11. A Note on Sources for the History of the Coalfield The sources available leave much to be desired, but those which have been traced can be summarised as follows:- i) The records of the colliery owners. Few such records have survived, and fewer still could be considered as complete. The largest collection is that at the Somerset Record Office, although the records of royalty owners outnumber those of colliery operators. The most complete sets of the latter are those of the Waldegrave and Jarrett families (relating to Radstock and Camerton collieries respectively); most notably absent are the records of the Beauchamp family who owned the majority of the pits in the period leading up to nationalisation. No substantial records relating to the Bristol district seem to have survived, those held at Bristol Record Office being fragmentary. ii) The records of other organisations. Somerset Record Office holds some of the records of the Somerset Colliery Owners’ Association, including the most complete set of output statistics relating to individual pits. A substantial, although incomplete, collection of the papers of the Somerset Miners’ Association form part of the special collections of Bristol University Library; although this is the largest single collection of documents concerning the industry, it has not been sorted or catalogued. Since this essay was written a further collection of Somerset Miners' association records have been discovered in the South Wales Coalfield Collection at the University of Wales in Swansea, although it has not yet been possible to consult these. No records of the corresponding Bristol organisations have been traced. iii) Official statistics. The earliest sets of statistics which may be regarded as, at least, semi-official are those included in Robert Hunt’s Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, published annually and covering the coal industry from 1854, thus providing the starting point for the majority of this survey. As Burt and Waite have pointed out, however, Hunt’s figures must be treated with some caution, since they were largely based on voluntary returns, making them, in his words, “entirely dependent on the convenience and inclination of the Mineral producer.”(R Burt & P Waite (1983) “An Introduction to the Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom 1845-1913,” Northern Mine Research Society British Mining, 23, pp. 40-58, 46) As a consequence of the Coal Mines Regulation Act 1872, however, returns of output became mandatory and the resulting figures given in the Reports of the Inspectors of Mines and related publications (which sometimes differ markedly from Hunt’s) may be regarded as largely accurate.(R Burt & P Waite (1983) “An Introduction to the Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom 1845-1913,” Northern Mine Research Society British Mining, 23, pp. 40-58, 47-52; Roy Church (1989) “Production, Employment and Labour Productivity in the British Coalfields, 1830-1913: Some Reinterpretations,” Business History, XXXI, pp. 6-27, 14) Following Hunt’s retirement, Mineral Statistics was placed on a more firmly official basis from 1882 and survived in one form or another until 1920, being replaced by the Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines and the Annual Report of HM Chief Inspector of Mines covering the years 1921 to 1938, later years being dealt with in the Ministry of Fuel and Power Statistical Digest, first published in 1944. These sources are supplemented by a variety of other statistical publications, most important of which is the List of Mines, published annually from the 1880s onwards, which, in the absence of the owners’ own papers, constitutes the major source of information regarding colliery owners and numbers of employees. Mention should also be made of two official sources which are of particular use. The Royal Commission report of 1871 contains detailed calculations of the amounts of coal extracted and remaining in the coalfield and, despite the arguable validity of its methodology, it remains the most extensive investigation of the resources of the area. (Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Several Matters Relating to Coal in the United Kingdom, Volume I, C 435 (1871: HMSO: London)) The Bristol and Somerset Coalfield Regional Survey Report, published in 1946, contains a detailed statistical description of the industry in the period leading up to nationalisation. The fact that the report was compiled by a committee made up of civil servants, owners and union representatives, leads to the conclusion that it may be somewhat more balanced than other documents. (Bristol and Somerset Coalfield Regional Survey Report (1946: HMSO: London)) There are, however, several important problems regarding these sources of information. Firstly, data for Bristol and Somerset is often combined with that for the Forest of Dean and sometimes with that for all the other small districts of the country severely, limiting its usefulness and rendering the compilation of continuous series of statistics impossible. Secondly, although the majority of the relevant official documents were published as Parliamentary Papers and are therefore easily accessible, Hunt’s Mineral Statistics and the List of Mines were not and copies are thus more scarce, indeed, even the British Library’s lending division does not hold a complete set of copies of either publication, and it has therefore proved impossible to consult every edition. iv) Secondary sources. The most important history of the local industry is The History of the Somerset Coalfield by Down and Warrington, although its coverage is combined to collieries in the Pensford Syncline and the Radstock Syncline; furthermore, in common with the majority of the books on the subject, it tends to emphasise the technical rather than the economic aspects of the industry. Nevertheless, it is the most complete book on the subject and has been found to be generally accurate.( C G Down & A J Warrington (nd: David & Charles: Newton Abbot) The History of the Somerset Coalfield) Of the national histories of the industry, the most relevant are those by Church, Supple and Mitchell. (Roy Church (1986: Oxford University Press: Oxford)The History of the British Coal Industry Volume 3, 1830-1913: Victorian Pre-eminence; Barry Supple (1987: Oxford University Press: Oxford) The History of the British Coal Industry Volume 4, 1913-1946: The Political Economy of Decline; B R Mitchell (1984: Cambridge University Press: Cambridge) Economic development of the British coal industry 1800-1914) Although, perhaps not surprisingly, in view of its relative insignificance, none of these covers the Bristol and Somerset industry in any great depth, all provide a great deal of national data and interpretations of that data which can be applied to the local industry. NEXT