| Administrative History | The expansion of the system of workmen's compensation through a series of acts beginning in 1897 led the Derbyshire Miners' Association (DMA) to appoint a full-time official with responsibility for overseeing compensation-related matters as early as 1914, with the election of Frank Lee as Assistant Secretary and Compensation Agent. Before Lee's election, compensation cases and the litigation they created, which had become an increasingly important part of the DMA's work, were handled by the union's leadership. In this period the duties of Compensation Agent were usually combined with other responsibilities - Lee was, for a short period, also Treasurer and Compensation Agent - but from 1918 it was a separate role. The Compensation Agent dealt with a range of matters relating to accidents and injury and work, but also welfare, redundancy and pay disputes.
Nationalization of the coal industry in January 1947 and the commencement of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946 in July 1948 brought an increase in the workload and responsibilities of the Area Compensation Agent, as the role was known after the DMA became the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Derbyshire Area. The National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act brought an end to the existing system of workmen's compensation, introducing a new tripartite scheme of industrial injury benefit paid out of an Industrial Injuries Fund, into which contributions were deposited by the National Coal Board (NCB), its employees and the British state. The act created Local and Medical Appeal Tribunals, which handled contested claims for industrial injury benefit, at which members were represented by the Area Compensation Agent. Between 1948 and 1985 approximately 10,000 cases involving members of the NUM Derbyshire Area were brought before the tribunals. The Area Compensation Agent also handled 'old cases', compensation cases involving mineworkers injured before July 1948, into the 1950s and 1960s.
Under the terms of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, industrial workers were also entitled to make a claim for financial recompense at common law against a person or body whose negligence was thought to have caused injury. The Area Compensation Agent advised NUM members on common law cases, and continued to do so after the closure of Markham Colliery in 1994, the last of Derbyshire's collieries to close.
The position of Area Compensation Agent was held by significant figures in the history of the DMA and the NUM Derbyshire Area. John Spencer, who held the role between 1920 and 1943, and Joseph Kitts, between 1943 and 1959, were the longest serving agents; Herbert Parkin, Peter Heathfield, Gordon Butler and John Burrows would all go on to become Area Secretary, and Dennis Skinner became MP for Bolsover in 1970. |