Bedworth Charity Colliery (1830-1924)

Bedworth Charity, later simply Charity, Colliery was at Collycroft in Warwickshire.

It was sunk on land owned by the Rev. Nicholas Chamberlaine Charity in Bedworth in 1830, a time of depression in the silk trade, to provide work for local ribbon weavers.

It worked the: Two Yard, Ryder, Slate, Seven Feet seams, and closed on September 13th 1924.

The income from leasing the colliery allowed the charity to build a school and almshouses in the town.

The owners were:-

George Barker, from Ingleton in North Yorkshire, was the manager between 1876 and 1886.

There was also a Bedworth Colliery in South Africa’s New Vaal coalfield, which was discovered by George William Stow in 1879. Stow was born at Nuneaton, about 4 kms north of Bedworth Charity Colliery, in 1822. He studied medicine, but at the age of 21 he abandoned the profession without having received a diploma and migrated to South Africa, landing at Port Elizabeth in 1843.