Black Gold
Jeremy Paxman William Collins £25
Jeremy Paxman opens this terrific history of British coal with one of the mining industry’s worst tragedies ever. In 1862, 204 people and boys were killed by a collapsed pumping engine at Seaton Delaval (a few miles north-east of Newcastle), after which they were either blown up, knocked unconscious, burned, gassed, or drowned.
This was not a local tragedy. Coal was Great Britain’s special gift from God. It had made a group of uninhabited islands in the North Atlantic into the greatest country on Earth.
Before the First World War, two-thirds of the world’s coal came from Britain.

Coal was Great Britain’s special gift from God. It had made a collection of uninhabited islands in North Atlantic into the greatest nation in the world (above, miners at a coal mine).
Paxman makes the point in his usual acerbic manner that the British development of coal production resulted in a few wealthy landowners becoming richer, while everyone else had to pay a high price for access to the commodity that heated homes and lit streets, powered railways, and allowed the Royal Navy the power to rule the seas.
This cost was even higher if you were the one who had to dig the coal out of the ground. Paxman suggests that no other industry has highlighted the differences between John Crichton-Stuart Marquess Of Bute, who was the owner of large parts of South Wales’ coalfield, and the workers who worked to make his fortune.
It was, according to some, similar to the system plantation slavery that caused Americans to fight one another in the Civil War.
The Seaton Delaval incident did bring out some good things, including a law that required mines to have a second shaft to make escape easier. It also doubled prices for coal extraction, which owners were not happy about.
Paxman says this is typical of the history of British coal mining: cheap exploitation followed by terrible human disasters, and finally, grudging changes in the law.
At no point did mine owners go out of their way to make things safer – but then, why would they? When 440 men were killed in 1913 by an explosion at a pit in South Wales, the company and manager were fined a total of £24.
It is no wonder that the coalfields saw the rise of the trades union movement. Paxman isn’t afraid to criticize poor behavior. It is obvious that British coal miners are less productive than their European counterparts.
Between 1913-1936 the amount of coal produced per shift by a miner increased by 114% in the Netherlands and 81% in Germany. Only ten percent was found in Britain.
Ending on the 1984 miners’ strike, Paxman also has some less-than-kind words to say about Arthur Scargill, leader of the National Union of Mineworkers. Scargill is just as arrogant as a 19th Century miner.
What a shame that he refused to be interviewed for this book, especially when you consider, says Paxman, cocking an eyebrow, that he ‘made a comfortable living’ out of the industry for so many years.