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.
21.
Pemberton Colliery site
22.
National Union of Mineworkers President Arthur Scargill and hard left Labour MP for Nuneaton but prospective Labour candidate for Wigan, Les Huckfield, are welcomed to Wigan Town Hall for a public meeting organised by Swinley Ward Labour Club on Friday 27th of November 1981.
23.
Miners from the last ever shift leave Chanters Colliery, Atherton, on Friday 24th of June 1966 as the pit closes down for good.
24.
British trade unionist Joe Gormley (1917 - 1993, left), President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Lawrence Daly (1924 - 2009), the NUM's General Secretary, UK, December 1973. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)