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The Coal Industry Nationalisation Act, 1946, provided for the complete nationalisation of the coal industry. On 12 July 1946, the National Coal Board (NCB) was established and on the vesting date, 1 January 1947, coal mines were taken into public ownership. The NCB was initially run by a board, appointed by the Minister of Fuel and Power, who presented the board's reports to Parliament. General powers over the NCB later transferred to the Ministry of Technology (from Oct 1969), the Department of Trade and Industry (from Oct 1970), and the Department of Energy (from Jan 1974). The NCB was headed by a chairman and deputy chairman and the other members of the board took charge of an executive department or research establishment. The NCB became the British Coal Corporation on 1 Jan 1987. It ceased trading in Dec 1994 and was wound up in 2004.
From its inception, the National Coal Board delegated responsibility to eight divisional boards, which had been set up by the end of 1946. Each was appointed by and collectively responsible to the national board. The divisions were based geographically on the main groups of coalfields: Scottish, Northern, North-Eastern, North-Western, East Midlands, West Midlands, South-Western, South-Eastern.
Under the divisions the coalfields were grouped into Areas, each in the charge of an Area General Manager. In 1967 a new three-tier structure of regional and local organisation replaced the previous layers, the collieries being directly subject to Area organisation, in its turn directly responsible to the board. Each Area was directly responsible to Board Headquarters through the Area Director who was responsible for the day to day running. Decisions about policy affecting collieries were made at Area level by the Area Director and confirmation/agreement was then sought from the Board.
In 1975 there were about 250 collieries, managed by Colliery General Managers, Agent Managers, or Colliery Managers, according to their size and complexity, directly accountable to one of the Area Directors. Each of these was assisted by a Deputy Director (Mining), a Deputy Director (Administration) and a Production Manager. Units were normally classified as collieries but this term also included other functions such as stores, workshops, open cast mines and non-mining activities such as brick works, coke ovens and briquette plants.
The North Eastern Division
From 1947, the Yorkshire coalfield was managed by the North Eastern Division (renamed the Yorkshire Division in 1962) of the National Coal Board. Under the Division, there were eight 'Areas' of the North Eastern Division, namely:
Area 1 (Worksop)
Area 2 (Doncaster)
Area 3 (Rotherham)
Area 4 (Carlton)
Area 5 (South Barnsley)
Area 6 (North Barnsley)
Area 7 (Wakefield)
Area 8 (Castleford)
In 1967 the National Coal Board underwent a major re-organisation and the 'Area' groupings were abolished. The Yorkshire Division was split into three new administrative areas: Doncaster Area, Barnsley Area and South Yorkshire Area. In 1988, these merged to become the South Yorkshire Area (renamed in 1990 as the South Yorkshire Group).
For more information see: Department of Energy and Climate Change, Appraisal report from Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) relating to records of the former National Coal Board (NCB) (latterly British Coal Corporation (BCC)) - a statutory corporation created in 1947 and wound up in 2004 (Jan 2014). |