Sadly, Christmas won’t be the same for many of us this year. Whether that will mean not meeting family and friends or having no Christmas parties to attend. It will certainly look very different for many. It’s more important to remember the fun times we’ve had in the past, hoping that they will return again for next year’s celebrations. But how was the Christmas of 1946 marked by the Butterley Company?
It was customary for large companies, including colliery companies, to give gifts to employees at Christmas, and offer them Christmas parties or dinners, to thank them for their hard work during the year. The Butterley Company was no exception. As can be seen in this itemised list of dinners and parties for Christmas, the company was willing to reward their employees, including the kitchen staff who were the ones to cook the dinners.

Most colliery companies were also known to give coal as a benefit to their employees, including their families after an accident or death of a miner. They paid special attention to widows at Christmas, ensuring that they had a gift of coal to see them through winter. It’s funny now that we view receiving coal at Christmas as a bad thing, but perhaps that may have stemmed from a mixture of other traditions when coal as a main fuel was in its infancy. While we don’t use coal anymore, it seems to have reverted to that previous connotation.
However, from the mid-19th century until the middle of last century, coal was a major fuel resource and contributed to the wealth and power of the companies who worked in the coal industry. As winters were also much colder then, a gift of coal meant someone could spend winter in warmth.

The Butterley Company appears to be keen to recognise the hard work not just of their own employees, but those in the community they believed deserved just as much recognition, such as police officers, railwaymen and a postman. They did have to seek approval from the Local Fuel Overseer to grant gifts of coal. The most generous one given in 1946 was to Police Sergeant Herrett who worked at Heanor Police Station, who received 1 ton of coal. Others were given a small amount of money instead.

After what has been a strange and awful year, it’s amazing to see that even in 1946, people were keen to recognise the contribution key workers made to their local communities. This year, please remember to do the same in whatever way you can, even if its just to spare a thought for those key workers who have kept us all going after the year we certainly won’t forget.
Bibliography
Charitable gifts at Christmas from the Butterley Company, N5/188/3
Christmas Central, What Does it Mean to Get a Lump of Coal in your Stocking? https://www.christmascentral.com/what-does-it-mean-to-get-a-lump-of-coal-in-your-stocking/
Linthicum, K., ‘Why Coal Symbolizes Naughtiness’, The Atlantic, 24 Dec 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/why-coal-symbolizes-naughtiness/578857/
Mining the Seams is a Wellcome Trust funded project aiming to catalogue coal mining documents, originally held by the National Coal Board, so they can eventually be viewed by the public. Alongside the Warwickshire County Record Office, the project aims to focus on the welfare and health services provided to miners.
