Frome Museum

Frome Museum is due to reopen on Tuesday 29th June 2021. Our first exhibition will be looking at the Cockey family from the 18th Century onwards. A truly fascinating exhibition of local history, it will highlight the immense contribution that the Cockey family have made to Frome and surrounding areas. Find out too about their connections with the United States and Australia.

The Cockey name has been prominent in Frome history since 1682. The family were influential in clock-making, bell-casting, as iron founders and agricultural engineers.

Lewis Cockey was an active member of the town and a church warden but it was his eldest son Edward who formed Edward Cockey and Sons in 1819 when their main business was focussed on an ambitious range of iron and brass castings including street furniture, bollards, drain covers and parts for the newly invented street gas lighting. This diversified into gas production, purifiers, gas holders, scrubbers and condensers, enabling Cockey to produce and supply gas lighting to Frome as early as the 1830s. The family quickly became proficient in gas engineering and safety and by 1851 employed 76 people.

The beloved streetlamps that are unique to Frome today and referred to as 'Our Cockey Lamps' were created with the advent of electricity in 1904 when the existing gas lamp standards were converted and adapted with JW Singer & Sons' Art Nouveau leaf designs.

Also in 1904 10 Arc Lamps were erected on Portway, Badcox, Bath Street and North Parade. Little is known about the design or the fate of these lamps – if anyone has any photographs or information please contact the Museum.