Burnett and hallamshire group

[Manxdeedah]

I remember Burnett and Hallamshire wagons well as I was a lorry driver myself in those days. Found this picture of one of their Albion Reivers but they ran older stuff than this I well remember................

 

 

 

 

 

In 1960-63 I was in the RAF stationed in Norfolk and used to hitch hike there and back at weekends. I was walking to Gleadless Townend for a bus to town one sunday night and I'm almost sure it was a B and H AEC Marshal that came down White Lane and stopped for me. The driver lived on Herdings estate and was going to RAF Marham with a load of fuel,about 10 miles from RAF Feltwell where I was stationed. Rayt lift. lol

[madsteve7]

Burnett & Hallamshire was formed in 1953, through the merger of the Burnett Bros & Hallamshire Coal Company.

 

In the mid 60's E.A Stevensons joined the group with their bulk tippers.

 

By then, the Solid Fuel Distribution, part of the business was based at the Nunnery Sidings Depot, off Bernard Road.

 

Their was a substantial plant, using conveyors and hoppers to load vehicles. Also their was a spur from the mainline for coal by rail, with their own Shunter, to move the empty wagons. Demurrage was always, a factor.

 

With the expansion of Road Building in the 50's and 60's a lot of opencast coal pockets were struck, (in-fact most of Sheffield has Coal underneath it), so they set up "Northern Strip Mining" (NSM). When the Sheffield Parkway was being built they were paid to remove the Coal, as it's unsuitable for building on, and then they sold it to the CEGB.

 

When Sheffield City Council passed the Clean Air Act, the senior management saw the writing on the wall. From 1968 on wards they were looking to sell the Coal Distribution Business.

 

In 1970, it was sold to "Amalgamated Anthracite Holdings" (AAH Group) for half a million, (£11.3 Million in today's money) They traded as B&H for about 18 months until, the full merger with AAH's Coal Distribution Business to form, "British Fuel Company".

 

In the early 1980's with the cost of the rates, increase in rail-freight costs, and the increase in the size of the load the trucks could carry, it was decided to pull down the plant.

 

At the same time a deal was struck with the National Coal Boards, National Fuel Distributors, to transfer over the domestic & retail business and concentrate on Wholesale and Industrial.

 

Then came the strike in which lots of money was made. The only exception on the coal that could be supplied to Sheffield City Council's school's was nothing from South Africa.

 

In 1989/1990, the AAH Group, sold British Fuel to Redland PLC, the Irish Aggregates company. One of AAH's side products was making "Coal Tar Bandages", but this was more profitable and they became a major medical/pharmaceutical supplier.

 

Redlands, coal business, was called Cawoods, and the combined merged group was called British Fuels Ltd.

 

A management buyout of the Company then came about, and the Bulk Haulage business, E.A Stevenson's became a division of AAH Groups, K&M Hauliers of Nottingham.

 

That lasted about 12 months, as the drivers wages were put up, so the running costs went up. With Stevenson's no-longer being apart of us our Bulk Work, from the pits or the Docks, we could put out to tender in the marketplace for haulage contractors. Stevenson's, price was often 50p a tonne more, than their competitors, Barnsley Pool (Furness's of High Green, Colin Vaines, Campbelljohn, E. Wright, Majestic, Mappin's of Chapeltown) M.J. Snow of Doncaster, Butterfield of Wakefield, C&D Gill's of Doncaster, and A.Hymas of Harrogate.

 

1991, the sidings were compulsory purchased for the SuperTram Depot, and we moved temporally into W.Maw's yard in Rotherham.

 

The lorries remained in Sheffield at the Securi-Park off Chatham Street, I went to the office at Smithywood House, just off Archer Road, and my dad Jack Morrell, was sent out on loan, to the bagging plant at Boughton, then Maw's yard when they started giving priority to their work, and finally off to Goole, to work on an import project.

 

Part of the Management buyout deal was that British Coal, would have to buy us within 3 years or pay a £45 Million penalty. In effect we were meant to become British Coals retail business.

 

But the privatisation of the Energy companies changed all that.

 

The need to fit Sulphur scrubbers to their Coal fired powerstations to burn deep mined British Coal (It causes Acid Rain), made them switch to Gas.

 

(£70 Million for a gas plant that can react almost instantaneously to requirements or £500 Million on a Coal Plant, plus having to keep at least half a million tonnes of coal on stock, and a staff of 50 versus 500?)

 

We were running out of money saw the Sheffield office closed, and work switched to Nottingham, and the council contact just could not be done, without a yard in or near Sheffield, and the final straw was the loss of the British Tissues contract at Oughtibridge, (by the Industrial manager who was just trying to get to his pension) the money ran out and were made redundant.

 

It was a shock to my Dad, who had been with the company since leaving school at 15, in 1955.

 

Dad was picked up by the company on the docks M&M Lewis for about another 12 months until that project was complete.

 

I never saw any of them again except for, Edwin the Mechanic for Stevenson's, who died as result of a fall while on the drug Warfarin, and Jeff the M.O.T. tester who was at Vaux Tyres until he retired.

 

What remained of the business was picked up by NFD, and is now called CPL (Coal Products Limited) based in Chesterfield, at the old Avenue Coking plant site, at Wingerworth.

 

NSM went abroad for open casting operations in the late 80's, and they bought a swamp! Which was start of their problems.

 

The ITN newsreader Sir Alastair Burnett was related to the family in someway.

[bullerboY]

Good history that thank you,i was interested because i believe NSM bought Henry Matthews and Sons on Cricket Inn Road.