ABSTRACT
After the Labour Party's stunning victory in the July 1945 general election, it was assumed that the Labour government would nationalise the coal industry. The three main players in the process, the government, the 'progressive' managers of private coal companies who largely staffed the National Coal Board (NCB), and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) who represented the vast majority of miners, invested substantial political capital in the venture. They also had correspondingly high expectations. It was pressure from the NUM which determined that the government opted to centralise the industry rather than a devolved scheme of the sort suggested by the Coal Commission in 1938. It was the 'progressive' managers support for radical change which ensured that nationalisation was well received by public opinion. The Cabinet gave coal nationalisation higher priority than most other parts of its domestic programme. The spectre of coal shortages which would hamper reconstruction loomed very large in their minds.
