General

Click on the links for some background information on various aspects of life in mining areas.

For definitions of mining terms and occupations, see the Mining Terms and Colliery Rules Sections.

For links to transcribed lists of mines click here

This section also contains a full transcript of the 1887 Act which may provide useful background when reading reports of accidents and prosecutions.

For more on education and housing see the extracts from the reports on the Mining Districts and Report on Housing of the Industrial Population of Scotland and 1842 Commission

For more on the Truck system see the extracts from the 1871 Truck report

Other items of general interest include a section on early history, a listing of miners wages and costs, newspaper articles on emigration, strikes and obituaries of notable people associated with mining and a description of the Gothenburg system of public houses.

General  sections linked from this page include: