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.