Electricity Junction Box on Fitzwilliam Street

Fitzwilliam Street, Huddersfield, HD1 5AY

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Overview

An electricity junction box of 1895, manufactured in cast-iron by GW Tomlinson of Huddersfield, for the control of electrical supply to surrounding buildings. Consumer electricity had arrived in Huddersfield in 1892. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1488372
Date first listed:: 06-Nov-2024
List Entry Name:: Electricity Junction Box on Fitzwilliam Street
Statutory Address:: Fitzwilliam Street, Huddersfield, HD1 5AY

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1488372
Date first listed:: 06-Nov-2024
List Entry Name:: Electricity Junction Box on Fitzwilliam Street
Location Description:
Statutory Address 1:: Fitzwilliam Street, Huddersfield, HD1 5AY

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Fitzwilliam Street, Huddersfield, HD1 5AY

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Kirklees (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SE1436917094

Summary

An electricity junction box/feeder pillar of 1895, manufactured in cast-iron by GW Tomlinson of Huddersfield.

Reasons for Designation

The electricity junction box on Fitzwilliam Street in Huddersfield, an electrical feeder pillar of 1895, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest: *     it illustrates the development of electricity into a mass-consumed utility, and the importance accorded to its infrastructure in the early years;

*     as an increasingly rare survival of a relic from the first age of electricity.

Architectural interest: *     for its well-detailed, customised design, surviving with relatively little alteration.

History

Consumer electricity arrived in Huddersfield in 1892, with the construction of a generating station at St Andrew’s Road (the borough had appointed AB Mountain as its electrical engineer in December 1891). 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 1895 at the Huddersfield foundry of GW Tomlinson, whose tender for supplying the boxes was approved by the corporation’s Electric Lighting Committee in June that year. Permission had earlier been granted for extending the electricity mains to Fitzwilliam Street. The Electricity Department’s showroom in the Imperial Arcade on New Street was opened in August 1895.

Details

An electricity junction box/feeder pillar of 1895, manufactured by GW Tomlinson of Huddersfield.

MATERIALS: cast-iron.

DESCRIPTION: standing at the north end of Huddersfield’s historic commercial core.

The box is very similar in appearance to examples by the Worcester foundry of Hardy and Padmore. The longer sides of the box face north and south. It stands around four feet high and has sides of 18 inches by 12 inches. It has a low pyramidal cap with castellated edges above a moulded cornice, supported at each corner by a small corbel. The north side has a door with two decorative strap hinges at the right-hand side, and three panels defined by raised edges with concave angles that host small, raised points. The central panel has a raised-edged roundel inscribed in relief, HUDDERSFIELD/ CORPORATION (top and bottom) and ELECTRICITY/ DEPARTMENT (centre).

The east side has a single tall panel with moulded edges. At the left, the hinge pintels of a south door are visible. The south and west sides are obscured by the adjacent stone walls.

Sources

Other
‘Death of Huddersfield’s First Electrical Engineer’: obituary of AB Mountain, Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner, 27 October 1934
Huddersfield Corporation Electric Lighting Committee minutes, 5 June 1895
Membership records of Institution of Electrical Engineers, approval of full membership of AB Mountain, 13 Jan 1898
Public notice for opening of Electricity Supply Department showroom, Huddersfield Daily Chronicle, 10 August 1895
Request for tenders to supply cast-iron junction boxes to the corporation, Huddersfield Chronicle, 25 May 1895

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.