Origins
The Miners' Federation of Great Britain was established in Newport, Monmouthshire in 1888 but did not function as a unified, centralised trade union. Instead the federation represented and co-ordinated the affairs of the existing local and regional miners' unions whose associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation was founded in 1898, joining the MFGB in 1899, while the Northumberland Miners' Federation joined in 1907.
In South Wales, the miners showed a high degree of solidarity. They lived in isolated villages where the miners comprised the great majority of workers. There was a high degree of equality in life style; combined with an evangelical religious style based on Methodism this led to an ideology of equalitarianism. They forged a "community of solidarity" - under the leadership of the Miners Federation. The union supported first the Liberal Party, then after 1918 Labor, with some Communist Party activism at the fringes.
The miners' unions were the largest and most powerful industrial combinations in Britain for decades, and exercised a great influence on the rest of the British labour movement. The first working class Members of Parliament, Thomas Burt and Alexander Macdonald, elected in 1874, represented mining constituencies and were funded by miners' associations. Miners' unions continued to enlarge labour representation in the House of Commons in the years which followed, although they took little part in the founding of the Labour Party. Many miners' MPs sat with the Liberals and the MFGB did not affiliate to the Labour Party until 1909.owed by the Durham Miners' Federation in 1908. The federation's total membership in 1908 was 600,000.
The MFGB was involved in many trade disputes, including the National Miners' Strike of 1912 and the General Strike in 1926.
Read more about this topic: National Union Of Mineworkers (Great Britain)
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