The Clifton and Kersley Coal Company or Clifton and Kearsley Coal Company was a coal mining company that operated in Clifton

Clifton, Greater Manchester

Clifton is a small town within the metropolitan borough of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies in the Irwell Valley in the northern part of the City of Salford....

 and Kearsley

Kearsley

Kearsley is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, in Greater Manchester, England. Historically within Lancashire, it lies about 7½ miles northwest of Manchester,5.5 miles south-west of Bury, and about 3¾ miles south of Bolton.It is bounded on the west by Walkden, the east by...

 in the Irwell Valley

Irwell Valley

The Irwell Valley extends from the Forest of Rossendale in North West England, through to the cities of Salford and Manchester. The River Irwell runs through the valley, along with the River Croal.-Geology:...

, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. Its collieries exploited the coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 mines (seams) of the middle coal measures

Coal Measures

The Coal Measures is a lithostratigraphical term for the coal-bearing part of the Upper Carboniferous System. It represents the remains of fluvio-deltaic sediment, and consists mainly of clastic rocks interstratified with the beds of coal...

 in the Manchester Coalfield

Manchester Coalfield

The Manchester Coalfield is part of the South East Lancashire Coalfield. Its coal seams were laid down in the Carboniferous period and some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages and extensively from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th...

. The company which took over collieries owned by the Fletchers was started by Edward and Alfred Pilkington in 1867.

The company owned Newtown and Wet Earth Collieries

Wet Earth Colliery

The Wet Earth Colliery has a unique place in British coal mining history, apart from being one of the earliest pits in the country; it is the place where the engineer James Brindley made water run uphill...

 in Clifton, Outwood Colliery in Outwood and Little Hey. Manor, Scowcrofts and Spindle Point Collieries in Kearsley. Astley Green Colliery

Astley Green Colliery

Astley Green Colliery was a coal mine in Astley, Greater Manchester, then in the historic county of Lancashire, England. Sinking commenced in 1908 by the Pilkington Colliery Company, a subsidiary of the Clifton and Kersley Coal Company, at the southern edge of the Manchester Coalfield, working the...

 in Astley

Astley, Greater Manchester

Astley is a settlement within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England, variously described as a suburb or a village. Astley lies on flat land to the northwest of the city of Manchester, and is crossed by the Bridgewater Canal and the A580 "East Lancashire Road"...

 opened in 1912. In 1896 it employed 2,729 workers, 2,146 of them underground while in 1923 it employed 4,300 workers, nearly 2,000 of them at its newest colliery Astley Green. In 1929 the company became part of Manchester Collieries

Manchester Collieries

Manchester Collieries was a coal mining company formed in 1929 with headquarters at Walkdenfrom a group of independent companies operating on the Manchester Coalfield. The Mining Industry Act of 1926 attempted to stem the post-war decline in coal mining and encourage independent companies to merge...

.