First published in 1975, South Wales Miners starts with the War of Empires, when nearly 50,000 Welsh miners, almost one-fifth of the total manpower of their coalfield, responded to the call and voluntarily enlisted in the British armed forces. The author uncovers how the coalowners in the meantime took advantage of the war emergency to deny the remaining miners a fair recompense for their toil and of the bitter strife that followed. The book tells the story of what led up to the General Strike and here the author uses hitherto hidden sources of information. The picture is revealed of what was a virtual conspiracy between the Baldwin-Churchill Government and the mineowners, not only to cut wages and lengthen hours, but to cripple British trade unionism. When the miners held out through a seven-month lockout the efforts of these highly placed conspirators recoiled on their own heads and on the whole economy of British Empire. This book will be of interest to students of history, labour studies, economics and political science.

- Original research and unprecedented knowledge provided about the conscientious objectors from Wales during the Great War. - In-depth original description and analysis of the activity of the pacifist anti-war movement in Wales and its extent, including the activity of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and key chapels and ministers. - In depth original description and analysis of the political anti-war movement, including the Independent Labour Party and the left within the South Wales Miners Federation. It assesses the impact of the the anti-war movement in key areas in Wales such as Merthyr Tydfil and Briton Ferry, where the ILP was strongest.

A political history of the south Wales miners, their industry and society, in a tumultuous period of crisis and struggle.

“A meticulous mixture of social and family history . . . Whether or not you have mining connections, this is an interesting socio-economic read.” —Your Family Tree In the 1920s there were over a million coalminers working in over 3000 collieries across Great Britain, and the industry was one of the most important and powerful in British history. It dominated the lives of generations of individuals, their families, and communities, and its legacy is still with us today—many of us have a coalmining ancestor. Yet family historians often have problems in researching their mining forebears. Locating the relevant records, finding the sites of the pits, and understanding the work involved and its historical background can be perplexing. That is why Brian Elliott’s concise, authoritative and practical handbook will be so useful, for it guides researchers through these obstacles and opens up the broad range of sources they can go to in order to get a vivid insight into the lives and experiences of coalminers in the past. His overview of the coalmining history—and the case studies and research tips he provides—will make his book rewarding reading for anyone looking for a general introduction to this major aspect of Britain’s industrial heritage. His directory of regional and national sources and his commentary on them will make this guide an essential tool for family historians searching for an ancestor who worked in coalmining underground, on the pit top or just lived in a mining community. As featured in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine and the Barnsley Chronicle.

A wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis of modern Welsh history by the acclaimed historian Kenneth O. Morgan. Taking as its starting-point 1880, the book covers all aspects of the nation's history from political, social, economic and religious development to literary, intellectual, and sporting achievement.

In this important contribution to the study of industrial relations, Roy Church and Quentin Outram present research into the strike activity of British coalminers from the late nineteenth century to the mid-1960s. The authors consider not only the major national strikes and lock-outs which made the industry a byword for industrial militancy, but also the multitude of small-scale strikes which formed a routine part of British colliery lifes. Strikes and Solidarity, first published in 1998, is multi-disciplinary in approach and views coalfield conflict from the perspectives offered by sociologists, industrial relations specialists, and economists, as well as social and economic historians. Church and Outram have successfully blended quantitative and qualitative investigations to explain the long-standing issues presented by industrial relations in the coalfields.

This volume marks the twentieth anniversary of the first publication of this groundbreaking book. It reflects the pioneering research of its contributors to the development of modern Welsh women’s history. The eight chapters range widely across time (1830-1939) and place, from exploring working class women’s community sanctions and the perils facing collier’s wife to the very different lifestyles of ironmasters’ wives. They also tackle the idealised images of respectable Welsh women in periodicals and the tragic reality of those who took their own lives as well as showing us the transgressive actions of suffrage rebels. They examine how women carved out space within movements such as temperance and track the fluctuating fortunes of women’s employment and domestic life from the Great War to the eve of the Second World War. This volume makes available once more a book that has become a classic in its field and a vital part of the historiography of modern Wales. This expanded edition also brings us up to date. It reveals the research and publications of the last two decades and comments upon the extent to which Wales has moved beyond being the familiar ‘land of our fathers’. Written in a lively and accessible style, it nevertheless draws upon a wealth of research and expertise and should appeal to both the academic community and to a much wider readership.