Mining, Ayrshire's Lost Industry

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Coal has been dug in Ayrshire for centuries. The original miners were monks who dug coal for their own use, and agricultural workers who supplemented their meagre earnings by digging coal for domestic fires, small lime kilns, or, near the sea-shore for firing salt pans. Full commercial exploitation of Ayrshire coal did not begin until 1684 when Saltcoats harbour was developed to export coal to Ireland. Burgeoning rows of miners housing appeared. Living and working conditions were dreadful. Treated little better than slaves, early miners were bound to one coal owner for life, with their wives and children acting as unpaid labourers. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the mines of North Ayrshire were nearing exhaustion. A series of amalgamations took place in the 1920s and 1930s and after the Second World War the industry was nationalised. Throughout the county, evidence of the industry is fading. Pit-head buildings have been demolished, converted for other uses, or swept away as opencast workings exploit the coal beneath them. Bings are disappearing and memories are fading. 112 annotated pages by the author serve to act as a reminder to the life-blood of a county, and indeed a nation.