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Birmingham Lighting Department

Vivienne14

Kentish Brummie Moderator
Staff member
I thought lighting was the responsibility of the Electric Boards. First time I’ve heard of the public service of Birmingham Lighting Department. This one refers to a Spring Lane Erdington Depot. Viv.

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Surely street lighting and traffic signals has always been the responsibility of the appropriate highways authority, which in the case of Birmingham would be the city council? This will still be the case although the actual work may be contracted out.
Amey Plc is (was) the contractor for Birmingham, though expected to be replaced by April 2020. (I think the yellow band found on city street furniture indicates that Amey have recorded it on the asset register).
 
The city council had many departments that looked after various aspects of the council’s assets, a few I recall are:

The lighting department as said, looked after street lighting, gas and electric. It also organised the paint of lighting columns

The Public Works department looked after the maintenance of public loos etc

The Education Department maintained the schools

The Engineers department looked after the council house, libraries and law courts.

The hosing department – social housing stock

The highways department

The refuge department

There was also of course gas, electricity, water and sewage sections too.
 
The city council had many departments that looked after various aspects of the council’s assets, a few I recall are:

The lighting department as said, looked after street lighting, gas and electric. It also organised the paint of lighting columns

The Public Works department looked after the maintenance of public loos etc

The Education Department maintained the schools

The Engineers department looked after the council house, libraries and law courts.

The hosing department – social housing stock

The highways department

The refuge department

There was also of course gas, electricity, water and sewage sections too.

City of Birmingham PWD back in the 50's/60's looked after clearing the streets of snow, sweeping the streets of litter, unblocking of street drains and possibly much more than the upkeep of loos
 
Seems like a lot of departments, a octopus perhaps, how much duplication of resources ?.
How many mid - managers too many ?.
How many times have we looked at three guys and only one digging the hole then one other in the shelter making a cuppa.
Back to light poles
 
Seems like a lot of departments, a octopus perhaps, how much duplication of resources ?.
How many mid - managers too many ?.
How many times have we looked at three guys and only one digging the hole then one other in the shelter making a cuppa.
Back to light poles

Bob think what you will about the amount of managers/ departments , but I'll guarantee in those days jobs ran on time if HS2 was quoted at £55 billion it would have gone through at that none of these escalations we are hearing about nowadays
 
Bob
But now all the managers are being paid exorbitant salaries, care little for the city and care only for profits made for their, often overseas owners, many of which are , if not completely noncompliant and incompetent, then intent only on doing as little as possible for the maximum income
 
Reading through the comments re. Birmingham Lighting Dept. reminded me that I have a map dated August 1889 showing the area in the City to be lit by the Birmingham Electric Supply Company Ltd.
With ref. to who was/is responsible for st lighting, certainly when I worked for Midlands Electricity Board and the subsequent Companies following privatisation, we were responsible for putting in the electric service and the local Council were responsible for maintaining the actual column. As pointed out the work of maintaining the lighting system has gradually been contracted out.
 

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I thought lighting was the responsibility of the Electric Boards. First time I’ve heard of the public service of Birmingham Lighting Department. This one refers to a Spring Lane Erdington Depot. Viv.

View attachment 137719
My grandad worked for the Birmingham lighting in the late 50s he used to have to go round Perry Common at lighting up time to replace any gas mantles that had failed
 
I thought lighting was the responsibility of the Electric Boards. First time I’ve heard of the public service of Birmingham Lighting Department. This one refers to a Spring Lane Erdington Depot. Viv.

View attachment 137719
Just to say that in the 1970/80"s all Hackney's (Black cabs ) were taken to the old Public Lighting Depot building in Cambridge Street, for their annual fitness to work inspection fora licence to operate as taxi in Birmingham Tom
 
I have just downloaded a 1921 census record for my Grandfather and it shows his employer as The Birmingham Electric Supply Co. His occupation was recorded as "Ash Hand". Does anyone know anything about the company and what that job might have been? He was previously a tram conductor
 
A dustman was sometimes referred to as an Ashman.

Also could refer to cooling the ash produced by the Company from the coal used, and moving it to storage area ?
 
I have just downloaded a 1921 census record for my Grandfather and it shows his employer as The Birmingham Electric Supply Co. His occupation was recorded as "Ash Hand". Does anyone know anything about the company and what that job might have been? He was previously a tram conductor
Off the top of my head, Birmingham had a number of small local electricity generating stations known as The Birmingham Electric Supply Co. This is before the time of the big power stations like Salford Bridge and Hams Hall etc. There was one on Mary Street Balsall Heath, and I recall a few others scattered around Birmingham.

Electricity is generated with either steam turbines or steam engines driving alternators or dynamos. These generating sets required a set of coal fired boilers and a significant amount of labour of various skills from engineers to labourers to operate the site.

Firing the boulders alone needed a team of people, a stokers was a trade within itself. These utility companies wanted to squeeze every ounce of energy out of the coal. The Dank’s boiler company of Netherton had an apprentice scheme. There would be a Forman engine driver and mates, a Forman stoker, stokers and a team of labourers and ash hands.

The ash hand would clear away the burnt ash and also clean out all of the firing tubes and flues and help undertake general maintenance work in the boiler room. A normal set up for electricity generation and water supply would be six boilers, three or four in use, one of standby and one being maintained.

The team below are a typical waterworks engine and boilers team who worked three shifts 24/7 with seven people in the team. We know that Harry Pragnal was a stoker who learned his trade in the navy and Harry Felton was possibly an ash hand.

Hope this help as its quite nice to know what our ancestors did for a living. People quite often identify themselves by the work they did so knowing about this will often help your understanding of the past.Sanfields Staff 1936.JPG
 
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