British Coal

British Coal company logo

The British Coal Corporation was a nationalised corporation responsible for the mining of coal in the United Kingdom.

It existed from the 1946 Labour Government 1945-1951's Coal Industry Nationalisation Act establishing the National Coal Board (NCB) (1946−1987), until the 1997 disestablishment of the British Coal Corporation (1987−1997).

British Coal collieries in 1994

Colliery	Location
Longannet	Fife
Point of Ayr	Flintshire
Kellingley	Yorkshire
Maltby	Yorkshire
Prince of Wales	Yorkshire
North Selby	Yorkshire
Riccall	Yorkshire
Stillingfleet	Yorkshire
Wistow	Yorkshire
Whitemoor	Yorkshire
Bilsthorpe	Nottinghamshire
Harworth	Nottinghamshire
Thoresby	Nottinghamshire
Welbeck	Nottinghamshire
Daw Mill	Warwickshire
Asfordby	Leicestershire

History

National Coal Board

Main article: National Coal Board

British Coal was formed on 12 July 1946 as the National Coal Board (NCB), which was responsible for the organisation and running of coal extraction. It was under the responsibility of the Minister of Fuel & Power, who presented the board's reports to Parliament.

The vesting date for nationalised coal was 1 January 1947 when the assets of approximately eight hundred private colliery companies, the Coal Commission, the service contracts held by the colliery companies, and all staff from the district selling schemes that operated in the United Kingdom were transferred to the NCB.

The NCB formed two holding companies in 1973 to handle non-core (deep and opencast mining) activities: NCB (Coal Products) Limited and NCB (Ancillaries) Limited.

British Coal Corporation

In 1987, the NCB became the British Coal Corporation.

With the passing of the Coal Industry Act 1994, the 16th and last Coal Industry Act, the industry-wide administrative functions of British Coal were transferred to a new authority, the Coal Authority. All economic assets were privatised. The English mining operations were merged with RJB Mining to form UK Coal plc. This formed a monopoly that was exempted from EU competition laws.

The British Coal Corporation officially ceased on 26 January 1997.

See also

• Coal in the United Kingdom
• History of coal mining in Great Britain

References

Further reading

• Ashworth, William, and Mark Pegg. History of the British Coal Industry: Volume 5: 1946-1982: The Nationalized Industry (1986)
• , pp 77–131

External links

• Catalogue of the British Coal operational research archives — at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.