Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British trade unionist and politician who was president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. Joining the NUM at the age of 19 in 1957, he became one of its leading activists in the late 1960s. In 1973, he was instrumental in organising the miners' strike that toppled Edward Heath's Conservative government in March 1974.