Until the late 20th century there were many coal mines in parts of Britain with thousands of people employed underground.  Now there are no deep mines and only a tiny amount of coal is extracted by opencast mining.  The Cistercian monks at Newbattle Abbey which was built in 1144 in Dalkeith are believed to have been the first to mine for coal. This seat is in Dalkeith which was in an area with several mines nearby producing coal for over 150 years but now there is very little evidence left of any coal mining apart from the nearby Scottish Mining Museum at the Lady Victoria pit which closed in 1981.  The seat commemorates local coal miners who had to endure difficult conditions in order to keep our fires and power stations operational before we decided to abandon fossil fuels.