Markham & Co.
| Industry | Heavy Engineering |
|---|---|
| Fate | Taken over |
| Successor | Davy Markham |
| Founded | 1889 (as Markham & Co.) |
| Defunct | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Chesterfield |
| Products | Coal winder, Valves, Tunneling M/c |
| Parent | John Brown, Kvaerner |
Markham & Co. was an ironworks and steelworks company near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England.
The Victoria Foundry near Chesterfield, Derbyshire was owned and run by William Oliver and his father John Oliver from the mid-1850s until 1862 when, following the death of the father, it became the sole property of William. The Victoria Foundry, located at what was formerly Shepley's Yard, relocated to a greenfield site at Broad Oaks Meadows, south east of the town centre close by the Midland Railway’s main line. Disaster hit the business in 1885, a slump in the coal and iron trades and the high overheads of the new factory and equipment undermined the firm and the following year Oliver called in the receivers. In 1889 the business was sold to industrialist Charles Paxton Markham and became Markham & Co. Ltd.
Mining. Markham's continued the business of building winding engines for collieries begun by Oliver and supplied many collieries in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. So well known were Markham's products that in the ten years from 1927, in a time of economic depression, the Markham works built 20 winding engines for gold mines in South Africa, giving the Chesterfield workforce regular work in a difficult period.
By 1948 the company had built more than 200 steam and electric winding engines and associated machinery for the home and export markets including a mine winder with a 34 feet diameter drum, 7 feet larger than the ones which made William Oliver move to new premises.
The company diversified over the years and in 1948 the Broad Oaks works were making haulage gears, rolling mills and ancillary equipment, steel girders, large steel-framed buildings, light alloy extrusion presses, spun cast iron plant, blast furnace plant, large iron castings and research equipment in addition to its involvement in turbine and tunnelling operations.
Tunnelling. In the early years of the 20th century the company built and supplied tunnelling equipment for the construction of London's new (deep tunnel) Underground, the Mersey Tunnel and during the 1930s the Moscow Underground. The tunnelling equipment was a success and more orders followed, post-war productions included tunnelling shields for the Dartford Tunnel under the River Thames and in the 1980s for the Channel Tunnel.
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