Coal And Colonials: Founding The Australian Coal Mining Industry
Australian History Colonial History Economic History Environmental History Labour History Coal Mining Industry Trade Unionism
Coal And Colonials: Founding The Australian Coal Mining Industry is the hard-to-find 1997 hardcover that tells the gripping, true story of how convict labour, Indigenous dispossession and militant Scottish-Irish migrants together created the nation’s first heavy industry. Written by Jim Comerford—a legendary mineworkers’ leader who spent 50 years underground—this 176-page narrative draws on union archives, colonial shipping logs and first-hand interviews to show why coal seams on the Hunter and Illawarra were as fought-over as any goldfield. Readers discover how pit-top strikes in 1840s Newcastle forced Britain to grant Australia limited self-government, why the phrase “black air” became a rallying cry for safety laws, and how the 1880s coal cartels pre-figured today’s global resource giants.
Unlike academic texts, the book carries the authority of lived experience: Comerford began his career at 14 in the same northern seams he later negotiated over as federal secretary of the United Mineworkers Federation of Australia. His portraits of colonial mine-owners, Scottish pit-masters, Chinese market-gardeners and Aboriginal trackers are vivid and unsentimental, while technical chapters on timbering, ventilation and steam-coal grading remain clear enough for the general reader. Maps, period photographs and a full bibliography make it an ideal reference for HSC modern-history students, family historians tracing 19th-century miners, and engineers curious about the evolution of safety lamps, rail spurs and coastal colliers.
Collectors prize this edition for its sturdy hardcover and intact dust jacket, both preserved in good condition with only light foxing to the fore-edge of chapter one—no inscriptions, no dog-eared pages, and a tight, square binding. As the only single-volume account that links convict-era coal outcrops to the birth of Australian trade unionism, Coal And Colonials is a cornerstone work for anyone interested in labour history, environmental heritage, or the economic forces that shaped modern Australia.
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