Brian Elliott Book Launch – Miners and the Great War
Join mining historian Brian Elliott and friends for the launch of his new book, over ten years in the making: MINERS AND THE GREAT WAR. A Q&A and book signing will follow.
Free, pre-booking advised.
Brian will be sharing some of the many untold stories sampled from about half a million coal miners (one in four of the workforce at many pits), who served in all the armed forces and all theatres of war.
Hear about the real reasons why so many volunteered and why so many were targetted by the Army, even after 1916 when mining was deemed to be a ‘protected workforce’, vital for ‘keeping the home fires burning’ and producing coal to power the machinery of war.
Extraordinary, selfless acts of gallantry characterised the actions of miners throughout the conflict, especially on the Western Front where, from 1915, a subterranean war of an unbelievable scale emerged. About one in twelve of all Victoria Cross recipients were former mineworkers, far more than in any other occupational group.
Brian will also feature the dreadful problems that mining communities faced within a few years of the signing of the Armistice, when official promises failed to materialise, plunging so many families, already badly affected by the great ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic, into poverty, unrest and starvation.
Based on new research, Brian’s book, published by Barnsley-based Pen and Sword, is the first, wide-ranging study of the role of the miners in the First World War.
More on the Author:
Brian Elliott is a well-known local historian and editor who has written widely about the British coal mining history. Among his recent books on the subject are Barnsley Pits and Pitmen, Yorkshire Miners, Yorkshire Mining Veterans, The Miners’ Strike Day by Day, South Yorkshire Mining Disasters (2 vols), Tracing Your Coal mining Ancestors and in Pen and Sword’s Images of the Past series, coal miners.
Image: Postcard of Colliers from Clay Cross at a Territorial Camp doing training