Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22562 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| COKE MAKING OLD AND NEW | 1957 | 1957-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 13 mins 17 secs Credits: National Coal Board, Coal Products Division (Northern Region) Genre: Industrial Subject: Working Life Industry Coal |
| Summary This National Coal Board (NCB) industrial documentary (post nationalisation) looks at the coke production in County Durham, from the use of Whinfield beehive coke ovens at Rowlands Gill (built 1860) to later developments such as the waste heat by-product ovens (built 1904) at Ottovale Coke works, Blaydon-on-Tyne, Gateshead, and Bank Foot Coke Works, Crook, County Durham. |
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Description
This National Coal Board (NCB) industrial documentary (post nationalisation) looks at the coke production in County Durham, from the use of Whinfield beehive coke ovens at Rowlands Gill (built 1860) to later developments such as the waste heat by-product ovens (built 1904) at Ottovale Coke works, Blaydon-on-Tyne, Gateshead, and Bank Foot Coke Works, Crook, County Durham.
Title: National Coal Board – Coke Making Old and New.
Title: For two hundred years coke was made in ‘beehive’ shaped...
This National Coal Board (NCB) industrial documentary (post nationalisation) looks at the coke production in County Durham, from the use of Whinfield beehive coke ovens at Rowlands Gill (built 1860) to later developments such as the waste heat by-product ovens (built 1904) at Ottovale Coke works, Blaydon-on-Tyne, Gateshead, and Bank Foot Coke Works, Crook, County Durham.
Title: National Coal Board – Coke Making Old and New.
Title: For two hundred years coke was made in ‘beehive’ shaped ovens
General views show a brick and concrete embankment carrying a conveyor belt with chimneys in the distance. Men below work on coke ovens with arch shaped entrances. Others load coke in coal tubs on a nearby railway.
Title: Coal was loaded into the ovens from tubs and after being raked level the doors were bricked up.
A workmen pushes a coke/coal tub along a railway line above the coke ovens. The coal is put into the oven from above when a handle releases the coal underneath the tub. A man works above the oven levelling the new coal charge.
At the door of the oven a man rakes the contents with a long handled implement.
He then bricks up the remaining gap in the archway. He fills the gaps in the brickwork using his hands with a special mortar or paste. He also seals up the charging point where coal tubs deposit their load in the top of the oven.
Title: Air was admitted to burn the gas inside the oven and provide heat to convert the coal into coke and for steam raising. There was no recovery of by-products.
A man approaches one of the arched entrances to the coke oven, removes a small plug at the top of the arch and looks inside. He removes some others. Closer shot of three round holes where plugs were removed.
Title: After three days the door bricks were removed and the hot coke quenched inside the oven.
A man uses a long handled metal tool and starts to remove the bricks from a coke oven archway. He then uses the hook at the end of the tool to get hold of the larger reusable bricks which have a hole in the centre of them. He takes these bricks and places them to one side on the ground.
General view of the coke oven with all the sealing bricks removed. The man who removed the bricks lights his pipe. He then uses a hose with a metal pipe attached to quench the coke in the oven. Steam comes out of the oven’s archway, the workman takes his jacket and scarf off and hangs them on the hook or nail on the ovens’ brick wall. The mouth of the coke oven is still steaming.
Title: No mechanical equipment was used, the coke was removed from the ovens and loaded into wagons by hand.
A large shovel is suspended from a movable jib. The workman manoeuvres the shovel to the doorway of the oven. He then gathers material from the still hot oven and removes it and places it with the aid of the jib to a free space on the ground.
Another workman loads the coke onto a coal truck, by hand with a large fork.
Title: The first retort ovens with recovery of by-products were built at Crook in Co. Durham in 1882. Gas from the ovens was cooled and washed to remove tar ammonia and benzole and the gas was then bunrt [sic] in flues to heat the ovens
Title: The ovens were fitted with hinged doors and the coke was pushed out by a steam driven ‘ram’ machine.
An old picture shows one of these ovens.
Title: At a later date electrically driven ‘ram’ machines were introduced and the doors were lifted by a hand operated winch
A sign points to ‘NCB Ottovale Coke Works’.
A large machine with a hut like structure built onto it straddles two railway lines. To the left of this are the coke ovens. The rows of ovens produce smoke and steam. A man operates a large wheel attached to the machine described above to loosen one of the coke oven doors. A fire still blazes inside.
A man operates another hand operated wheel on a machine above as a hook on a chain lifts the coke oven door.
A ram enters the doorway of the coke oven, and the still flaming coke is pushed out on the other side.
Title: The hot coke after being discharged on to a flat bench [paved area] was cooled with water from a hose pipe.
A jet of water is played on to the burning and smouldering coke. A man directs the jet of water onto the coke.
The coke oven door is lowered into place. A man with a ‘rake’ scrapes out the remnants of the previous discharge. The machine at the beginning of the film moves to the open coke oven door. The workman turns a large wheel on the machine to replace the door and then using his hands seals it with a loose mortar or paste.
Workmen man handle coal tubs along rails to charge the coke ovens below.
Title: The ovens continued to be loaded from tubs but the coal in the ovens was levelled mechanically
A view follows of flame and smoke escaping from a vent on the coke oven door. A man works above it levelling the coal as a machine places something into the oven through the open vent. The vent is closed by hand by a man using a long metal rod. He seals the vent door using his hands and the special mortar or paste.
Title: Modern coking plants are provided with machines which remove the oven doors, discharge the coke, load the ovens, level the charge coal in the ovens and transport the hot coke to a central quenching station.
The film ends with an illustration showing the layout of a modern coking plant.
Context
This documentary was produced by a National Coal Board (NCB) Film Unit a decade after the nationalisation of mining companies in 1947. Before World War Two, coal mines in England were owned privately and provided poor care and low wages. Labour knew that nationalising coal mines would be a popular move at the time because of how much of Britain’s industry was centred on coal.
In terms of considering what the catalyst was for the nationalisation of the coal industry, this had been an issue...
This documentary was produced by a National Coal Board (NCB) Film Unit a decade after the nationalisation of mining companies in 1947. Before World War Two, coal mines in England were owned privately and provided poor care and low wages. Labour knew that nationalising coal mines would be a popular move at the time because of how much of Britain’s industry was centred on coal.
In terms of considering what the catalyst was for the nationalisation of the coal industry, this had been an issue since the late 19th century. However, it was 1947 which saw a coal shortage due to a bad winter. Everyone in Britain was dependant on coal for heating and fuel and people realised investment needed to be made if the industry had a chance of surviving. This meant taking it out of the hands of private companies and owners. The subsequent plan for the NCB film documentaries was to show how nationalisation had improved and led to economic stabilisation of the coal industry. This short technical documentary filmed around County Durham was to show how coke making had advanced from the labour-intensive use of beehive shaped ovens to modern, mechanised coking plants recently built. By comparing the old methods of coke making to the new methods, the NCB proved how much more technologically advanced and productive coke making had become since nationalisation, as well as showing some improvements in conditions for the workers. The NCB published ‘The Plan for Coal’ in 1952, which acted as a national strategy to reorganise the industry. This led to a demand for further recruitment and training. The NCB documentaries were used as both propaganda for the industry, training, education and as entertainment. Coke making involves the process of baking coal in ovens at high heat to drive off volatile compounds including gases and coal tar to make smokeless, solid fuel and has always been an important industrial product, mostly used in stoves and the iron and steel industry in the 1950s. Investment in machinery, as shown in this footage, only led to improvements for an increasingly more productive industry. The machinery lessened exposure to some of the harmful aspects of mining as well as allowing a larger supply for use in British industry, and for export. However, recent legal claims for compensation by ex-NCB coke workers suffering from illnesses such as emphysema highlight how dangerous the coking plants still were. Coal mining and its offshoot industries were an extremely important part of the British identity after World War Two, mostly due to the fact that it was one of the largest employers in many regions. Towns and villages across the country developed around the local mines. The 1980s strike against the Conservative government’s decision to close mines, called under the leadership of the NUM's Arthur Scargill, proved how vital the coal industry was to the lives of many British industrial workers and to the survival of mining communities. ‘The strike was one of the most bitter, divisive and violent in Britain's history. The prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, referred to the miners as the, 'enemy within', while Scargill referred to her government's actions as, 'something reminiscent of a Latin American state'. With the creation of the National Coal Board came one of Britain’s ‘most substantial and long-lasting in-house film units’, in operation from 1953 to April 1984. Some films were occasionally still commissioned from commercial companies such as DATA and Basic Films. In addition to the in-house cine magazine Mining Review, the NCB produced films for recruitment, training and as public information. Originally shot in 35mm, the film unit utilised their own specialist camera equipment, customised because of the conditions of filming underground. Films were then distributed around the country as 16mm prints. Although the 1980s saw the increasing decline of mines under Thatcher, the NCB made over 900 productions from 1947. The information needed to give context is included in text within the footage of this silent film. Documentaries like this one were mostly screened for the miners, managers and other workers of the coal industry, which still meant an audience of tens of thousands, but some were also distributed to schools and cinemas. People today are still very much interested in the coal industry because it was such a vital part of Britain’s identity and history. In north east regions such as County Durham, mining was an essential part of life up until the 1980s. The effects of closing mines are still felt in communities today, where the mines provided the majority of the jobs. The North-East and Yorkshire are perhaps the hardest hit because they were typically the bedrock of the mining industry, thus the most impacted by the closures. In terms of considering why NCB documentaries like the Coke Making: Old and New are still so relevant to audiences, the NCB Film Unit provided never before seen ‘technical coverage’ of the work ‘inhabited by so many British men for so many years’. They give a stark look at how the coal industry operated in Britain from the 1940s onwards, making them extremely important to Britain’s social, political and economic history. ‘No other filmmakers had such prolonged exposure to it, nor recorded it in as much detail.’ References: National Coal Board Film Unit (1952-84), Simon Baker http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/474432/index.html The National Coal Board: The Documentaries, Patrick Russell http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1348943/index.html Coal Mining: The Rise and Fall of a Once Great Industry, Simon Baker http://www.screenonline.org.uk/history/id/1198219/index.html https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Coal-Board https://www.wcml.org.uk/about-us/timeline/nationalisation-of-the-mines/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-33652692 |
