Coal miners in First World War

[Old Bristolian]

I know that the Government took control of the mines during the First World War, and also that many miners enlisted throughout, despite it being a reserved occupation. Does anyone know if miners were moved around the country to help with localised labour shortages? If so, was it likely that a Scottish miner would be transferred to the North Somerset mines?

Steve

[NickDub]

Back at that time, most of my family were coal miners. Some enlisted, some didn't. I have never come across anyone being moved from one mining area to another in WW1. A lot of miners had families who were reliant on them for a weekly income, so one practical issue would have been finding accommodation in a new area for a wife and children too.

[MollyC]

Not specifically WW1, but miners did move distances to where there were jobs.  In the Yorkshire coalfield the census shows families from Co. Durham and South Wales.  They moved when new pits opened, or a new seam.  During the war there was probably an incentive to expand workings if possible.

By that time companies were providing new houses for workers, as many as were needed.  There was a "cottage style" of model village being created, though I don't know what happened in Somerset.  Most collieries operated a brickworks, used within the pit and for housing.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Again, not WW1, but there was a considerable movement of miners after and to some extent before the war, a great many of then coming to the new Kent coalfield. I have just checked the census for some I knew of. One family, father born Newcastle, whose eldest child was born in 1913 in Kent, and another family, from Staffordshire, who seem to have arrived just before 1921.