The compensation of English coal-miners and their dependants for industrial accidents, 1860-1897

The Poor Law, legal redress, the miners' own thrift and the charity of their employers and of the general public combined between 1860 and 1897 to offer English coal-miners and their dependants a more extensive range of compensation for industrial accidents than has generally been supposed. Largely, although not exclusively, as a result of the growing thrift of the miners themselves, there was a significant improvement in the compensation received by members of the coal-mining community during this period. Even at the end of the century, however, there were serious weaknesses in this system of relief. Miners and their families residing in particular districts or injured and bereaved by certain types of accident invariably received disproportionate amounts of assistance. Even the most thrifty English miner lost income when he suffered an industrial accident. But, because the amelioration depended to a great extent upon individual thrift, many miners and their dependants failed to share in the overall improvement.