2nd January 1947:  Two miners reading a notice announcing that their colliery is.. 'Now managed by the National Coal Board on behalf of the People'.2nd January 1947:  Two miners reading a notice announcing that their colliery is.. 'Now managed by the National Coal Board on behalf of the People'.
2nd January 1947: Two miners reading a notice announcing that their colliery is.. 'Now managed by the National Coal Board on behalf of the People'.

Look back at Wigan's mining past as NCB marks the 75th anniversary

The 75th anniversary of the forming of the National Coal Board - an organisation which had a huge involvement in Wigan during the last decades of its powerhouse mining industry. The NCB was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 by Attlee’s Labour government, it took over the collieries as the next year began. In 1987, the NCB was renamed the British Coal Corporation, and its assets were subsequently privatised.

On this anniversary we take the opportunity to to look back on the years under its control: an industry which gave many Wigan men work but which also took lives through accidents and coal-related illnesses, and which was sometimes in dispute over pay, conditions and closures.