British mining in Spitsbergen

British exploration, mining, and geopolitics on Spitsbergen, 1904-53

In this PhD project, Kruse studies the development of British mining companies on the Spitsbergen archipelago in the European High Arctic in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Her research question enquires into the driving forces behind this British involvement in the no man’s land, related sub-questions being why were British mining companies started, how did they choose to operate, and what were the economic outcomes and geopolitical consequences. She hypothesize that not only economic reasons, but also clear geopolitical motivations lay at the heart of this infant industry, which nonetheless failed against a backdrop of Norwegian sovereignty over the islands after 1920 as well as global depression.

She uses a combination of archival research and archaeological fieldwork to focus on four British mining companies. These are 1) the Spitzbergen Coal and Trading Company (1904-18), 2) the Spitzbergen Mining and Exploration Syndicate (1906-11), 3) the Northern Exploration Company (1910-34), and the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate (1909-53). The little known archival collections are dispersed throughout England, Scotland, and Norway. Their contents are usually a pleasant surprise; their language is occasionally a problem. Archaeological remains in the Arctic are usually well-preserved, and mining settlements, camps, and operations can be surveyed without the use of excavation. Any abandoned mines, however, are too risky to enter. Discarded shoes and boreholes in the middle of nowhere are among my personal favourites.

Thesis

This is a sub-project of the larger LASHIPA (Large-scale Historical Exploitation of Polar Areas) project ( www.lashipa.nl ), which was among 200 international projects conducted during the International Polar Year 2007-8 ( http://ipy.arcticportal.org/ ).