John Hindley, 1st Viscount Hyndley

He took up an engineering apprentice at Murton colliery in County Durham, but did not complete the course and moved into the commercial side of mining.

He became the first chairman of the National Coal Board at its creation on 1 January 1947, a post he held until 1951.

Facing relatives of miners waiting at the colliery gates, he announced: Though everything has been done and is still being done, there is now no hope of any of the men being alive.

[6] He was further honoured when he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 1939 Birthday Honours, "for public services",[7] and made Viscount Hyndley, of Meads in the County of Sussex on 2 February 1947.

[12] A coal ship in National Coal Board fleet was named in Elizabeth's honour in 1947, the SS Betty Hindley, which became the last vessel to be lost due to World War Two enemy action, when on 7 October 1947 she detonated an unexploded WWII contact mine, just off Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast.