Set up in 1872, the LCMPRS provided financial assistance to miners injured in industrial accidents and unable to work, as well as for widows, children and dependent relatives of those who were killed.
The records generated by the society give an invaluable insight into the working conditions endured by miners and the impact this had on their health, the wellbeing of their families and the communities they lived in. With its head offices in Wigan, the society continued to give financial assistance to miners and their families until 2006.
The Counting the Cost project has unlocked this important collection of records for researchers studying industrial injury and disease in the Lancashire and Cheshire coalfields as well as for family historians with ancestors who worked in the coal industry.
Local agencies
For administrative purposes, the LCMPRS was divided into local agencies. Each local agency was given an agency number and was responsible for the society’s activities at a colliery company or pit.
As the society expanded the number of local agencies increased.
Acknowledgements
Wigan Archives Service would like to thank the Wellcome Trust (external link) for funding Counting the Cost and making this important project possible.
We would also like to thank the team of volunteers who transcribed and digitised the relief registers and index cards, these include:
Pat Aspinall, Wilf Bamforth, John Green, Molly Hilton, Ian Irving, Arthur Jones, Will Kaye, Dorothy Lee, Tom McGrath, Tim Sen, Sophie Smith and Lorraine Whittle.
The project was managed by Stephen Knott, Project Archivist.