Billingsley Furnace

Billingsley furnace (SO 717840) was the only coke-fueled blast furnace in the Wyre Forest Coalfield. It had a short life at the start of the 19th Century.

Billingsley Furnace

The story of Billingsley furnace is tied up with the development of coal mines in Billingsley at the end of the 18th Century. In 1794 a consortium of Newcastle business men lead by George Johnson, a noted colliery engineer, took out a lease on the coal under the estate of Sir William Pulteney, M.P. for Shrewsbury, in Billingsley. The partners opened mines and constructed a horse-operated plateway, following the line of the Borle Brook from their works to the River Seven.

Unfortunately the mines soon experienced financial difficulties and so in 1800 George Johnson and his brother-in-law, Henry Grey MacNab, reached an agreement with Messrs Pemberton & Stokes, ironmasters of Oldswinford for the latter to construct two blast furnaces at Billingsley. In return for generous terms on coal and ironstone, Pemberton & Stokes agreed to provide a loan to Johnson & Co. Although Pemberton & Stokes started work on the furnaces, they soon fell out with Johnson & Co., and the loan was never paid. There were two additional blows. Firstly, George Johnson died whilst visiting the works at Billingsley to negotiate with Pemberton & Stokes. Secondly, some months later, MacNab fled to France, taking with him the books of the partnership and thereby explaining at least one reason as to why the mine had been losing money. With debts in excess of £10,000 the creditors moved in to take control of the company.

In 1802 the mines were sold by public auction to William Hazeldine, ironmaster of Shrewsbury and Bersham. Hazeldine was acting simply as an agent for a consortium made up of Thomas Rigby, former manager for Lord Stafford at his Lilleshall coal works, John Morris, a lawyer and Thomas Leek, a landowner. A fourth member of the consortium dropped out almost as soon as Hazeldine had made the purchase. Hazeldine paid the deposit on the purchase, and then handed matters over to Morris, Rigby and Leek. Unfortunately, problems soon emerged with the titles to the various leases; Pulteney was only entitled to the lands at Billingsley for his life and he was an old man. Pemberton & Stokes refused to honour the agreements they had made with the previous leasees. It was not until 1805 that Rigby, Morris and Leek finally completed the sale and full production could begin again. By this time there Samuel Pemberton was dead and the furnace was run simply by George, Benjamin and Thomas Stokes. By 1810 George was the sole partner and he purchased the mines at Billingsley from Rigby, Morris and Leake, as well as entering into a partnership with John Read, another iron-master and mine owner from Dudley. Stokes held an impressive empire which included mines at Dudley and Sedgley, a rolling mill at Kinver, a forge at Eardington and a palatial house with grounds at Oldswinford, as well as much property in Kinver. The completion of the blast furnace at Billingsley completed the integration of his iron working interests. All this expansion came about on the back of an iron trade worked into a frenzy by the demands of the Napoleonic Wars. Unfortunately, the next year brought a slump in the industry, and Stokes and Read both went bankrupt in mid-1812. Stokes's debts were estimated at £38,000. How long the works at Billingsley continued is unclear; probably the blast furnace closed immediately. It failed to sell as a going concern in 1814, and was then dismantled and sold as parts in 1817.

The various sales of the Billingsley works, with other sources, allow a picture to be built up of the furnace. There was a 52" cylinder-blowing engine with two boilers, 640 tons of calcined iron, bar and round iron, and five tons of horseshoe moulds. The ironstone was 20" to 28" thick