Building Name

Jubilee Fountain Market Place Oldham

Date
1888
Street
Market Place
District/Town
Oldham
County/Country
GMCA, England
Client
Oldham Industrial Co-operative Society
Work
New build
Contractor
James and Samuel Smethurst

A large ornamental drinking fountain, illuminated with lamps, was presented by the Oldham Industrial Co-operative Society to the town in January 1888. It commemorated the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Cost £250. It was situated in the old Market Place and replaced a smaller fountain which the society had given to the town almost thirty years earlier in 1859. The fountain was unveiled by the society's president, Frank Hardern who emphasised the extraordinary growth of the Co-operative movement in the town and, no doubt with some of the town's businessmen in mind, indicated the society recognised that its duties went further than simply looking after its own members. It was Robert Ashcroft, the society's solicitor, who read the deed formally transferring ownership of the fountain to the borough. The fountain was later removed from the Market Place and, as had happened with the earlier fountain, it was re-sited outside the entrance to Alexandra Park. It remained there at least until the 1950's, after which it appears to have removed and lost. [There is a photograph in Oldham Local Studies]