Markham & Co.

The Victoria Foundry near Chesterfield, Derbyshire, which was owned and successfully run by father and son partnership John and William Oliver from the mid-1850s until 1862 when, following the death of the father, it became the sole property of son, 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 had to call in the receivers. In 1889 the business was sold to industrialist Charles Paxton Markham and became Markham & Co. Ltd.

History

Mining. Markham's continued the business of building winding machinery for collieries begun by Oliver and supplied many of the collieries in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. So well known were Markham's products that in the ten years from 1927, in what was a time of economic depression, the Markham works built 20 winders 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 their associated machinery for both the home and export markets. Included in this was a 34 feet diameter drum, 7 feet larger than that which made William Oliver move to new premises.

The company had diversified over the years and, again 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 twentieth century, as a departure from mining machinery, 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 the same for the Channel Tunnel.

Company Sold

In 1925 Charles Paxton Markham reconstituted his company as part of the Staveley Coal and Iron Company and so ensuring its future. The following year Charles Paxton Markham died.

Ownership of the company changed again and by 1937 the firm had been bought by by Sheffield-based steel makers and engineers John Brown and Company Ltd, the Chesterfield works continuing operations as before.

References

• Official Company Handbook.