page_title: Compagnie des mines de Béthune
section_title: Expansion 1859–1914
hierarchical_section_title: Compagnie des mines de Béthune / Corporate history / Expansion 1859–1914
caption_attribution_description: "M. Plichon, ministre des Travaux publics"
context_page_description: The Compagnie des mines de Béthune, sometimes called the sometimes called the Compagnie de Grenay after the name of the concession, was a French coal mining company in the Pas-de-Calais that was established in 1851 and nationalized in 1946.
  The company had 11 mines, each with one or more shafts for extraction of coal or ventilation.
  It had a large facility for screening and washing raw coal, and for producing coke and other secondary products.
  During World War I the front line crossed the mining concession, with the northern part occupied by the Germans, but despite constant shelling production of coal continued.
  Coke production peaked at 565,195 tons in 1928.
  The company had two thermal electricity plants, and operated 159 kilometres of railway tracks.
  At its peak the company was one of the largest coal mining operations in the region, with 12,640 employees in 1945.
context_section_description: The company decided to connect their mines by rail to the waterways and to the projected new railways.
  In December 1859 a decree allowed the company to build a railway from Bully to Violaines.
  Decrees of 29 August 1863 and 8 March 1865 authorized the Mines de Béthune to extend their railway network to Béthune and Lille.
  A limited company named the Compagnie du Chemin de fer de Lille à Béthune et à Bully-Grenay was formed on 11 May 1865 to operate the railway.
  Additional mines were sunk between 1859 and 1909 in Vermelles, Loos-en-Gohelle, Mazingarbe, Auchy-les-Mines, Annequin, Sains-en-Gohelle and Grenay.
  Coal was typically reached at a depth of 135 to 150 metres (443 to 492 ft).
  The coal had increasingly volatile content ranging from 9.5% in the north to 34-38% in the south.
  Charles Ignace Plichon (1814–88) was Deputy of Nord and Minister of Public Works in 1870.
  He was the son-in-law of Alexis Boitelle, an administrator of the Company, and became an administrator himself.
  He was president of the administrative council from 1873 to 1883, when he resigned, apparently due to a conflict with Bouitelle.
  The company faced many difficulties during his term of office, and had only moderate growth, since neither Plichon nor Boitelle had technical training.
  Louis Mercier (1856–1927) was made director-general of the Mines de Béthune in 1877 and became a member of the Comité des forges in 1878.
  With the appointment of Mercier, helped by an improvement in the economic situation, the mines became more prosperous.
  After a survey of the Aix-Noulette region, the original concession was increased to an area of 6,352 hectares (15,700 acres) by an act of 1877.
  An 1881 encyclopedia entry described the concession as covering 5,761 hectares in the Pas-de-Calais, with 6 or 7 mines.
  It produced 231,711 tons in 1870, 220,519 tons in 1871, 200,817 tons in 1872, 253,124 tons in 1873 and 279,526 tons in 1874.
  Coal production steadily increased, interrupted only by World War I (1914-18) and the 1932 economic crisis.
  Ignace Plichon's son Jean Plichon (1863–1936) graduated as an engineer from the École Centrale.
  Jean Plichon  became a mining engineer at the Mines de Béthune in 1886.
  When his father died in 1888 he replaced his father in the General Council of Nord, and the next year was elected Deputy on a monarchist platform.
  He also succeeded his father as an administrator of the company.
  He became one of the leading industrialists of northern France, president of the Béthune, Blanzy and Sainte-Thérèse mining companies, and a member of a dozen or more boards of directors.
caption: Charles Ignace Plichon, President from 1873 to 1883
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