The Elkington Silver Electroplating Works was a building on

Newhall Street Newhall Street is a street located in Birmingham, England. Newhall Street stretches from Colmore Row in the city centre by St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham, St Phillip's Cathedral in a north-westerly direction towards the Jewellery Quarter. ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, England. It later housed the Birmingham science museum Museum of Science and Industry until the creation of Thinktank. Standing opposite the

Birmingham Assay Office The Birmingham Assay Office, one of the four assay offices in the United Kingdom, is located in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. The development of a silver industry in 18th century Birmingham was hampered by the legal requirement that items ...

, the original 19th century silver electroplating factory of George Elkington, built in 1838, once occupied a much longer, grandiose building on Newhall Street which was largely demolished in the mid-1960s. The works had many workshops and warehouses along and over the

Birmingham and Fazeley Canal The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal is a canal of the Birmingham Canal Navigations in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. Its purpose was to provide a link between the Coventry Canal and Birmingham and thereby connect Birmingham ...

and the now filled-in Whitmore's Arm (or Miss Colmore's Arm) canal, which ran through the site. In the early 1850s there was a steam-powered electric generator with 64

permanent magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, c ...

s arranged in a circle and a rotating

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

armature. The

electroplating Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the redox, reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct current, direct electric cur ...

process involved solutions of cyanide of silver and

potassium cyanide Potassium cyanide is a compound with the formula KCN. It is a colorless salt, similar in appearance to sugar, that is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include ...

. The building carries two

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

s on its wall, one to George Elkington, and another to his employee

Alexander Parkes Alexander Parkes (29 December 1813 29 June 1890) was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic. Biography The son of a manufacturer of brass locks, Parkes was apprenticed to Messen ...

who is credited with inventing the first

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...

Museum of Science and Industry

The site hosted the science museum of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery from 1951 until its closure in 1997. Many exhibits were then moved to Thinktank, which later opened as an entrance-fee-based exhibition in Millennium Point in Eastside, in September 2001. Among the famous exhibits to move in the relocation was the 1797 Smethwick Engine, produced by famous local industrialist

James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was f ...

. It had originally been located in the town of

Smethwick Smethwick () is an industrial town in the Sandwell district, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before bei ...

, before being relocated to the Birmingham Canal Navigation Workshops at Ocker HillThis gave the engine its alternative name of the 'Ocker Hill Engine' (actually some 10 miles away to a town named

Tipton Tipton is an industrial town in the metropolitan borough of Sandwell, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It had a population of 38,777 at the 2011 UK Census. It is located northwest of Birmingham and southeas ...

) in 1897. However, it came to the museum in 1959 on the closure of the workshops. Also moved to the new museum was Elkington's own

Woolrich Electrical Generator The Woolrich Electrical Generator, now in Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum, England, is the earliest electrical generator used in an industrial process. Built in February 1844 at the Magneto Works of Thomas Prime and Son, Birmingham, to a de ...

, made in 1844, the earliest electrical generator used in an industrial process.Birmingham Museums trust catalogue, accession number: 1889S00044

Future development

Birmingham City Council Birmingham City Council is the local authority for the city of Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. Birmingham has had an elected local authority since 1838, which has been reformed several times. Since 1974 the council has been a metropo ...

put up the site, which runs along Newhall Street and Charlotte Street, and adjoins the

, for long lease and redevelopment. The development was awarded to St Bernard's Property in 2002. Planning permission was granted in 2006 for the Jewellery Box – a mixed use leisure, commercial and residential development with 234 apartments. This was under construction in 2008, and further apartments were added over the car park in 2019. The

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

ornate

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

Queen's Arms pub adjoins the site, which is within the

Jewellery Quarter The Jewellery Quarter is an area of central Birmingham, England, in the north-western area of Birmingham City Centre, with a population of 19,000 in a area. The Jewellery Quarter is Europe's largest concentration of businesses involved in the ...

Conservation Area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

Notes

References

Sources

*''The Birmingham Jewellery Quarter – An Architectural Survey of the Manufactories'', John Cattell, Sheila Ely, Barry Jones, English Heritage, 2002,
Birmingham City Council on the former Science MuseumBCC Redevelopment Brief 2002, PDF 983Kb

External links

Birmingham City Council – Conservation Areas (Jewellery Quarter)Campaign to get an industrial museum for Birmingham
{{Coord, 52, 29, 0.92, N, 1, 54, 22.79, W, type:landmark, display=title Buildings and structures in Birmingham, West Midlands Defunct museums in England Museums in Birmingham, West Midlands Demolished manufacturing buildings and structures Demolished buildings and structures in the West Midlands (county) Industry in Birmingham, West Midlands