Kinlet was built by Andrew Barclay in 1896 and was delivered new to Kinlet colliery.
Kinlet colliery was one of a number of coal mines in the Highley area, which have a complicated ownership history. The Highley Mining Company was formed in 1877 and replaced the previous partnerships. By the early 1880s the good quality of the coal, and the proximity to the Severn Valley Railway ensured that the mine was a success, and in June 1885 agreement was reached with the Kinlet Estate of William Lacon Childe to bore for coal.
It was not until 1892 sinking a shaft started to reach the Brooch Seam – a good quality coal seam about 3ft. 9in. thick. Production started in the late 1890s, with the completion of the railway.
There were hopes of finding additional seams, but these never materialised. Much of the seam consisted of basalt, which formed a hard rock mass difficult to cut through and destructive of the colliery screens. Conditions did eventually improve to the north of the shafts, but working Kinlet was never easy. Nevertheless it grew from employing about 150 men at the turn of the century to twice that by the start of the First World War with an output of about 50,000 tons a year.
The colliery was abandoned in September 1937, when the leases on the Kinlet Estate expired. The mine had proved impossible to mechanise, and there were continued problems with basalt having burnt out the coal; ironically, at the time of closure, the workings entered some of the best ground ever encountered at the mine.
The locomotive was sold to H S Pitt & Co at Pensnett near Dudley and moved there in 1938 to work at the coal depot. It worked there until around 1966 when it was replaced by a Rushton diesel. Whilst at Pesnett the locomotive carried the name Peter.
The Lunt, Comley & Pitt group was incorporated in 1946 but its name was changed to London and Cambridge Properties in the 1980s. The origins of the company goes back to 1887 when Lunt Brothers was established.
The Pensnett Trading Estate in Brierley Hill was the largest enclosed business estate in Europe with its own storage and distribution service throughout the Midlands. It had its own fleet of vans, a mechanical handling plant established in 1963, road and rail weighbridges and mobile cranes. Amongst its many concerns was a central coal and coke stocking ground situated on the Pensnett Estate by the subsidiary company L. C. P. Fuels Ltd, formed in the 1960s, to take over the retail trade formerly carried on in the original names that now form part of Lunt, Comley & Pitt Ltd. Their main concern was to supply industrial and domestic solid fuels and had branches in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Kidderminster and Stratford-Upon-Avon. Two acres of concrete were used for the storage of coal and coke with private rail sidings for 20 wagons, a fully mechanised preperation plant and a building containing three coal bagging units with a total capacity for bagging 20 tons of coal an hour. The site enabled 10,000 tons of fuel to be stocked during the summer months, and acted as a reserve for all fuel distribution companies within the Lunt, Comley & Pitt group. It also helped with the stockpiling of coal during the difficult winter months and strikes. It worked in close collaboration with NCB, West Midlands Gas Board, British Rail and the retail fuel distribution trade. The depot played an important part in the distribution of solid fuel for domestic and industrial use. It could handle up to 140,000 tons of fuel a year with a winter peak of 4000 tons weekly. Five trains a week carried up to 500 tons each and a wagon could be emptied in 10-15 minutes. As coal mining itself had ceased in Pensnett in 1932, this holding facility was vital for storing coal mined elsewhere.
The locomotive has been at Bliss Hill, Ironbridge Gorge Museum for a number of years.
Preserved British Steam Locomotives 