The
Midlands Electricity Board was formed under the
Electricity Act 1947 of that year. The counterpart of the
East Midlands board, it served southern, and western parts of
Warwickshire, as well as the counties of
Worcestershire,
Herefordshire,
Shropshire, and
Staffordshire, as well as most of
Gloucestershire, the
West Midlands conurbation and northern
Oxfordshire. The key people on the board were: Chairman G. S. Buckingham (1964, 1967), deputy chairman R. Mallet (1967), full-time members R. Mallet (1964) R. Cook and H. A. P. Caddell (1967). As with the EMEB, it kept a network of showrooms across its area, to allow customers to pay bills, and order many types of electrical goods. The
MEB,
Southern Electric and
Eastern Electricity merged their showrooms, forming the
Powerhouse store chain in the early 1990s. The total number of customers supplied by the board was: The amount of electricity, in GWh, sold by Midlands Electricity Board was: before being purchased by Powergen in 2004, becoming
Central Networks, part of
E.ON. The company was then sold in 2011 to American utilities company
PPL who owns the UK distribution company
Western Power Distribution, who were already operating in the license area of the previous company
SWEB (South West) and
Infralec (Wales), and rebranded the Midlands areas
WPD West Midlands PLC and
WPD East Midlands PLC (previously
EMEB). In 2021, PPL placed Western Power Distribution up for sale, being purchased by National Grid, who as of 21 September 2022 has rebranded the WPD business as National Grid. The distribution business is internally known as National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) to differentiate from National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET).
Existing electricity suppliers taken over at nationalisation The
Electricity (Allocation of Undertakings to Area Boards) Order 1948 (
SI 1948/484) transferred the electricity business of the following local authorities and private companies to the new board effective 31 March 1948.
Local authorities •
Birmingham Corporation • Cannock Urban District Council • Cheltenham Corporation • Gloucester Corporation • Leek Urban District Council • Lichfield Corporation • Malvern Urban District Council •
Newcastle-under-Lyme Corporation •
North West Midlands Joint Electricity Authority • Stafford Corporation •
Stoke-on-Trent Corporation • Stone Urban District Council • Sutton Coldfield Corporation • Walsall Corporation • Warmley Rural District Council • West Bromwich Corporation •
West Midlands Joint Electricity Authority • Wolverhampton Corporation • Worcester Corporation
Private companies • Chasetown and District Electricity Company •
Market Drayton Electric Light and Power Company •
Midland Electric Corporation for Power Distribution •
Shropshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire Electric Power Company • Stroud Electric Supply Company • Thornbury and District Electricity Company • West Gloucestershire Power Company ==See also==