempting less enlightened forms of control or by their inability or unwillingness to conform to. district norms in pay and other'aspects of industrial practice. Outside the pits, the miners in this district tended to enjoy a freedom from constraints, imposed elsewhere by a monolithic employer class. Political and institutional power in the moreindustrialised townships rested primarily in the hands of a Liberal industrial, professional and tradesman class which included few coalowners and had everything to gain by accommodating the miners, or at least their leaders. This accommodation became effective during the early. 1870s and laid the foundation for a lasting 'Lib-Lab alliance in local and parliamentary politics. Social relations in these communities were, however, complex and at times fragmentary. The concern of this study is as much with what caused divisions within the communities, as with what held their constituent groups together.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Mineral industries -- England -- South Yorkshire, Industrial relations -- England -- History, Miners -- England -- Social conditions, Communities -- England -- South Yorkshire, South Yorkshire (England) -- Economic conditions -- 19th century, South Yorkshire (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Date:	April 1978
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Social History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Harrison, Royden
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	2 v. (726 leaves : ill.,charts)
Language:	eng
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2466

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