Newton, Chambers and Co. Ltd

The Thorncliffe company near Chapeltown, formed in December 1792 by George Newton and Thomas Chambers with backing from the London tea merchant Miles Maskew. It began casting at the Phoenix Foundry in Sheffield in March 1793, took a lease of coal and ironstone at Thorncliffe from Earl Fitzwilliam the following December, and blew its first furnace on 27 April 1795. Over more than a hundred and seventy years it grew from ironworks into engineering, collieries and chemicals made from its own coking by-products, and by the mid-1940s worked four pits — Rockingham, Thorncliffe, Smithy Wood and Grange — producing a million tons a year between them. Its collieries were nationalised in 1947 and its iron business closed in the 1970s; Ronseal, Trianco and NCK cranes descend from it.

Mines operated

Record created: 11 September 2026 · Last researched: 11 September 2026