Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of the young British men conscripted to work in the coalmines between 1943 and 1948.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

After Ernest Bevin (1881-1951), Minister of Labour in the wartime coalition British government.

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Examples

  • He signed for his local club as an amateur in 1939, working as a Bevin Boy in Mossley Colliery, before making his league debut.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

  • He signed for his local club as an amateur in 1939, working as a Bevin Boy in Mossley Colliery, before making his league debut.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

  • He left St Anne's Roman Catholic School, Leeds, at 14 and worked briefly in an office, before being called up as a Bevin Boy in 1942 to work down the mines, starting at South Kirkby Colliery, West Yorkshire.

    The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed 2011

  • When his dad Robert Leonard Williams died prematurely, Ken took over and ran the Tonypandy shop in the day with his uncle's help and worked as a Bevin Boy at night to support his widowed mother and two sisters in college.

    WalesOnline - Home 2011

  • Treuliodd ddwy flynedd o dan ddaear fel Bevin Boy, ac fe fu'n athro cerdd yn yr ardal gan ysgrifennu llawlyfr ar sut i chwarae'r recorder.

    BBC Blog Network 2009

  • Final curtain for Jimmy Savile" News said the DJ had been injured in a mining accident "as a 14-year-old Bevin Boy, drafted to work as a coal miner during the Second World War".

    For the record 2011

Comments

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  • Ernest Bevin was British Minister of Labour and National Service during WWII. He came up with the scheme to send conscripts and volunteers to the coal mines to replace miners conscripted for war service.

    September 14, 2011