Photograph of the Newcastle coal fields in Natal. There are carts in the foreground which are loaded with coal. Workers are standing around them, most holding a box of coal or a tool. There is a cliff face behind them.

Coal became a major industry of Natal, a former British colony in south-eastern Africa. This photograph was taken during the Anglo-Zulu War (1879), which ended the independence of the neighbouring Zulu Kingdom and brought it under British control.