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“A Mere Matter of Rock”: Organized Labour, Scientific Evidence and British Government Schemes for Compensation of Silicosis and Pneumoconiosis among Coalminers, 1926–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2012

Mark W Bufton  and
Joseph Melling
Mark W Bufton
Affiliation:
Honorary University Fellow, SHiPSS, Amory Building, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4RJ, UK, [email protected]
Joseph Melling
Affiliation:
Centre for Medical History, SHiPSS, Amory Building, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4RJ, UK, [email protected]
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The growth of statutory compensation for industrial injuries and illness has attracted considerable attention from historians of state welfare and students of organized labour in both Europe and North America. The rights of legal redress for disease and accidents in the workplace have become the subject of some debate among historians of occupational health and safety, most particularly in regard to asbestos-related illnesses. Among the most detailed and scholarly accounts of the subject in Britain are those by Peter Bartrip and his collaborators. In contrast to many accounts in labour and medical history which express strong empathy with the plight of workers who faced injury and death in the workplace, Bartrip adopts a model of industrial behaviour which is closer to rational-choice assumptions of mainstream economics. His recent account of government regulation of occupational diseases since the nineteenth century offers limited comment on the attitudes of trade unionists to accidents, though he broadly maintains that British unions have historically been more concerned with winning compensation awards than pressing for the prevention of hazards in the industrial workplace.

Type
Articles
Information
Medical History , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , 01 April 2005 , pp. 155 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2005. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

The archives consulted for this paper are: the Public Record Office (hereafter PRO) at Kew, London; minutes of the meetings of the South Wales Miners' Federation (hereafter SWMF) and the Miners Federation of Great Britain (hereafter MFGB), held at the South Wales Miners Library (hereafter SWML); the South Wales Coalfield Collection (hereafter SWCC) held by the University of Swansea, Wales.

1 E P Hennock, British social reform and German precedents: the case of social insurance, 1880–1914, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987; Roy Hay, The origins of the Liberal welfare reforms, 1906–14, 2nd ed., London, Macmillan, 1983; T Skocpol, States and social revolutions: a comparative analysis of France, Russia and China, Cambridge University Press, 1979; M Weir, A S Orloff and T Skocpol (eds), The politics of social policy in the United States, Princeton University Press, 1988; A de Swaan, In care of the state: health care, education and welfare in Europe and the USA in the modern era, Cambridge, Polity, 1988; P Baldwin, The politics of social solidarity: class bases in the European welfare state 1875–1975, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

2 G Tweedale, Magic mineral to killer dust: Turner & Newall and the asbestos hazard, New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 26, 169, 245–8, 287, 288–9; P W J Bartrip, The way from dusty death: Turner and Newall and the regulation of occupational health in the British asbestos industry, 1890s–1970, London, Athlone Press, 2001; Ronald Johnston and Arthur McIvor, Lethal work: a history of the asbestos tragedy in Scotland, East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 2000, pp. 56, 147.

3 P W J Bartrip, Workmen's compensation in twentieth century Britain: law, history and social policy, Aldershot, Gower Publishing, 1987; P W J Bartrip and S B Burman, The wounded soldiers of industry: industrial compensation policy 1833–1897, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983.

4 For examples of accounts sympathetic to workers, see Charles Levenstein and Gregory F DeLaurier with Mary Lee Dunn, The cotton dust papers: science, politics and power in the “discovery” of byssinosis in the U.S., Amityville, NY, Baywood Publishing, 2002; Alan Derickson, Black lung: anatomy of a public health disaster, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1998; Elaine Katz, The white death: silicosis on the Witwatersrand gold mines, Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1994; Jock McCulloch, Asbestos blues: labour, capital, physicians and the state in South Africa, Oxford, James Currey, and Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2002; Sue Bowden and Geoffrey Tweedale, ‘Poisoned by the fluff: compensation and litigation for byssinosis in the Lancashire cotton industry’, J. Law Soc., Dec. 2002, 29: 560–79; Sue Bowden and Geoffrey Tweedale, ‘Mondays without dread: the trade union response to byssinosis in the Lancashire cotton industry in the twentieth century’, Soc. Hist. Med., 2003, 16: 79–95; see Bartrip, Introduction to The way from dusty death (op. cit., note 2 above), for trenchant criticism of such historians in the asbestos story; and for the disagreements between himself and others, see M Greenberg, and N Wikeley, ‘Too little, too late? the Home Office and the Asbestos Industry Regulations, 1931: a reply’, Med. Hist., 1999, 43: 508–10; P Bartrip, ‘Rejoinder’, Med. Hist., 1999, 43: 511–13.

5 P W J Bartrip, The Home Office and the dangerous trades: regulating occupational disease in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, Amsterdam and New York, Rodopi, 2002, pp. 29–35 and passim, for discussion of unions in relation to four main areas of occupational illness.

6 G Tweedale and P Hansen, ‘Protecting the workers: the Medical Board and the asbestos industry, 1930s–1960s’, Med. Hist., 1998, 42: 439–57; Bowden and Tweedale, ‘Poisoned by the fluff’, op. cit., note 4 above.

7 Bartrip, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 284. In contrast to some historians, our aim is to challenge the applicability of these conclusions by considering the complexities of the relationship between organized labour and the civil service in the regulation of dusty mines and in the compensation of those suffering from the effects of dust underground.

8 Bartrip argues that the extent of institutionalized conflict between workers and industrialists should not be exaggerated nor the benefits to workers and their families be underestimated. He calculates that by the end of the 1930s, between 5 and 6.5 per cent of the workforce in applicable industries were making successful claims for compensation. If dependents of compensation recipients are included, this would imply that more than one million people were beneficiaries. P Bartrip, ‘The rise and decline of workmen's compensation’, in P Weindling (ed.), The social history of occupational health, London, Croom Helm, 1985, pp. 157–79, on pp. 164–5, 173–4.

9 See work by P W J Bartrip and G Tweedale.

10 Allard E Dembe, Occupation and disease: how social factors affect the conception of work-related disorders, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 3–6, 17–19, 229–32.

11 David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz, Deadly dust: silicosis and the politics of occupational disease in twentieth-century America, Princeton University Press, 1991, pp. 4, 202–4. See also Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, ‘Corporate responsibility for toxins’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Nov. 2002, 584: 159–74. Seager has also showed how the political power of American unions finally forced recognition of silicosis, D R Seager, ‘Barre, Vermont granite workers and the struggle against silicosis, 1890–1960’, Labor Hist., 2001, 42: 61–79.

12 Michael Bloor, ‘The South Wales Miners' Federation, miners' lung and the instrumental use of expertise, 1900–1950’, Soc. Stud. Sci., 2000, 30, 1: 125–40; and idem, ‘No longer dying for a living: collective responses to injury risks in South Wales Mining Communities, 1900–47’, Sociology, 2002, 36, 1: 89–105, particularly pp. 100–102.

13 Numerous authors have commented on this “collective forgetting” of the disease and its subsequent re-discovery. Posner wrote, “After this [the 1860s] interest in anthracosis gradually faded out. The reason for this strange development … is still a matter of controversy. The fact is that most leading figures in Occupational Medicine considered the chapter of the ‘black lung’ closed.” E Posner, ‘Milestones in the history of mineral dust pneumoconioses’, in J Cule (ed.), Wales and medicine: an historical survey, London, British Society for the History of Medicine, 1975, p. 47. Posner cited no less an authority than Thomas Oliver and his edited collection Dangerous trades (1902) to support his view. Hunter cited the views of Edgar Collis in noting that, ‘As the nineteenth century drew to its close doctors all over Great Britain had satisfied themselves that anthracosis of colliers had … ceased to exist as a medical problem’, Donald Hunter, The diseases of occupations, 6th ed., London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1978, p. 1014. Collis had commented in 1915 that asthma among coal miners had been prevalent in South Wales but the disease had passed and that “conjecture as to its character and causation are idle”. E L Collis, Industrial pneumoconioses with special reference to dust-phthisis, Milroy Lectures 1915, London, HMSO, 1915, p. 10. Derickson has described how Collis contributed to the medical rejection of the distinctive condition of pneumoconiosis by insisting that the symptoms were those of silicosis. Derickson, op. cit., note 4 above, pp. 48–50.

14 E H Kettle, ‘The relation of dust to infection’, Presidential Address to Royal Society of Medicine, 1930, 25, pp. 1–16. “In different countries the composition of dust will vary, but all dangerous dusts have one factor in common: they all contain free silica, the dioxide of silicon; and so far as we know the degree of harmfulness of a dust depends upon the amount of free silica present in it.” On p. 2.

15 PRO PIN 12/11, includes details of an investigation into ganister mining near Sheffield by E L Collis as Medical Inspector of Factories with marginal notes dated 25 April 1917 by R R Bannatyne of the Home Office. The same file has a ‘Report on Proposed [Refractories] Scheme’ by Dr A J Hall, Professor of Medicine at Sheffield University, 19 Dec. 1917. Both Thomas Legge and E L Collis commended Hall's work. Letters A J Hall to T Legge, 19 Dec. 1917, and E L Collis to Home Office, 18 Jan. 1918. Collis noted that Sheffield's ganister mines and metal grinding industry made it a centre of “industrial fibroid phthisis”. The coal mining industry in Yorkshire was also affected.

16 PRO PIN 12/14, ‘Memorandum on Refractories Industries (Silicosis) Scheme’, 4 Feb. 1919, indicates a levy on wages of 6.25 per cent on persons working about a mine or quarry where material worked contains 80 per cent or more silica. The limited demands on the Compensation Fund established led to a reduction in the levy to 5 per cent from 1 Jan. 1937 and further reductions were proposed in discussions on 4 April 1947. Government Actuary to Edwin Field at Ministry of National Insurance, 21 May 1947. See also Arnold Wilson and Hermann Levy, Workmen's compensation. Volume 1: Social and political development, London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1939, pp. 264–6.

17 PRO PIN 12/22, ‘Notes of conference held at the Home Office 9 November 1922 regarding the Refractories Industries (Silicosis) Scheme, 1919’. Comments of Mr Davie for the Refractories Industries Compensation Fund Ltd.

18 Ibid. Bannatyne and his colleagues ruled out the appointment of a specialist Medical Officer to diagnose cases as impracticable and expensive, while also rejecting the suggestion that the Home Office could consider appeals against awards.

19 PRO PIN 12/22, ‘Notes of Conference with Refractories Industries Compensation Fund, 2 May 1924’. R R Bannatyne to Job Holland and to H J C Johnson. To the latter, Bannatyne noted: “Under our general compensation law the Certifying Surgeons and Medical Referees were appointed and controlled by the Home Office and he [Holland] thought the Medical Board must be independent of the parties.”

20 PRO PIN 12/12, ‘Silicosis Order: Minutes of Deputation from the Iron & Steel Manufacturers [to Home Office], July 25 1919’. Opening statement by J E Baker, Chairman of the Sheffield Engineering Employers' Association. The regulations covered materials and articles which contained 80 per cent silica. Baker noted that the Order had been based on a report by Sydney Smith and Dr E L Collis on the mining of silica and making of silica bricks rather than foundry work.

21 PRO PIN 12/39, ‘Sandstone Industry (Silicosis) Scheme: Notes of Conference with representatives of employers and workers, at the Home Office, December 19 1928’, pp. 11–12, Edward Middleton to Hudson Brook. Bannatyne later commented: “I do not like to exclude anything where there is any risk.” Ibid., p. 25. PRO PIN 12/39, ‘Note of further conference with employers and workers in regard to definition of “sandstone”’, 20 Dec. 1928.

22 PRO PIN 12/39, Ibid., pp. 40–1: R R Bannatyne to H Brook, and Davie to Hilton. It was also agreed that workmen must reveal their previous employment history, at the risk of being denied compensation, subject to Joint Committee decision. Ibid., p. 46.

23 PRO T161/806, ‘Silicosis (Medical Arrangements) Committee, Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Secretary of State to advise as to the medical arrangements which could be made for the diagnosis of Silicosis’, pp. 7–8.

24 Ibid., paras. 7–10, pp. 12–15. The report concluded with an appeal for further research on the subject of silicosis.

25 ‘Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on Safety in Coal Mines, Evidence submitted by Dr S W Fisher, 2 November 1936’, [hereafter, Fisher evidence to RCSCM] p. 843. Copy in PRO POWE 8/199. Fisher emphasized investigations of the lungs of rock drillers from the Somerset coalfield in 1925–31.

26 Fisher evidence to RCSCM, Minutes of Evidence, paras. 22323–22332.

27 Mark Bufton and Joseph Melling, ‘Coming up for air: the role of experts, employers and trade unions in compensation schemes for silicosis sufferers in the United Kingdom, c. 1922–1934’, Soc. Hist. Med., 2005, 18(1): 1–24.

28 MFGB, Annual Conference, 25 July 1927, Proceedings, p. 73. Mainwaring stated that the South Wales district was not severely affected by silicosis but might soon be because of the nature of the work undertaken in coalmining.

29 SWMF, Minutes of Council Meetings, Annual and Special Conferences 1926, Council Meeting, Miners' Office, Cardiff, 6 Feb. 1926.

30 Joseph Melling, ‘The risks of working and the risks of not working: trade unions, employers and responses to the risk of occupational illness in British industry, c. 1890–1940s’, London, ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Discussion Paper no. 12, includes figures from North Wales Mutual.

31 SWMF, Minutes 1930, Silicosis Committee, 6 Feb. 1930; SWMF, Minutes, Cardiff, 27–28 June 1930.

32 MFGB, Annual Conference, 1931, pp. 83–6.

33 MFGB, Report of the Executive Committee, June 1931, pp. 157–60. The MFGB saw the main advantage of the 1930 Various Industries (Silicosis) Amendment Scheme lay in the removal of the obligation on the miner to prove the composition of the siliceous rock.

34 MFGB, Minutes of the Executive Committee, 12 Feb., 1931, pp. 2–4, for concerns of the Sub-Committee.

35 SWMF, Minutes Council Meeting, Miners' Office, Cardiff, 10 June 1932, pp. 54–6. The deputation comprised Oliver Harris, W H Mainwaring, and Evan Williams.

36 MFGB, Annual Conference, 11 July 1932, pp. 111–16.

37 MFGB, Minutes of Executive Committee, 26–27 Oct., 1933, pp. 14–16, and 23 Nov. 1933, p. 3. In this account of the meeting at the Home Office, the official Fudge acknowledged that medical experts differed on how the disease was contracted and that it was essential that a man's working career was known.

38 MFGB, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, 17 May 1934, p. 4.

39 MFGB, Annual Conference, 16–18 July 1934, Tuesday's Proceedings, p. 36.

40 Ibid., MFGB, Annual Conference, 16–18 July 1934, Tuesday's Proceedings, pp. 36–7.

41 MFGB, Annual Conference, 16–18 July 1934, pp. 37–8.

42 SWMF, Minutes of Council Meetings, Annual and Special Conferences 1935, Report of Executive Council, 1934–1935, Cardiff, pp. 19, 24–5.

43 MFGB, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, 22 Nov. 1934, pp. 1–2.

44 SWMF, Minutes of Council Meetings, Annual and Special Conferences 1936, Report of Executive Council, 1935–1936, Cardiff, pp. 35–7.

45 The legal point at issue according to the union was whether paragraph 2 of the Various Industries (Silicosis) Scheme 1931, applied to the new Various Industries (Silicosis) Scheme of 1934. The original paragraph read: “Provided that the employer shall not be liable under this paragraph in any case where he proves to the satisfaction of the County Court judge or other arbitrator that the workman has not, during the employment to which the disease is alleged to be due, been exposed to the dust of silica rock”. Also Butterworths' Workmen's Compensation Cases, 1935, 28 (new series): 447–68.

46 SWCC: MNA/NUM/3/5/box G.17 1937, Compensation Correspondence Area No. 6, letter to Oliver Harris, General Secretary, SWMF, area no. 6, from Terence Wall, 21 May 1937.

47 SWMF, Minutes of Council Meetings, Annual and Special Conferences 1937, Report of Executive Council, 1936–1937, Cardiff, pp. 40–1.

48Butterworths' Workmen's Compensation Cases, 1937, 30 (new series): 51–63. SWMF, Minutes of Council Meetings, Annual and Special Conferences 1938, Annual Report of Executive Council, 1937–1938, Cardiff, pp. 41–2. MFGB, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, 24 Mar., 1937, p. 76. The phrase about legal victory in Wragg v. Fox belonged to Ebby Edwards, Secretary of the MFGB.

49 University of Glasgow Archives, UGD 162, Ayrshire Mutual Insurance Association: Minutes, 1 Sept. 1933, 1 June 1935, for individual cases. In late 1934 the Ayrshire Association discussed the work of the Silicosis Committee in London and the Home Secretary's decision to include all underground workers in the Various Industries (Silicosis) Scheme, without agreeing to the insertion of an order “that it would only apply to men who were employed on & after the date of the order”. Minutes, 11 Dec. 1934, concerning meeting of 17 Oct. 1934.

50 MFGB, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, 16 Aug., 1934, pp. 2–5.

51 The friable nature of the South Wales coal restricted the use of machines for under-cutting seams. Barry Supple, The history of the British coal industry: vol. 4: 1913–1946: the political economy of decline, New York, Clarendon Press, 1987, pp. 31, 316–17, 384; David Greasley, ‘The diffusion of machine cutting in the British coal industry, 1902–38’, Explorations in Economic History, 1982, 19: 246–68, on pp. 247, 253; idem, ‘Fifty years of coal-mining productivity: the record of the British coal industry before 1939’, J. Econ. Hist., 1990, 50: 877–902, on p. 883; T Boyns, ‘Jigging and shaking: technical choice in the South Wales Coal industry between the wars’, Welsh Hist. Rev., 1994, 17: 230–51.

52 The effort bargain is the relationship between work effort and reward (pay), more effort for less reward means a shift in power and control to the employers and less work for the same or more reward means a shift in power and control to the workers. The locus classicus on this is William Baldamus, Efficiency and effort: an analysis of industrial administration, London, Tavistock, 1961; for the larger context of workplace supervision and the effort bargain, see Joseph Melling, ‘Safety, supervision and the pursuit of productivity in the British coal mining industry, 1900–1960’, in J Melling and A McKinlay (eds), Management, labour and industrial politics in modern Europe: the quest for productivity growth during the twentieth century, Cheltenham, Elgar, 1996, pp. 145–73.

53 It would appear that since 1931 refusals for certificates had stood consistently around 50 per cent of all claims. PRO FD1/2898, Letter to Dr Faulkner, MRC, from Ministry of Fuel and Power, 16 Jan. 1947.

54 P D'Arcy Hart, ‘Chronic pulmonary disease in South Wales coal mines: an eye-witness account of the MRC Surveys (1937–1942)’, Soc. Hist. Med., 1998, 11: 459–68, on p. 462.

55 Dembe, op. cit., note 10 above, p. 92. Dorman similarly notes, “when benefits rise and claims follow suit, it may well be that fewer legitimate claims are being suppressed”. Peter Dorman, Markets and mortality: economics, dangerous work, and the value of human life, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 198–9. It is remains methodologically difficult to estimate whether there is any “demonstration effect”, implicit in the reduced suppression hypothesis, from available figures.

56 MFGB, Annual Conference, 16–18 July 1934, Tuesday's Proceedings, p. 36.

57 Bufton and Melling, op. cit., note 27 above, provides a discussion.

58 National Library of Scotland, J S Haldane Papers, 10306, Box of unlisted materials: Dr Matthews, ‘Silicosis and other dust diseases: Neath Area’. Also in this collection is a paper by Dr Williams of Swansea, ‘Pneumonoconiosis in coal hewers’, which shows 11 of 39 coal hewers with chest symptoms (chiefly anthracite workers) showed infective silicosis from x-ray films, 21 being non-infective.

59 SWCC: MNA/NUM/L/3/18, Abergorky Lodge Compensation Cases and correspondence: case of Jacob H deceased. Tal Thomas to Rhys Evans, 14 Dec. 1938, 30 Dec. 1938, 10 Jan. 1939.

60 Ibid., case of G P J, regarding nystagmus, 23 May 1933, and letter of W J Thomas to David Lewis, 7 July 1936. Further correspondence 28 July–31 Aug. 1936 suggested that T John had been paid compensation while G P J was “in regular employment”. The latter possibly referred to regular employment disqualifying G J P for partial disability payment.

61 Correspondence attached to individual case from Area No.1, case of L Owen of Banwen Colliery, who died 23 Apr. 1944 and was later certified as having died from pneumoconiosis, as per certificate 12 June 1944. His widowed mother, Eliza P was guided on compensation claim. Davies, Secretary of SWMF to Eliza P, 6 June 1944.

62Population Based Research in South Wales: The MRC Pneumoconiosis Research Unit and the MRC Epidemiology Unit, Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine, vol. 13, London, Wellcome Trust, 2002, pp. 3–5.

63 PRO FD1/2884, ‘Pulmonary disease among coal miners’, 24 Nov. 1936. E Field had visited the Mines Department from the Home Office.

64 PRO FD1/2884, memo, 20.xi.36

65 PRO FD1/2884, memo, 19.xi.36.

66 James Griffiths, Pages from memory, London, J M Dent, 1969, p. 55. House of Commons, Hansard, 7 May 1936, cols., 1853–1854, Apr., 21 to May 8, 1935–36, 3111. Regarding the dangers of working with white lead, Bartrip has similarly noted that a few letters and some parliamentary questions from backbench MPs can be transformed into evidence of a major hazard. See Bartrip, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 85.

67 SWMF, Minutes of Council Meetings, Annual and Special Conferences 1937, Report of Executive Council, 1936–1937, Cardiff, pp. 42–3, 46–7. The Federation lodges in South West Wales decided to support the investigation.

68 The fear of loss of employment also deterred workers in the slate industry from claiming compensation for tuberculosis and/or silicosis, see L Bryder, ‘Tuberculosis, silicosis, and the slate industry in North Wales 1927–1939’, in Weindling (ed.), op. cit., note 8 above, pp. 108–26, on p. 120.

69 The five valleys were Swansea, Neath, Dulais, Amman and Gwendraeth, where silicotic miners “grow old too soon” or “galloped to death”. See cuttings held in the SWCC: MNA/NUM/3/5/20, at Swansea University, South Wales.

70 Letter from Louise Morgan, News Chronicle, London, to Evan Williams, 21 Feb. 1936, SWCC: MNA/NUM/3/5/20. An example of the correspondence and donations can be found in letter to Evan Williams, 26 Feb. 1936, from Mrs B., Corydon, and in letter to Miss W., Brighton, from Evan Williams, 15 June 1936, both in SWCC: MNA/NUM/3/5/20. Real names have been suppressed in accordance with archive disclosure rules.

71 Letter to Miss Morgan, News Chronicle, London, from Evan Williams (Secretary of the Compensation Department of the Federation), 22 Feb. 1936, SWCC: MNA/NUM/3/5/20. In discussions with newspapers and medical researchers, Williams identified the ‘black spots’ for silicosis and respiratory cases of Tredegar, Rhymney Valley, and west of Neath.

72 PRO FD1/2884, ‘Medical Research Council: Committee on Industrial Pulmonary Disease’, meeting held on 17 June 1936.

73 PRO FD1/2884, ‘Medical Research Council: Committee on Industrial Pulmonary Disease’, meeting held on 17 June 1936, p. 2.

74 ‘Eradicating silicosis: a hopeful report: a big reduction soon’, Manchester Guardian, 27 Jan. 1938.

75 ‘Silicosis inquiry in South Wales: a disclaimer’, Manchester Guardian, written by Mellanby to the editor, 7 Feb. 1938; ‘Silicosis inquiry in South Wales: a disclaimer’, Br. med. J., 5 Feb. 1938; ‘Our readers views: Silicosis inquiry in South Wales: an authoritative statement of the position: results cannot yet be assessed’, Western Mail, 3 Feb. 1938.

76 PRO FD1/2886, ‘Silicosis inquiry in South Wales: a disclaimer’, 1 Feb. 1938. ‘Silicosis Inquiry: 400 miners examined at Ammanford’, South Wales Post, 8 Feb. 1938.

77 PRO FD1/2886, Letter to Dr Lansborough Thomson from P D'Arcy Hart, 2 Feb. 1938.

78 PRO FD1/2886, Letter to Dr Lansborough Thomson from P D'Arcy Hart, 8 Feb. 1938. Hart commented: “I feel I must, if I am to have the responsibility of seeing pressmen, have authority to make as well as to refuse statements”

79 For professional rivalries in a different medical sphere, see Mark W Bufton, David F Smith and Virginia Berridge, ‘Professional ambitions, political inclinations, and protein problems: conflict and compromise in the BMA Nutrition Committee 1947–1950’, Med. Hist., Oct. 2003, 47: 473–92.

80 MFGB, Annual Conference July 1935, pp. 43, 175, for example. The SWMF heard that while “Governments move slowly in these matters” the 1934 Silicosis Scheme was the fruit of “many years of effort” and signalled a radical change of view from 1928 when it had been thought that silicosis “could not be contracted in a coal mine”.

81 Bloor, ‘The South Wales Miners' Federation’, op. cit., note 12 above, p. 135. Their influence may be contrasted with the apparent weakness of the trade unions in the framing of the 1931 asbestos industry regulations. See Nick Wikeley, ‘The asbestos regulations 1931: a licence to kill?’, J. Law Soc., 1992, 19: 365–78, on pp. 370–2.

82 The three Medical Research Council Reports were responsible for the definitive classification of chronic pulmonary disease caused by coal dust inhalation. Medical Research Council, Chronic pulmonary disease in South Wales coalminers: I. Medical studies, London, HMSO, 1942; Medical Research Council, Chronic pulmonary disease in South Wales coalminers: II. Environmental studies, London, HMSO, 1943; Medical Research Council, Chronic pulmonary disease in South Wales coalminers: III. Experimental studies, London, HMSO, 1943.

83 Brian Spencer, ‘Scourge of the Welsh has been vanquished: deadly dust cloud is lifting from pits’, The Welsh cutter: a newspaper about mining, 5 Aug. 1946. This newspaper was published by the Ministry of Fuel and Power.