RHODESIA AND THE SHIREOAKS COLLIERY COMPANY
As the colliery developed and there was a need for further investment, the Duke of Newcastle came to the conclusion that a fully constituted company ought to take over the reins in order to spread the risk and help raise capital. Therefore on the 1st April 1864 the Duke of Newcastle relinquished control of the colliery, under lease to the newly constituted “Shireoaks Colliery Company Ltd”. The nominal capital of the company was £100,000, divided into 200 shares of £500 each. The vast majority of shares were held by only 9 individuals - a relatively small number of shareholders, but not uncommon at the time. It is unlikely that they ever visited the colliery:-
The new company was progressive, keen to expand and increase production. By 1865 the colliery had its own gas works, providing lighting for the surface workshops and the first miners’ houses in Shireoaks village indeed, the company’s pit villages were supplied with electricity from the pit until the 1950s. The small iron foundry, which pre-dated the colliery, was absorbed and it is interesting to note that the foundry originally had its own ironstone mine, adjacent to the colliery. At the end of the same year, the colliery, including equipment, stock and stores was valued at £111,714. In the same year the company made a profit of £5,243 on its sales.
During the 1870s the colliery became virtually self sufficient with further improvements to the iron and brass foundry, which supplied most of the company’s fabrication needs. New maintenance workshops, carpentry workshops and wagon works were also installed. The colliery manufactured railway wagons, at a rate of one per week. Whilst most were used by the company, in a distinctive livery of bright red, bearing the legend “Shireoaks” in white and black lettering, a surplus was also produced for sale to other companies. The first miners’ houses were built from bricks made in the colliery brickyard – good quality clay was readily available. The company also owned several stone quarries, including one at Lady Lea, the site of the original borehole and grazing land for the underground pit ponies and the shire horses which were used on the surface.
By 1871 the work force had increased to over six hundred, now including a number of qualified engineers and skilled craftsmen such as blacksmiths and carpenters. These men raised an average of 180,000 tons of coal a year. Indeed by 1873 the pit had produced a total of three million tons – a remarkable feat for the time and by a relatively young colliery. At the time, Mr Tylden-Wright described the colliery and its equipment as “the best machinery in the world”
