The Sheffield Coal Company was a colliery owning and coal selling company with its head office situated in South Street,

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

Formation

The Sheffield Coal Company was one of the oldest colliery companies in Sheffield being founded on 28 February 1805 to lease from the Duke of Norfolk and work coal pits in the Park area of the city. This lease expired in 1820 and the company was re-formed five years later. The Houndsfield-Wilson Coal Company, owners of pits in Birley Vale merged with three individuals, with previous Sheffield Coal Company connections, named Bartholomew, Jeffcock and Dunn to form the new company and were later joined by John Jeffcock and William Littlewood from High Hazels, Darnall and John and Edwin Sorby of Attercliffe but with colliery interests at Dore House, near Orgreave. The company worked below land of the

Duke of Norfolk Duke of Norfolk is a title in the peerage of England. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk is Arundel Castle in Sussex, although the title refers to the county of Norfolk. The current duke is Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk. The dukes ...

's estates and continued this until 1866 when they leased a large tract in the area of Woodhouse, Hackenthorpe and Beighton, at that time outside the Sheffield boundary, from the

Earl Manvers Earl Manvers was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1806 for Charles Medows Pierrepont, 1st Viscount Newark. He had already been created Baron Pierrepont, of Holme Pierrepont in the County of Nottingham, and Viscoun ...

. In 1900 three of the S.C.C. directors took option leases on the new coalfield around Dinnington in order to develop and increase their available reserves. New sales offices were opened in London (following the completion of the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

's line to the capital) and Bournemouth (which could also be reached, via Woodford Halse, from the London line). In 1937 the United Steel Companies, which had coal mining interests at Orgreave and Treeton, made an offer for the Sheffield Coal Company of which the directors recommended acceptance, the deal being finalised on 24 June.

Nationalisation and the end

The collieries of the Sheffield Coal Company, by that time owned by United Steel Companies, became part of the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...

on nationalisation, but the company name, which had continued to exist under United Steel's ownership continued, along with others which became part of the NCB, until being finally wound up in 1961.

Collieries

From their agreement with the Earl of Manvers the company sunk Birley West Colliery on a site in the Shirebrook Valley between Woodhouse and Hackenthorpe and began extracting coal by 1852. Within ten years plans were put forward to acquire more land and sink a new shaft. It was not until Spring 1887 that work commenced on the new shaft but the following year the part completed colliery gained the name Birley East Colliery (collectively these pits were referred to as Birley Collieries). Although a small amount of coal was being cut from the new colliery, brought to the surface at Birley West, it was not until 1890 when a new winding engine was installed that it fully came on stream. Later expansion came with mining rights being obtained from the Duke of Norfolk to mine below Handsworth Common. William Dunn Gainsford is listed as owner between 1877 until his death in 1926. Sunk in 1844 by the Staveley Iron Company,

North Staveley Colliery Aston Colliery was a small coal mine sunk on Aston Common, within Rotherham Rural District but six miles east of Sheffield in the 1840s. In 1864 its workings were taken over and developed by the North Staveley Colliery Company, part of the Stavel ...

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, England. Located immediately to the north-east of Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a ward within the metropolitan authority. It is approximately 1.5 miles from Birmingham City Centre. History Aston wa ...

came under the SCC umbrella in the latter part of the 19th century. The colliery was situated to the north of, and set back from the later

Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) was formed in 1847 when the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway joined with authorised but unbuilt railway companies, forming a proposed network from Manchester to Grimsb ...

line between Woodhouse and Kiveton. The last colliery to be opened by the Sheffield Coal Company was

Brookhouse Colliery Brookhouse Colliery was a coal mine within the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. It was operational between 1929 and 1985. To develop coal seams in the area, the Sheffield Coal Company opened a new colliery between S ...

which drew its first coal in 1929. Situated between Swallownest and Beighton it was adjacent to the main line of the

about a mile east of Woodhouse Junction. The site also housed

coke ovens Coke is a grey, hard, and porous coal-based fuel with a high carbon content and few impurities, made by heating coal or oil in the absence of air—a destructive distillation process. It is an important industrial product, used mainly in iron ...

supplying metallurgical coke to the iron and steel industry. The Site of the former

is now part of the

Rother Valley Country Park The Rother Valley Country Park is a country park in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, close to Rotherham's border with Sheffield and Derbyshire. It covers 3 square kilometres (740 acres), has four artificial lakes, recre ...

and

Gulliver's Valley Gulliver's Valley is a theme park and resort located in Rotherham, England. Construction began in 2018 at a planned cost of £37 million. The first phase, costing £7.5 million, was due to open in spring 2020 but the opening was de ...

theme park. The site now falls in Rotherham Borough Councils area for planning.

References

* Barnett, A.L., "Railways of the South Yorkshire Coalfield from 1880", R.C.T.S., 1984. * Papers of the Sheffield Coal Company * Various issues of company newspapers. {{Sheffield companies, state=collapsed Coal companies of England Companies established in 1805 Energy companies established in 1805 Defunct companies based in Sheffield Mining in South Yorkshire 1805 establishments in England