'The Living Dead of the Mining Industry': Deindustrialisation, Sheltered Workplaces and the Re-employment of Disabled Miners in Post-war Wales

Abstract

This article considers the considerable efforts made to provide disabled ex-miners in south Wales with alternative sources of employment in the post-1945 period. It focuses on Grenfell and Remploy factories and voluntary efforts at the Maes-yr-Haf Educational Settlement at Trealaw in the Rhondda Valley, and assesses the extent to which these initiatives succeeded in the provision of employment to such men and helped reduce the levels of disabled unemployment in post-war Wales. These efforts are placed in the contexts of the post-war managed economy, attempts to diversify the south Wales economy, the creation of the welfare state and the particular industrial relations of the coal industry.