Description

Admin History:

William Ernest Jones was born at Renishaw in Derbyshire in April 1895 and educated at the local Council school. At the age of 13 he started work in a boot repairing shop. A year later he entered the coalmining industry, being employed at the Southgate and Cresswell collieries in Derbyshire betweeen 1910 and 1918. He moved to the Rossington Colliery in South Yorkshire in 1918, where he soon became a branch official of the mineworkers' union. He was also elected to Doncaster Rural District Council, 1924-39, and the West Riding County Council, 1928-42. He became a member of the Executive Committee of the Mineworkers' Federation of Great Britain in 1938, and the General Secretary of the Yorkshire Miners' Association in 1939. He was elected Vice-President of the National Union of Mineworkers in 1950, becoming President in 1954, from which post he retired in 1960. He was also a member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, 1950-60 and Secretary of the Miners' International Federation, 1957-60. He was subsequently a member of the Radcliffe Committee on the Working of the Monetary System, and of the Monopolies Commission, and Chairman of the Southern Regional Board for Industry, 1960-65. He died in July 1973.

Description:

This collection consists of William Ernest Jones' notes, articles and correspondence, largely on the mining industry but also on subjects such as British industry in general, the trade union movement, and the E.E.C. There is also correspondence relating to W E Jones' various awards, and his appointments to positions within mineworkers' associations. The latter part of the collection comprises of several miscellaneous items including photographs of W E Jones and some records of Rossington Colliery.