Alloa Coal Company

The partners obtained a lease to mine coal and ironstone on the lands of the Earl of Mar in Clackmannanshire.

In the 1840s, Alloa coal was exported to Canada by the Ben Line in which Mitchell was a partner; the ships returned with Canadian timber.

The partnership was later managed by William Mitchell's sons Andrew and Alexander and had pits in Clackmannanshire, Stirlingshire, Fife and Perthshire.

Bannockburn Colliery at Cowie (Stirlingshire) [8] lay outside the Company's Clackmannanshire roots, and was formerly owned by Carron Company (ironworkers), presumably for assuring a supply of coking coal for their cupolas at Carron Works near Falkirk, although the mine also produced house coal and steam coal.

Before the advent of the railways, coal was transported from various of the Clackmannanshire mines to the Port and Glassworks in Alloa by the Wagon Way.