Histories of trade unionism have minimised the significance of the early years of the Coal Miners’ Association in south Yorkshire. For six years, beginning in 1858, Richard Mitchell was employed as the union’s first secretary and his term of office witnessed a succession of notable events, both locally and nationally, in which he took a significant part. These include the ‘checkweighman’ provision in the Mines Regulation and Inspection Act, 1860; the campaign for dependents’ compensation after the Edmund’s Main colliery catastrophe of 1862; the legal contest for John Normansell to be reinstated as checkweighman at Wharncliffe Silkstone colliery in 1863; and Mitchell’s contributions to the miners’ conferences and the Miners’ National Association from 1858 to 1864. His career ended abruptly in his flight in 1864 after he incurred the threat of ruinous legal costs over an action for criminal libel. Provoked by his own unguarded words, it led to a prosecution mounted by Robert Baxter, a solicitor and local coal-owner whom Mitchell had confronted several times in his career. This disastrous miscalculation alienated his associates, so terminally extinguishing his reputation. His undeserved neglect was reinforced by his marginalization in the official history of the union published a century later.