OUT of the ashes of the devastating 1873 fire at the flour mill on The Island, just one year later, owner John Tayler built a new and larger premises extending to attach to his residence.
But Tayler went a step further and in 1889, he modernised it by installing electricity in the factory instead of using gas for illumination; he also extended the wiring to his residence. Quoting the Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, “[t]his being the first time the new illuminant has been put into the house of any gentleman in the district – if not the entire county…” Every room in the mill was lit with Swan-Edison incandescent lamps of 16-candle power, and in the home, for example, the dining room contained no less than 11 lamps totalling 176 candle power.
To understand just how new this technology was, we look at the timeline of electricity advancement within the UK:
• In 1881, the first public electricity generator in Britain was installed in Godalming, Surrey.
• Also that year, Dr John Hopkinson patented his three-wire system of direct current distribution.
• By 1892, there was a “war of the currents” between direct (DC) and alternating (AC) current. AC won because it could step up and step down the current using transformers.
• In 1900, Acts of Parliament granted rights to power companies, which in turn enabled councils to build small power stations that were predominantly coal-fired and eventually connected to each other. Starting in 1926, this is how a national “grid” started and was largely completed by 1935.
Locally, Melksham town was following in step. In 1928, WESCO Ltd on Bath Road announced that “hundreds of householders are enjoying the benefits of using electric light by rental wiring.” By 1940, Melksham had become one of the few towns in Wiltshire to have its streets lit by electricity. West Wilts Electric Supply Company’s tender for £452 16s 3d in 1937 was approved by Melksham Urban District Council to erect about 170 new lamps and maintain them for a period of ten years.
In 1953, the British Electricity Authority proposed that pylons 135 feet high would carry electricity from Hams Hall power station to Melksham as part of the national grid system. In 1954, a derelict site for the installation of Melksham’s sub-station was agreed for Daniel’s Wood in Beanacre.
