CWP was responsible for 700-800 deaths per year in the late 1940s, peaking at over 1,600 per year from the early 1950s to the late 1960s. Between 1930 and 1990, the total recorded deaths from CWP were more than 40,000; this is an underestimate as many early cases were misdiagnosed. Significantly, three to four times that number of miners suffered from ‘progressive massive fibrosis’, the most disabling stage of CWP.

Under union pressure, a government scheme in 1974 provided lump sum compensation for certified pneumoconiotics. But it was not until 1993 (when most of the industry had been shut) that chronic bronchitis and emphysema became prescribed industrial diseases for coalminers who had worked 20 years underground .

The miners’ unions had campaigned for decades for recognition of the industry’s occupational lung diseases and had challenged orthodox medical knowledge in the process. They had also argued for improved dust-suppression techniques and legislation to back these up. With increasing mechanisation and use of power-tools in coal mines, the dust problem worsened in the post-war years. The Coal Mines (Respirable Dust) Regulations 1975 imposed a standard but problems of measurement made it almost unenforceable.