Abstract
Coal mining is an industry about which people have held and still hold a number of misconceptions. Much of this fact lies purely in lack of understanding for it seems coal mines have always been shunned by the wider community. Isolation however is perhaps an aid to historical analysis for curiosity often prompted investigation even if many of the views expressed were still prejudiced. Similarly, miners, as a group, tended to operate outside the normal social realms of neighbouring societies. But although similarities existed between coal mining communities in a number of areas such as occupational patterns and basic institutions associated with the industry, these settlements cannot be lumped into one basket. Coal mining towns were as different from one another as any non-mining settlements were different from others. This thesis is concerned with such differences. It is concerned also with the pattern of development of such a town. The community, industry and group of people under observation is that of a small town of Kaitangata.[…]
Kaitangata was one of the earliest mining settlements in New Zealand, and developed into Otago and Southlands largest coal mine. It had become firmly established by 1880 as a major industry, so that by the turn of the century Kaitangata had become a very permanent settlement, exhibiting quite ‘normal’ demographic characteristics.[…] [Extract from Introduction]