It's partly
Imperial College's fault according to the BBC who have a lovely piece on odd facts from the 2011 Census. For data geeks like me, this is a cautionary tale about interpreting data....
More people in London's Kensington and Chelsea describe themselves as
working in mining and quarrying than in Gateshead, according to the
census. The figures - 207 and 151 individuals respectively - are not
large.
The decline of the coal industry in England and Wales has
been well documented. About 2,000 people now work in coal mines,
according to the National Union of Mineworkers, compared with the more
than a million at the industry's height in the early 1900s.
The mining and quarrying industry as a whole employs 46,478, according to the 2011 Census, down 12,913 on 2001.
The area with the highest concentration of
workers - 2% (and 3.8% of men) - is Redcar and Cleveland, home of the
giant Boulby Potash Mine.
But there are surprising numbers of people in smart central
London districts, such as Westminster or Kensington and Chelsea, who
describe themselves as working in mining and quarrying.
They may work in management or for large international mining
conglomerates such as Rio Tinto, which has its headquarters in London,
says Paul Hardman of the NUM.
Another contributory factor may be the Royal School of Mines,
part of Imperial College London. It is situated on the university's
South Kensington campus and numbers about 350 undergraduates, 200
postgraduates, as well as lecturers. The majority live nearby, and some
may class themselves as miners, a spokeswoman says.
