Staffordshire Coal Mines, by Helen Harwood is, as the name suggests, a summary of the coal industry of Staffordshire. The book is basically a gazetteer of collieries across the county, split into two chapters covering the North Staffordshire and South Staffordshire coal fields. As one would expect with a gazetteer, there is little synthesis of the data beyond an introduction which covers the history of coal mining within Staffordshire. There is little to place the Staffordshire industry within the national context, nor is there a summary of the geology of the area.
The strength of the book is the gazetteer itself. Within each section, the pits are listed alphabetically, with a short description of the history of the pit, founding date, date of closure, number of shafts and depth of shafts. Also included are summaries of key events. As the book is describing the coal industry, many of the key events involve fatal accidents. These are dealt with sensitively.
The book is well illustrated throughout, with almost all pits having at least one photograph and a good mixture of historic and modern photographs. Also included are a number of photographs of pit memorials, both to pit disasters and to closed collieries. The inclusion of such photographs underlines the importance of the coal industry to the local communities and demonstrates that the book covers all aspects of the coal industry in Staffordshire.
As noted above, the book is well illustrated. Some of the image reproduction could be improved, but that would increase the price of the book significantly and given its local focus, it is not clear that such an increase in price would be warranted. What is missing, however, is a map or, indeed, any locational information for any of the sites listed. It also lacks a bibliography.
The target audience for this book is undoubtedly local historians and those with a family history of coal mining in the area. There is insufficient detail in any individual entry for detailed industrial archaeological study of the subject. It would, however, function as an index for such study.
As a limited study of one industry in one county, this book is unlikely to be of interest to the general reader. However, it is well written, easy to navigate and (within its scope) comprehensive and recommended for non-specialists interested in this subject.