page_title: Clay Cross Company
section_title: George and Robert Stephenson 1837–1852
hierarchical_section_title: Clay Cross Company / George and Robert Stephenson 1837–1852
caption_attribution_description: English: Clay Cross Co. brick
context_page_description: The Clay Cross Company was founded as George Stephenson and Co. in 1837 by the railway pioneer, George Stephenson. The company established coal mines, ironworks, brickworks and pipe factories at Clay Cross near Chesterfield. The company was closed in 1998.
context_section_description: In 1837 George Stephenson discovered both coal and iron reserves while digging a tunnel through Clay Cross Hill, for the North Midland Railway's line between Derby and Leeds. Stephenson moved into Tapton Hall, near Chesterfield, and in 1837 he established George Stephenson and Company. The Clay Cross Tunnel is just over a mile long and was completed in 1839. Clay Cross Coal and Iron Works were started by George and his son Robert Stephenson, with backing from Lord Wolverton, George Hudson, Sir Joshua Walmsley, Sir Morton Peto, Sir William Jackson and others. The company built a colliery and coke ovens at Clay Cross, which were opened in 1840.
  At the time Clay Cross was a small village, but production of coal and minerals created a surge in the population. Nearly 400 houses were built for the workers (tunnel navvies initially and then miners) and their families, and by 1846 the population around Clay Cross approached 1500. The company made their own bricks for the houses and industrial buildings. The initial brickworks was at the factory site but a new brickworks with large kilns near the railway station could produce five million bricks per year. By 1850 there were three chapels, a church and a new school.
  After George Stephenson died in 1848, Robert (now a Member of Parliament) took charge of the company. The company's four coal pits were struggling to remain profitable following a drop in the price of coal. Robert had a dispute with the other large shareholders about a contract with London and North Western Railway (LNWR) to supply coal to London (one tenth of all the coal reaching London was from Clay Cross). Robert sold his shares in the company in 1852, from when it became the Clay Cross Company.
caption: Brick from the Clay Cross Company's brickworks
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ28", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:12 18:54:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "652", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1278", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6235", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:11:12 14:26:49", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:11:12 14:26:49", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Cloudy weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "24/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2056", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1152", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "30", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard"}