Electricity Junction Box, Tib Street

Summary

An electricity junction box of the early C20, manufactured in cast-iron by Hardy and Padmore of Worcester.

Reasons for Designation

The electricity junction box at Tib Street, Manchester, an electricity junction box of the early C20 by Hardy and Padmore of Worcester, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* as an increasingly rare survival of a relic from the first age of electricity;
* illustrating the development of electricity into a mass-consumed utility, and the regard that was accorded to its infrastructure in the early years of the C20.

Architectural interest:

* for its well-detailed, customised design by a world-renowned company, surviving with relatively little alteration.

History

Consumer electricity arrived in Manchester in 1893 and by 1920 the number of consumers was around 20,000. Distribution and supply infrastructure was needed to transfer current from where it was generated to its point of use. The junction box, or feeder pillar, was designed to control the electrical supply to a number of buildings in the surrounding area. This example was produced in the early C20 at the Worcester foundry of Hardy and Padmore.

Feeder pillars like these are first shown (marked as small open rectangles noted as El P, for electricity post or pillar) on the 1:1,250 Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1948, in small numbers (around 50 in the city centre), mostly on major streets. Three pillars were marked within around 100m, in the north-west corner of Piccadilly Gardens. The example on the corner of Oldham Street and Piccadilly appears square in plan rather than rectangular. The latest map showing the pillars is the 1:2,500 OS map of 1965. However, no example is marked in this exact location on these maps. This example is therefore thought to have been moved here after 1965, probably from the Oldham Street junction.

This pillar is square in plan, unlike other examples listed to date (2023). Two similar square pillars bearing the Manchester coat of arms are known to survive in Gatley (now Stockport, but previously part of Manchester), where they were installed probably between the wars, on newly laid-out streets. Neither street had tram tracks, confirming that this square type was used for consumer supply.

The Scotsmen Robert and John Hardy set up their foundry in Worcester in 1814. Richard Padmore joined the partnership in 1829. The foundry was an important English supplier of goods worldwide including lamp posts, tram wire supports and poles, bollards, thresholds and manhole covers. A number of their products are listed including several gas lamps, and other Manchester examples of feeder pillars in Library Walk, Lincoln Square and Castlefield. The company went into voluntary liquidation in 1967.

Details

An electricity junction box of the early C20, manufactured by Hardy and Padmore of Worcester.

MATERIALS: cast-iron.

DESCRIPTION: standing close to the junction of Tib Street with Market Street at the heart of Manchester’s commercial core, in the Smithfield Conservation Area.

The box stands around four feet high and 12 inches square and has a low pyramidal cap with castellated edges above a moulded cornice, supported at each corner by an inward-scrolled corbel. Each of the north and south sides is a door with a moulded surround, two decorative strap hinges at the right-hand side, and a Jacobean-style geometric strapwork relief design in the centre. Each of the east and west sides has moulded surround and a relief plaque featuring the crest of the City of Manchester. The east side however is largely obscured by an adjacent associated modern feeder pillar.

Sources

Books and journals
Frost, R, Electricity in Manchester: Commemorating a century of electricity supply in the city, 1893-1993, (1993)

Websites
Information on Hardy & Padmore from Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History, accessed 31/01/23 from https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Hardy_and_Padmore
Information on Hardy & Padmore from local history website, accessed 31/01/23 from https://www.worcesterpeopleandplaces.org.uk/news/383/144/Hardy-and-Padmore-the-Worcester-Foundary.html

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