Hawkins Colliery

Hawkins Colliery was also known as Cannock Old Coppice Colliery and commenced working c1840. Joseph Hawkins took on the lease in 1869 and the colliery remained under the control of the Hawkins family until nationalisation in 1947. The company also opearted a brick and tile works with adjacent clay pit at Longhouse, adjacent to the Wyrley and Essington Canal. By the 1920s Henry Hawkins was advertising a wide range of products from the Longhouse Brick & Tile Works, Cannock. About 7 million bricks were made annually using clay mixed with mining spoil. The works continued in Hawkins' ownership after the colliery was nationalised and remains in production today under the Eternit name.