Haunchwood Collieries
The Haunchwood Colliery Company was formed in 1881 and
encompassed two pits, both of which were adjacent to the Midland Railway
Nuneaton to Birmingham Line. Haunchwood pit was approximately one mile west
from Nuneaton station, it opened in 1881 and closed in 1914 whilst Tunnel pit
was three quarters of a mile further west adjacent to the Midland Railway's
Haunchwood Tunnel. This pit opened in 1894 and was absorbed into the NCB in
January 1947. These collieries mined fine steam coal which was in demand from
industrial users over a wide area. It also supplied coal to electricity
generators in Birmingham, Northampton and the Metropolitan Railway at Neasden.
The board of directors included a number of the Hickman family who owned steel
works at Bilston in the Midlands.
Robert Ferris
Peter Lee wrote in the Coventry Evening
Telegraph on 16th January 1999 the following article:
Haunchwood (Nowells) Colliery was one of the oldest pit
workings in Warwickshire, and records indicate it was producing coal in 1729.
Throughout its early history there are notes of leases, and by 1801 the
collection of individual pits making up the colliery were reckoned to be
producing between 200 and 300 tons each week. By this time the pit had
developed a railroad of sorts, with waggons hauled by horses down to the wharf
on the Coventry Canal. My first record of ownership goes back to about 1820
when Peter Unger Williams, born in Devon but practising as a lawyer in the City
of London, became coalmaster. How a London lawyer came to be managing a
Warwickshire coal mine I have no idea. Especially one who married Caroline
Brown (nee St Barbe), a lady of some standing.
The St Barbe's were a noble family descended from European
royalty! Nevertheless it was a good marriage, and as owners of Haunchwood
Colliery, brick and tile makers and farmers of 36 acres in Stockingford, they
made their home at Haunchwood House. After the death of Peter in 1837 the pit
was variously managed by his wife Caroline, and his son John McTaggart
Williams. Caroline also managed Charity Colliery in Bedworth, which the family
ran until 1858. After the Williams family relinquished control of Haunchwood
pit its ownership passed to John Nowell in the early 1850s. The Nowells came
from Wednesbury in Staffordshire and they continued to have a connection with
the colliery for the next 70 years. The early horse-drawn railroad was in
service until the Nuneaton to Whitacre Junction branch of the Midland Railway
came into use. A new branch line was laid to the new main line, and it became
known as The Haunchwood Brick and Tile Company's Siding.
The title came about because the colliery shared a track
with the adjacent brickworks. The signal cabin at the junction was known as
Nowell's Siding. There are no records revealing how the new branch worked, but
almost surely the colliery company purchased an old second-hand steam tank
engine from one of the principle railway companies which generally speaking had
plenty of surplus stock around at that time. John Nowell passed the colliery
onto his son William who died in November 1873 at the age of 47. In turn he
left it to his son also known as William. In the 1880s the company, now with
the name John Nowell and Son, failed because of the prevailing climate in
trade. Another Staffordshire man, Sir Alfred Hickman the great coal owner and
industrialist took over, and from that day forward Haunchwood Collieries
Limited made great progress. Another pit was sunk at Stockingford known as the
Tunnel Pit which started to mine coal in 1891.
Certainly from those days the railway to the colliery was
worked by steam engine, and a precious but fragile photo exists of an old long
funnelled steamer outside the loco shed. The trackage is roughly laid and dumb
buffered wagons of a crude type lie around the yard complete, with sprags of
wood which were lobbed under the wheels to stop them from rolling. By the turn
of the century the previous branch line, which had been laid through the brick
stock yard, had become so congested with clayware traffic that a new line had
to be built to the outside of the site. A total of four engines appear to have
worked Nowells Colliery. Details of numbers one and two are sketchy, but we do
know about number three which was built by Hawthorne Leslie in 1901 and sold in
1925 to Measham Collieries on closure of the colliery. And number four, named
Haunchwood, built by Andrew Barclays of Kilmarnock in 1911, was transferred to
Haunchwood Tunnel Pit in 1925.
On July 7, 1925 Nowells Colliery ceased coal winding and
two submersible pumps were fitted down the shafts. These were used to keep the
Tunnel Pit's seams free of water. They were retained until the colliery closed
on March 25, 1967. Coal for these was delivered at first by a trip engine
working down the branch. Then after 1941 heavy goods road vehicles were used.
Between 1925 and 1941 an agreement was reached whereby the adjacent brickworks
engine was used to deliver the wagons of coal. When the brickworks closed all
the track was lifted including the truncated remains of the Nowells Colliery
branch.
Keith Turton writes:
Haunchwood Colliery, which was located between Stockingford
and Nuneaton Abbey Street stations, can trace its beginning to long before
railways had even been thought of, in fact mining on the site may date back to
1732!
The more recent colliery was known as Lowell's from 1852
and was an adjunct to the Haunchwood brickworks and traded for a time as the
Haunchwood Brick and Tile Co. Ltd, the colliery itself almost hidden from view
by the expanse of the brickworks . Judging by the number of chimneys of the
latter, the amount of smoke produced by the colliery would have certainly have
been relegated to second place from the aspect of pollution of the atmosphere.
The colliery was closed in 1914 but the brickworks continued in production
until 1970.
The second Haunchwood colliery, known as Tunnel Colliery,
was named for its proximity to the railway tunnel between Arley and Fillongley
and Stockingford stations on the Stockingford side and was sunk in 1891 to
close in 1970.
From 1852 to `1881 the original colliery and brickworks were
the property of one John Nowell. But from the latter date the ownership was in
the hands of Sir Alfred Hickman, whose Spring Vale Furnaces at Bilston in the
Black Country was one of the largest, if not THE largest industrial plant in
the whole West Midlands complex. Sir Alfred was also the driving force in the
formation of Tarmac Limited and therefore the prime mover in the development of
the bitumen road as it is known today. Apart from Haunchwood, Sir Alfred had a
major interest in the Holly Bank Colliery near Wolverhampton.
Little information can by found about John Howell, except
that he was born in Wednesbury in 1804: in 1871 he is shown as a colliery owner
living at Haunchwood House with two servants. He had apparently passed away
before the 188l census in which he is not listed.
Alfred Hickman was born in 1831, the son of colliery owner
George Hickman and his wife Mary. By the time he was only 20 years old he had
already emerged as an entrepreneur in the form of an iron merchant, living in
Swan Lane, Bilston with new wife Lucy and three month old son Alfred Junior. He
also employed thirty labourers in the iron trade and brickmaking.
At the time of the takeover of the Haunchwood Colliery and
brickworks, Alfred Senior employed over four hundred men at the ironworks, as
well as fourteen servants, five, a stableman and four boys employed in stables
suggesting an interest in horse-related sport. This vast domestic retinue
continued until 1901. Sir Alfred was knighted in 1891, to be followed by a
baronetcy, and was a Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton from 1885-1886 and
1892 -1906. He died in 1910.
The running of the company appears to have passed on to his
son Alfred , born in Bilston in 1851 and who restricted his titles to simply
"ironmaster" and household staff to four. He also inherited his fathers
knighthood and baronetcy He died in 1902, to be succeeded by HIS son,
Alfred.
With the takeover by the Hickman empire, the trading name of
the Haunchwood Brick and Tile Company which included the colliery as part of
the overall enterprise was adopted. By 1923 this was shortened to the
Haunchwood Colliery Co. Ltd.
The reason for the takeover of the Haunchwood Colliery by
Sir Alfred Híckman is unclear. It was some distance (for those days)
from his principal source of business and there were many other working
collieries in close proximity that could have attracted his attention. It can
only be assumed that a particular grade and quality of coal was produced there
which suited the furnaces and other plant of the Spring Vale Iron Works.
The earliest directorate of the company that could be found
was that of 1933, where there is no mention of an Alfred Hickman but four other
Hickmans were directors, Messrs C.E., E., V.E., and W.H. Hickman, along with
Devon resident Captain F.B. Imbert-Terry and A.C. De Poer Trench. The most
informative source of information on any such individual, the U.K. Census, is
in this occasion unhelpful, none can be found listed. To this was later added
Mining Engineer and Barrister H.A. H. Christie K.C., who was also a director of
the Aldridge Colliery Company of Walsall.
Following the takeover by Sir Alfred Hickman, an unusually
large fleet of wagons was acquired. Two hundred each were supplied by Charles
Roberts an the Darlington Wagon Company initially, and the Peterborough works
of Thomas Moy supplied a further 200 in 1905, financed by Sir Alfred Hickman
and numbered 1701 to 1900. It may be that these were mainly used in coal
traffic from the colliery to the Springvale Furnaces, which were served by the
LNWR near Tipton and the Great Western at Bilston. Other markets were
throughout Northamptonshire, London and surrounding areas, the power station of
the Metropolitan Railway at Neasden regularly bought Haunchwood coal, as did
the City of Birmingham for their hospitals; twelve wagon loads a week through
the coal factor Alexander Comley.
No further wagons appear to have been purchased pre-war, but
during that conflict a further 15 numbered 1901-1915 were supplied through the
wartime government emergency wagon building programme. These were all-steel
14-ton slope sided wagons with side and end doors and coincidentally identical
to those built for Stewarts and Lloyds by the wagon builder Charles Roberts. By
this time Stewarts and Lloyds had taken over the Springvale Furnaces. The body
colour of Haunchwood wagons is open to dispute. 'Haunchwood' always appeared in
large shaded letters, but blue, grey, brown, red and black have been reported
and apparently visually recorded.
Shunting and trip working Tunnel and Arley collieries was
carried out mainly by Nuneaton-based ex LNWR 0-8-0 tender locomotives, although
one Saltley turn, Target 84, ventured as far as Nuneaton. Judging by what
information is available, A higher percentage of coal from the length of the
line was worked towards Nuneaton instead of Whitacre Junction, whereas the
proximity of Hams Hall power station and Birmingham markets would suggest
otherwise,. This is based on 1955-6 rosters, which do not include through train
working.
Locomotives seen at Haunchwood Colliery
Haunchwood Colliery Wagon
Ordnance Survey Maps of Haunchwood Colliery
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