NATIONAL COAL MINING MUSEUM
FOR ENGLAND TRUST LTD
COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT POLICIES:
Collections Development Policy
(Extract – Priorities for Future Collecting)
Name of museum: National Coal Mining Museum for England
Name of governing body: National Coal Mining Museum for England Trust Ltd
Date on which this policy was approved by governing body: 28th January 2016
Policy review procedure:
The collections development policy will be published and reviewed from time to time, at least once every five years.
Date at which this policy is due for review: January 2019
Arts Council England will be notified of any changes to the collections development policy, and the implications of any such changes for the future of collections.
1. An overview of current collections
The collection is seen as supporting the Museum’s aims of enhancing people’s understanding of the size and scope of the coal industry, its supreme historical significance, and its impact on the lives of those who worked in the industry and their families.
3.1 Engineering and Technology
3.1.1 Scope of subject
The engineering and technology collection ranges from large machines, such as coal cutters and locomotives, to small component parts, tools, models, technical drawings, plans and catalogues. Some of the items in the collection can demonstrate the evolution of machinery in the English coal mines while others simply indicate the vast size of the industry that supported the coal mines in the UK
3.1.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Applied Mechanics; Colliery Trades; Communication; Emergency and Disasters; Laboratories; Lighting; Machinery; Maintenance; Man-riding; Measuring; Medical and General Safety; Mechanisation; Mine Environment; Power Generation and Transmission; Production and Development; Roof Support; Surveying; Transport; Ventilation; Waste Disposal
3.1.3 Current strengths
1. Coal-cutting machines
2. Colliery signage
3. Gas detectors
4. Lamps, especially those from the Yorkshire region (including the Wolf Lamp company)
5. Models, large collection but of variable quality
6. Rescue equipment, including breathing apparatus
7. Shot-firing materials
8. Surface transport (Yorkshire coalfield)
9. Surveying equipment
10. Underground transport (Yorkshire coalfield)
11. In situ machinery at the Caphouse Colliery and Hope Pit sites
3.1.4 Current weaknesses
1. Completeness and condition of objects: some acquisitions have been used, in their past working lives, for spare parts or are suffering from a career spent working in a hard environment, but this is not always apparent until conservation work takes place
2. The small amount of up-to-date material in the collection had all been fairly heavily used before being acquired by the Museum and as such it is often in poor or incomplete condition. There is almost no as-new machinery except for prototypes
3. Virtually no machinery from the last twenty years due to its resale value
4. Oral histories related to particular working practices
3.1.5 Related collections There are similar general coal-mining technology and engineering collections in England at Astley Green Colliery Museum; Beamish, The Living Museum of the North; Black Country Living Museum; Haig Colliery Museum; Manchester Museum of Science and Industry; Science Museum; Snibston Discovery Museum’s stored collections; Woodhorn Museum and Northumberland Archives.
3.1.6 Underground locomotive collections exist at Armley Mills Museum; Bowes Railway; and Astley Green Colliery Museum
3.1.7 Surface locomotives exist at Foxfield Railway; Barrow Hill Roundhouse Railway Centre; Middleton Railway and Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway
3.2 Blueprints, Plans and Maps
3.2.1 Scope of subject
This section covers engineering blueprints, plans relating to mining boundaries and workings and maps. The Museum acquires blueprints that relate to mine machinery. The plans in the Museum’s collections may be duplicates or earlier versions of existing plans. This is because the Coal Authority should hold all plans relating to mining in this country. There are also plans held in regional archives. Maps generally relate to surface mining features.
3.2.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Colliery Trades; Communication; Geology; Machinery; Maintenance; Man-riding; Mechanisation; Production and Development; Roof Support; Surveying; Transport; Ventilation;
3.2.3 Current strengths
1. Blueprints and similar plans relate to a number of areas of the technology collections but are strong in material from British Jeffrey Diamond.
2. Plan strength is in material close to the Museum around Caphouse Colliery and the Barnsley area.
3.2.4 Current weaknesses: Coverage is patchy
3.2.5 Related collections: Coal Authority; West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire Archive Services regionally; Archive services in the coalfield counties that are recognised repositories for coal-mining archives
3.3 Ancillary Industries and Coal Markets
3.3.1 Scope of subject
This includes industries that supplied the needs of coal mining, and those that processed coal and coal by-products. The latter includes processes and activities that prepared coal for use, such as coal preparation and coking; and industries such as chemical, gas and explosives. Industries such as brick-making may have taken place on the colliery site, but were not exclusive to it.
3.3.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories:
Coal processing; coal preparation; manufacturing
3.3.3 Current strengths and weaknesses
There is currently very little material relating to ancillary industries in the collections. This is intentional, as the scope for such collecting is very wide-ranging. The Museum has a small collection relating to the Yorkshire Coal Exchange, because of its strong regional relevance, and this includes material relating to coking plants and coal merchants. The Museum also holds the loan collection of the Coal Meters, relating primarily to coal markets and the Newcastle to London coal trade, for research and exhibition purposes, with a view to this becoming part of the permanent collections at a future date.
3.3.4 Related Collections: A large amount of material on power generation is held by the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. The library at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers holds archival information from the British Coal Utilisation Research Association and the British Coal Corporation, bodies which both examined coal-burning technology amongst other areas of scientific development. Society of Dyers and Colourists (coal tar dyes)
3.4 Social History
3.4.1 Scope of subject
The social history collection contains material relating most closely to the personal lives of miners and their families. This includes the non-technical aspects of the industry (management and administration, coal sale and marketing, emergency and disasters, trade union and industrial relations) and issues relating to miners’ lives and their communities (welfare, leisure, domestic, clothing and personal items)
3.4.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Clothing and personal items; domestic; emergency and disasters; leisure; management and administration; trade union and industrial relations; welfare;
3.4.3 Current strengths
1. Commemorative material (plates, badges, ephemera, memorabilia)
2. Management and administration – office and pay-related items (typewriters, calculators, pay checks, wages slips)
3. Training ephemera (exam certificates and syllabuses, authorisation certificates)
4. Rescue equipment
5. Medical and first aid equipment
6. Pit-brow-lass clothing (recent)
7. Objects relating to various disasters
3.4.4 Current weaknesses
1. Canteens
2. Leisure activities - allotments, sporting items (not trophies), pastimes, holidays, brass bands, community events
3. Items from outside the Yorkshire coalfield
3.4.5 Related collections: Beamish, The Living Museum of the North; Black Country Living Museum; Cannock Chase Museum; Dean Heritage Centre; Radstock Museum; Woodhorn Museum and Northumberland Archives.
3.5 Oral History
3.5.1 Scope of the subject
The oral history collection is split into two sections. Master and archive recordings are accessioned into the Museum collection. Public-access copies of these recordings are made available through the library, as are recordings made by other museums, community groups and individuals.In addition, the recordings are catalogued on the library catalogue and with each record a PDF of the summary can be found.
3.5.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Potentially covers all areas
3.5.3 Current Strengths
1. Recordings relating to exhibition topics (Coal Queens, Kellingley workforce, miners’ children, Yorkshire Coal Exchange, model making, mining artists, mines rescue, sport)
2. Recordings of past and present mining staff of the Museum
3. Bevin Boys, surveying, , colliery electricians, pithead-baths attendants, pit-brow lasses, strikes, Staffordshire miners, welfares
3.5.4 Current Weaknesses
1. Personalities of the mining industry
2. Pit closures
3. Women (workers and wives)
4. Migrant groups
5. Specific work roles and how the industry worked
6. Nationalisation
7. Early twentieth century mining and its techniques
8. Maintenance and operation of common machine types
9. Regional cover from all coalfields except Yorkshire
3.5.6 Related collections: Beamish, The Living Museum of the North; Black Country Living Museum; CHIK; Dover Museum; Coal Mining Oral History Project Durham; East Midlands Oral History Archive; Haig Mining Museum Oral History Project; North West Sound Archive ; The Radstock Museum Oral History Video Archive Project; Radstock Museum.
3.6 Biological & Geological material
3.6.1 Scope of subject
The collection consists mainly of large plant fossils in the British Coal collection, and geological sample collections acquired for training purposes by coal mining technical colleges.
3.6.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Geology
3.6.3 Current strengths
1. Two comprehensive collections from former mining technical colleges
2. Coal Measures plant fossils from Yorkshire collieries
3. Coal samples
3.6.4 Current weaknesses
Many of the samples have no labels and therefore are neither identified nor have provenance. No specialist curator.
3.6.5 Related collections: The Manchester Museum
3.7 Art and Photography (artist)
3.7.1 Scope of subject
The art collection includes paintings, drawings, sketches, prints, sculpture, photographs taken for other than recording purposes, and crafts.
3.7.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Fine art
3.7.3 Current strengths
1. Work by miner artists such as George William Bissill and including the Norman Phillips archive)
2. H.A.Freeth Pit Profiles series from the original National Coal Board commission
3. Key pieces such as Perlee Parker’s ‘Pitmen at Play’, and Henry Moore’s ‘Miner Drilling’ (1942)
4. The Perry Martin Hill archive of drawings and diaries relating to the Bevin Boy scheme
5. Acquisitions from the Collecting Cultures programme, including work by Keith Vaughan: photographs by key observers of the industry and culture such as Don McCullin, John Davies, Chris Killip and Homer Sykes;
6. Good collection of Durham artists, including from the Spennymoor Settlement, Herbert Cooper, Norman Cornish, Tom McGuinness, Tom Lamb.
7. Recent photographic commissions including work by Ian Beesley, Andy Boag and Anton Want.
3.7.4 Current weaknesses
1. Very few examples of three dimensional work in any media (except coal carvings)
2. Few examples of historical work (early twentieth century and before)
3. Few important works by significant individual artists such as Brangwyn, Hair, Herman, Lowry or Piper.
4. No examples of work by miner artists associated with the Ashington Group
3.7.5 Related collections: Bishop Auckland Town Hall collection (Spennymoor Settlement); Hatton Gallery (Thomas Hair); The Henry Moore Foundation (Henry Moore); Imperial War Museum (Official War Artists); Salford Art Gallery; University Gallery; Northumbria University (Norman Cornish); Woodhorn Museum and Northumberland Archives (Ashington Group).
3.8 Photography, film and video
3.8.1 Scope of subject
3.8.1.1 The subject includes prints, negatives, and transparencies together with film and video, and overlaps in content with the other collecting areas. The material is collected to support and provide context to all other aspects of the collection, such as use of machines, home and work life, and as a record of collieries that no longer exist. The photographic collection is a well-used source for research.
3.8.1.2 A large proportion of the photographic collection consists of material related to machines or the working function of the pit. Other bodies, in particular the nationalised industry and mining machinery manufacturers, produced most of this material. These have arrived at the Museum in a piecemeal way, as collieries and related mining firms have closed. More recently the Museum has commissioned photographs illustrating particular aspects of coal mining.
3.8.1.3 The majority of the images are prints, although glass slides, 35 mm transparencies and negatives are represented. Training and information films exist in 16 mm, U-matic and VHS format.
3.8.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Photography
3.8.3 Current strengths
1. The Albert Walker albums (colliery surface, in particular headframes)
2. The British Jeffrey Diamond albums recording the firm’s production
3. Bretby Media collection of negatives recording the NCB and BCC between the period 1969 - 1988
4. A growing collection of material from named photographers and photojournalists including John Cornwell, Harold White, John Bulmer
5. Material related to machines or the working function of the pit
6. Material from individual collieries
7. Glass lantern slides produced for training purposes
8. Collecting Cultures programme: a group of photographs recording the 1984-5 strike by Guardian photographers and others.
9. Martyn Pitt photographic collection, representing the privatised industry post-nationalisation.
3.8.4. Current weaknesses
1. Material illustrating social history themes such as welfare, home and community life
2. Some of the material held has no clear copyright ownership. For new photographic material added to the collections the Museum now has a policy of liaising with donors, etc, to secure the transfer of copyright ownership where possible
3. Little material relating to people, both inside and outside of a working environment
4. Few examples of early historical mining photographs
3.8.5 Related collections: Beamish, The Living Museum of the North; National Monuments Record (English Heritage); Coal Authority; Public Record Office; Science Museum.
Film: British Film Institute; BBC; ITN Archives / Pathé News.
3.9 Handling collection
3.9.1 Scope of subject
The handling collection is made up of items which are used by the Museum’s Education Section, schools, residential homes and day-care centres, community groups and the general public. These items are catalogued, but are not part of the Museum’s permanent collection.
3.9.2 ‘A Burning Issue’ categories
Potentially covers all areas
3.9.3 Current strengths
1. Loans boxes are available to schools on relevant curriculum topics
2. A range of reminiscence boxes are available for residential homes and day-care centres based on the first half of the twentieth century
3. Some duplicate mining material is available for community loan