The Bolsover Colliery Company was a major mining concern established to extract coal from land owned by the Duke of Portland. At its peak the business was a constituent of the FT 30 index of leading companies on the London Stock Exchange.
History
The company was founded in 1889 by Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge, a Northumberland born mine owner, who secured a lease from the Duke of Portland for land at Bolsover in Derbyshire and started shaft sinking to reach the coal in 1891. The general manager of the company at this time was John Plowright Houfton, who was knighted for his work for the local community in 1929.[1]
Bainbridge secured the rights to mine coal at Creswell in 1894 and shaft sinking for Creswell Colliery began under the direction of J. P. Houfton in September that year. Coal was reached at 450 yards and production began in 1897. The colliery had two shafts and access to between three and four square miles of coal reserves. By 1901 the colliery was producing 2700 to 3000 tons of coal daily and in the July, 3001 tons was delivered to the surface in one day, a world record for coal production at the time. A model village was built to accommodate some of the workforce.[2]