Manchester Collieries

Manchester Collieries was a coal mining company with headquarters in Walkden formed from a group of independent companies operating on the Manchester Coalfield in 1929. The Mining Industry Act of 1926 attempted to stem the post-war decline in coal mining and encourage independent companies to merge in order to modernise and better survive the economic conditions of the day. Robert Burrows of the Atherton company Fletcher Burrows proposed a merger of several independent companies operating to the west of Manchester. The merger was agreed and took place in March 1929.

The constituent companies of Manchester Collieries in 1929 were Fletcher, Burrows and Company who owned the Howe Bridge, Gibfield and Chanters Collieries in Atherton, Andrew Knowles and Sons, the Clifton and Kersley Coal Company, John Speakman and Sons owners of Bedford Colliery in Leigh, Bridgewater Collieries who operated pits in Little Hulton, Walkden and Mosley Common and the Astley and Tyldesley Collieries Company who had pits in Astley and Tyldesley.

Not all the companies in the area joined the new company. The Tyldesley Coal Company remained independent until nationalisation in 1947 but other companies were acquired in the 1930s after the government introduced quotas in the Coal Mines Act 1930. Ramsden's Shakerley Collieries was taken over in 1935; its Wellington Pit closed the same year and the Nelson three years later. Bradford Colliery, in Bradford, Manchester, owned by a subsidiary of Fine Cotton Spinners, was acquired in 1935. The West Leigh Colliery Company and the Coppull Coal Company were bought before 1939.

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