Work to index the records of the National Union of Mineworkers and its predecessor unions has hit an important milestone, with more than a dozen catalogues now searchable online.

In addition to the trade unions listed below, catalogues have also been completed for Women Against Pit Closures, including financial information for the period of the 1984-85 strike, and organisational records from 1984 to 1995, and, separately from the NUM archives, for miners’ support group and community publications published between 1984 and 2018.

Work is now continuing to catalogue the substantial volume of records of the Yorkshire Miners’ Association and Yorkshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers.

The vast archive collection, previously held at the NUM headquarters in Barnsley, was relocated to the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick in January 2023 following specialist conservation work, and fills some 300 metres of temperature and humidity-controlled shelf space. Work on the three-year project has been under way since the move to catalogue and index material so that it can in future be made available to researchers and others with an interest in the history of the industry and the former mining communities.

Project archivist Liz Wood, who is responsible for the huge task of indexing and producing the catalogues, commented that, while other archives may hold records that overlap with some of those now in the Modern Records Centre, ‘those relating to Cumberland, the Cokemen, and the South and West Yorkshire Associations in particular include material not found elsewhere’.

The story of the National Union of Mineworkers archive and its move from Barnsley to Warwick is told elsewhere on the SSLH website at Inside the NUM archive: 150 years of coal mining history.

The following catalogues are now online at the MRC website,

• Cumberland Miners’ Association / NUM (Cumberland Area)
• Durham Cokemen’s and Bye-Product Workers’ Association
• Durham Miners’ Association
• Institution of Mining Engineers
• Lancashire and Cheshire Miners Federation
• National Association of Colliery Managers
• National Union of Cokemen and By-product Workers / National Union of Mineworkers (Cokemen’s Area)
• Northumberland Miners’ Mutual Confident Association / Northumberland Miners’ Association, 1894-1944
• South Yorkshire Miners Association
• Wakefield Friendly Associated Coal Miners 
• West Yorkshire Miners Association
• Papers of Alywn Machen, former YMA President
• Women Against Pit Closures

Related catalogue
Miners’ Strike, 1984-5: support group and community publications, 1984-2018

Full list of trade union catalogues held at the Modern Records Centre.