A hundred years ago, Kettlewell’s postmaster had a brilliant idea. Percy Inman had a vision – to harness the beck running through the village and turn it into electricity. Reporter Lesley Tate looks back on what happened.

Kettlewelll, then consisting of 77 houses and around 300 residents, used oil and acetylene gas to power lights and machinery.

It was several miles to the nearest railway station, there was no public telephone and the village was connected to to the outside world by just a single telegraph wire.

By all accounts, the villagers were perfectly happy with their lot, but postmaster Percy Inman had long considered the idea of hydro electricity – which at the time was being taken up in villages and towns across the country.

When in August, 1913, Kettlewell turned on its lights at a ceremony attended by just about everyone in the community, it became the smallest village in the country to have electricity.

The Craven Herald called the use of water power a “remarkable achievement”.

Over the previous two years, great advancements had been made in the utilisation of water power both for the lighting and machinery and many towns and villages in the North Riding were going straight from candles and oil to electricity.

This was due to the abundance of small streams in the Dales, reported the Herald in March, 1913. Many schemes were in their infancy, but Grassington and Askrigg already had theirs up and running.

In Grassington, a dynamo from the River Wharfe supplied villagers with electric light and was so successful, it had been extended to Threshfield. It was used for street lights, for the church, chapels, private houses and shops.

It was also used to power machinery, circular saws and even organ blowing.

Kettlewell was considered the ideal village for the utilisation of water power.

The village at one time had been known for its lead mines and had a population of 600, but with the mines closed down, the population had dwindled to around half. It was now known as a health resort with many visitors in August and September coming for the bracing air.

Postmaster and secretary of the scheme, Mr Inman managed to convince enough wealthy businessmen with connections to the village to get on board and the Kettlewell Electricity Supply Company Ltd was formed.

Also on board was the village schoolmaster, Mr WL Carradice; a joiner, Mr J Raw, and Mr J Coates, a farmer – all with an interest in working for the benefit of the village.

It was on December 13, 1912, that the company was officially formed – with a capital of £625 in £1 shares.

Contractor for the work was awarded to a Mr J Banks, an electrician of Keighley Road, Skipton, and work began on January 1, 1913.

The turbine was provided by Gilkes and Co of Kendal; the dynamo by Horace Green and Co of Cononley; and the switchboard by the Midland Electrical Co. The contractor responsible for the weir, piers and power house was Mr Calvert, of Kettlewell.

The plant was built at the bottom of a garden sloping down to Kettlewell Beck, a little to the east of the village.

It consisted of a Turgo turbine of ten horse power and a dynamo of six kilowatts at 230 volts, which was capable of 515 revolutions per minute.

A weir, built of concrete, 1ft 9ins thick, was laid into the rock at the bottom of the stream, and from there, a pipeline with a 21ft drop, led to the powerhouse.

The powerhouse itself was a ‘neatly built stone structure’ with concrete foundations.

Electricity from the powerhouse was distributed through the village via four miles of aerial cables.

It was worthy of note, reported the Herald at the time, that the cabling in no way interfered with the amenities of the village.

The cabling ran from chimney to chimney and only one pole from the company was needed.

It was estimated that power from the beck was enough to supply 400 lights, and by June, 1913, 60 premises in the village were connected up.

At the grand opening, in June, 1913, most of the village turned out for the occasion.

Mr Ottiwell Robinson, chairman of the new company, congratulated the village for its enthusiasm towards the project and he hoped those who had taken up a supply would not be disappointed.

The parish council had not taken up electric light, but Mr Robinson pointed out the company would supply the council, at “very reasonable terms”.

There was much laughter amongst the crowd, reported the paper, when Mr Robinson made a joke about the company not wanting to “make brass”.

“They could not press the parish council to take a supply for public lighting purposes in as much as they were shareholders and someone might have turned round and said ‘those chaps are after making brass’,” reported the Herald.

“But the promoters of the scheme could assure the villagers that if they desired the light for public purposes the company would, if they had the current, be glad to supply the council on the most reasonable of terms.”

He added it was very novel that Kettlewell, six miles from a railway station, without a public telephone and connected only by a single telegraph wire, now had electric light.

Following the speeches, the day was then given over to festivities. The children ran races in the streets and afterwards sat down to tea with the adults.

A dinner was provided for the directors and a few invited guests at the Racehorses Hotel, where it was predicted that a company dividend of five per cent would be paid in the first year.

It was also announced that no directors’ or secretary’s fees would be paid in the first year.

Around 200 attended an evening dance in the Mechanics Institute, paid for by the company directors.

As the sun went down, reported the Herald, the new light shone out from many windows, while the village maypole looked ‘strangely modern’ with a circle of electric globes around the top.

“It was a memorable day and one which the Dalesfolk will cherish the happiest recollections,” reported the Herald.

Water power continued in the village until the 1950s with the arrival of the National Grid.

Eighteen months ago, the efforts of the old company’s modern equivalent, Kettlewell Hydro Electric Light Ltd (HELL), came to nothing when it tried to re- establish hydro electricity in the village.

The group, including the vicar, the Reverend Peter Yorkstone, had spent the previous year monitoring river levels on a daily basis.

The group’s aim was to resurrecting a dam in the same place and size of the original one.

But in July 2011, the group was told by the Environment Agency that the dam in the beck could not be reinstated because of flood risks.