Coal Mining Fenton
Mining in the Fenton’s can be traced from the end of the 17th century. There was then coal-working in Fenton Culvert, possibly in the Pool Dole area. By the beginning of the 18th century there were mines on the Wood farm in Fenton Vivian; their exploitation, apparently confined to the 18th century, was largely the work of the Broade family who acquired a share in them in 1725. By 1728 several small coal and ironstone mines were being worked on the adjoining Fenton Park estate. It is possibly because of these workings that the village along the main road to the south was known as Lane Delph by the later 18th century. There were also several pits at Fenton Low in the north-western part of the area by the second half of the century. New ventures appeared throughout the first three-quarters of the 19th century, encouraged by the needs of the pottery and iron industries, and already c. 1840 John Ward could note that 'the coal and ironstone mines in the Fenton’s are extensively wrought'. The mineral line which had been built by 1832 from the wharf on the Trent and Mersey Canal south of Whieldon's Grove to Longton ran through the Fenton’s and was linked with several of the collieries there by branch lines. The only collieries now in operation in Fenton are the Glebe and Stafford Collieries, opened in the 1860's and 1870's respectively. The Stafford Colliery lies to the south-west in the open country near Sideway, but the Glebe Colliery dominates the centre of Fenton with its tips.
The mines on the Fenton Park estate are known to have been worked for 150 years from 1728 by the owners and their tenants. During the early part of this period it was probably the Fenton’s, then the owners of the estate, who were working there, with eighteen small coal and ironstone mines in operation by 1728. Mining rights on the estate, including Yew Tree farm, had been let to Jeremiah Smith of Great Fenton by the second half of the century and in 1790 were leased to the Fenton Park Company; this consisted mainly of potters, including Josiah Spode and John Harrison. A 30-year lease was granted to a similar group, including Spode, Wolfe and Minton, in 1813. The Fenton Park Colliery was evidently the most notable in Fenton c. 1840 when Ward singled it out for special mention; he also described it as situated 'on and about a commanding eminence, once the pure and peaceful domicile of their [the owners'] ancestry but now the black and noisy seat of Cyclopean labours'. William Taylor Copeland was an important member in the company at this time. There were then eleven pits in operation, employing about 250 men. An advertisement of 1850 offering the lease of the coal and ironstone mines under the Fenton Park estate specified the area as 197 acres, consisting of The Patches, Yew Tree, and Fenton Park farms. Various companies continued to run the colliery; including one of the early 1870's formed by Lawrence Armitsted, and shortly afterwards it was being operated jointly with a neighbouring colliery known as the Victoria. Work had ceased at this new colliery by 1877, and the Fenton Park Colliery itself was closed about two years later. The Broadfield Colliery to the south, in existence by 1832 and closed in the mid-1860's, was evidently worked in conjunction with the Fenton Park Colliery for part at least of this period.
In 1695 Richard Nicholls of Fenton Culvert leased several coal mines to William James of Ashbourne for 99 years. These mines included one in the Ash seam under closes of land in Fenton Culvert called Doles Meadow, the Dolesbank, and the Doles as well as mines on the Woodhouse estate in Longton. James's executors conveyed this lease to Obadiah Lane of Normacot Grange in 1703, and in 1713 Lane's son and heir Nathaniel of Longton Hall entered into partnership with Stephen Wood of the Ash to work all the mines specified in the lease. Lane conveyed, or mortgaged, his share of the mines to Francis Parrott of Talke and John Bourne of Newcastle in 1720, and Parrott assigned his interest to Bourne four years later. This activity was presumably in the Pool Dole area in Fenton where there was mining in the last decade of the 18th century. A Pool Dole Colliery was being worked by William Hulse between the early 1850's and at least the late 1860's. In 1877 Goddard and Sons were mining coal and ironstone there, but the colliery was evidently closed soon afterwards.
John Smith of Golden Hill, Fenton, granted a 22year lease of mines on Golden Hill and Fieldswood farms in Fenton to Josiah Spode in 1802 and he was himself, mining in the area in 1818. The pits were evidently in the hands of William Hanbury Sparrow between the late 1820's and mid-1850's. The Goddards, who subsequently took over the rest of Sparrow's mines in Fenton (see below), were working the Golden Hill Colliery from 1854 until at least 1872 but had suspended operations there by 1877. The Calfcroft Colliery to the south-west of the Golden Hill Colliery in the mid-1870 may have been run in conjunction with it.
The Oldfield Colliery was run by William Hanbury Sparrow probably from c. 1826 when he opened the nearby Lane End Ironworks. By 1868 the colliery had passed with the ironworks to the Goddards and by the early 1880's was evidently in the hands of Balfour and Company. By 1889 it was being run by the Lane End Works Ltd., and part of it was closed two years later. It passed subsequently to the Oldfield Colliery Company who, though they were employing 285 men below ground there and 63 above in1896 closed it in September of that year.
By 1841 Ralph Handley, an iron-master, had a colliery in Duke Street which was known as the Railway Colliery by 1857. It was in the hands of his executors in 1862 and evidently ceased to operate about this time.
Of the two Fenton collieries now in existence, the Glebe had been opened by John Challinor and Company by 1868 and remained in their hands until the end of the century when it passed to John Heath and Company. By this time operations were expanding rapidly: 119 men were employed below ground there and 62 above in 1895, 174 and 87 in 1896, and 209 and 94 in 1902. (fn. 514) In 1957 400 were employed below ground and 130 above. The Stafford Colliery and Ironworks at Great Fenton was opened about the mid-1870's by the Great Fenton Iron and Coal Company (later the Stafford Coal and Iron Company), largely the creation of the Duke of Sutherland and Messrs. Pender, Charles Homer, and John Bourne, all four of whom were commemorated in the names of the pits at the colliery. There were three pits in operation by 1884, with a fourth being sunk, and five pits by 1891; by 1902 these were employing 1,383 men below ground and 309 above. The three pits in operation in 1957 employed 900 men below ground and 310 above. The Sutherland Pit (3,318 feet) is said to be the deepest in the country and there are still deeper seams below the present workings.
From: 'Fenton', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 8 (1963),