The following notes, which arose out of a query about a railway
locomotive owned by this concern, appeared in issues of "The
Industrial Railway Record" in 1997 and may be of some interest.
[and the locomotive is merely recorded as sold to] the 'Norwegian Titanic
Iron Co' for £710. Despite this rather grandiose title, the Norwegian Iron
Works of the Titanic Iron Ore Company at Stockton-on-Tees was a modest iron
smelting concern which commenced operations in 1870 with one blast furnace
and according to official Government Mineral Statistics Blast Furnace
Returns had two furnaces, both in blast, by 1871. Government Mines
Inspectors' Reports also show the Norwegian Titanic Iron Company operating a
coal/ironstone mine at Neville Hill in Leeds between at least 1873 and 1879,
presumably to provide raw materials for its blast furnace plant. The company
name seems to have presented something of a problem. Early references cite
the Titanic Ore Company, and later ones the Titanic Iron Ore Company. The
final version, the Norwegian Titanic Iron Company, appears to have been used
from 1873. On the balance of what little information we have concerning the
company's Stockton and Leeds operations, ORWELL could have been employed for
shunting at either location.
-oOo-
[of Boulton's locomotives, ORWELL] was sold to the Norwegian Titanic Iron
Company. It is a possibility that this locomotive may have been delivered to
Norway as this British company owned a mine in that country. The Norwegian
Titanic Iron Co Ltd of Leeds opened a mine in 1864 at Sokndal, near Hauge i
Dalane. A railway was constructed from Rekefjord to Blafjell initially
worked by horses, but a steam locomotive arrived to operate it probably in
1873. The line was called the Blafjellbanen, (the 'blue mountain railway').
This is the same line which was referred to as the "Rekefjord Railway" on
page 328 of RECORD 56, and page 156 of RECORD 63. The 1ocomotive was shipped
back to England in 1882. I cannot find which year ORWELL was delivered from
Boulton, but if this was in 1873, then there is a possibility that ORWELL
came to Norway.
[Letter from] LILLEHAMMER, NORWAY : THOR BJERKE
(According to Riden and Owen, in British Blast Furnace Statistics 1790-1980
(Merton Priory Press, 1995) the company's blast furnace plant at Stockton
last worked in 1876, and the company itself was "struck off' in 1882, "not
having traded for many years". Despite this, however, its (ironstone) mining
operations at Leeds merited an entry in Kelly's Directory of the West Riding
of Yorkshire of c1881, with Neville Hill Collieries (sic) on Pontefract Lane
and a town centre office at Albion Place, off Briggate. The Neville Hill
operations are likely to have been located immediately south of the Leeds -
Selby main line, and could well have been served off the network of mineral
lines which were developed here by the Waterloo Main Collieries, the 'main
line' of which ran alongside Pontefract Lane for considerable distances. It
is interesting to note that the Norwegian locomotive was returned to England
in 1882, the year the company legally ceased to exist. Were the company's
assets about to be realised (somewhat belatedly) with a view to paying
creditors and tidying up the books?
> Colleagues in Norway are seeking information on the Norwegian Titanic Iron
> (Ore) Co. This was a company based in Leeds, in the north of England,
which
> ran mines in Norway between 1864 and 1888. The major shareholders were
> Jeremiah Bourne Faviell, Edw. Ackoyd and William Peel. Faviell also owned
> the Neville Hill Colliery, near Leeds.
>
> If members have any information on the iron mining company, Neville Hill
> Colliery, any of the shareholders or details of any project by British
> companies to exploit the Norwegian titanic iron ores, could they please
post
> it to the list, or me, for onward transmission to Norway.
>
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