The Lilleshall Company was a large

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

company in

Oakengates Oakengates is a constituent town and civil parish in Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. The towns parish population was recorded as 8,517 in the 2001 census. Etymology The name is not derived from "oak" or "gates" but is derived from the ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

founded in 1802. Its operations included

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

, iron and steel making and

brickworks A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock (the most common material from which bricks are made), often with a quarry for cl ...

. The company was noted for its winding, pumping and blast engines, and operated a private railway network. It also constructed railway

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

s from 1862 to 1888.

History

The company's origins date back to 1764 when

Earl Gower Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particular ...

formed a company to construct the

Donnington Wood Canal The Donnington Wood Canal was a private canal in East Shropshire, England, which ran from coal pits owned by Earl Gower at Donnington Wood to Pave Lane on the Wolverhampton to Newport Turnpike Road. It was completed in about 1767 and abandoned ...

on his estate. In 1802 the Lilleshall Company was founded by the

Marquess of Stafford A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman w ...

in partnership with four local capitalists. In 1862 the company exhibited a

2-2-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-2-2 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, two powered driving wheels on one axle, and two trailing wheels on one axle. The wheel arrangement both ...

express passenger locomotive at the

1862 International Exhibition The International Exhibition of 1862, or Great London Exposition, was a world's fair. It was held from 1 May to 1 November 1862, beside the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, South Kensington, London, England, on a site that now houses ...

in London. In 1880 it became a Public company. In 1951 the Lilleshall Iron and Steel Co was nationalised under the Iron and Steel Act but denationalised in 1954 and sold back to Lilleshall Co. Lilleshall Company Railways closed in 1959. In 1961 they were described as 'structural and mechanical engineers, manufacturers of rolled steel products, glazed bricks, sanitaryware, Spectra-Glaze and concrete products', with 750 employees. The company began to decline during the 1960s. Many of its artefacts and archives are preserved by the

Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust is an industrial heritage organisation which runs ten museums and manages multiple historic sites within the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site in Shropshire, England, widely considered as the birthplace of t ...

History

References

Further reading