User:Doughiggins/Mining Engineering Company (MECO)

The Mining Engineering Company (MECO) was a British engineering company whose rescue apparatus, coal conveyors and Meco-Moore Cutter Loader revolutionised safety and productivity in the early mining industry. The company moved to Worcester in 1929 where it expanded its operations before becoming Dowty Meco in 1979. Today the company forms part of Joy Mining Machinery.

Early Years
Founded in 1909 in Sheffield by George Blake Walker, a mining engineer from Tankersley, South Yorkshire whose early training in German collieries c.1870 and later travel to foreign pits in Germany had alerted him to the advances taking place in the field of mining practice. Starting off at works in Arundel street making a variety of rock drills, conveyors (belt and shaker) and mine rescue apparatus, the company soon grew too large for these premises and moved to the more spacious Havelock Works in Morefields, Sheffield in 1912 where it remained for the next 13 years until its move to Worcester.

Shamrock breathing apparatus played a conspicuous part in rescue work at the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster, Britain's worst coal mining disaster where 439 lives were lost.

Move to Worcester
The company moved to worcester in 1925 where the company underwent significant expansion at the Bromyard road site, and developed the Meco-Moore Cutter Loader that resulted in a huge leap in efficiency and safety for the mining industry.



Mine rescue apparatus (1909-1924)
The company's early interest in mine rescue apparatus and its first products were a direct result of Mr Walker's interest in mine safety having previously set up the first dedicated joint mines rescue station in Tankersley, South Yorkshire 7 years earlier where he installed Shamrock oxygen breathing apparatus. The Shamrock breathing apparatus were progressively improved and developed, resulting in the Meco rescue apparatus being used at on May 11th 1910 at the Whitehaven Pit explosion which caused the death of 136 men.

Mining equipment
Up until the end of the 19th century coal was being loaded by hand into tubs at the coal face, trammed by trammers to the pony haulage, where it was transported by pit ponies to the rope haulage which conveyed it to the pit bottom. The introduction of the Meco Compressed Air Shaker Conveyor in 1911, followed by the Meco Double Worm Drive Belt Conveyor in 1912 formed significant advances in terms of cost of labour and led to a large number of devices replacing the previous configuration in the UK and abroad.