The Main Offices, Alstom, Lichfield Road, Stafford

Description:During the ownership of Siemens, English Electric Co., GEC and Alstom this building was known as Main Offices.

These offices and the adjacent factory were built for Siemens Brothers and ready for use by 1903. The building was extended (on the left of the picture) around 1947 and again in the late 1950s.

Over the years various Company Departments occupied the building. The first floor contained a suite of Executive offices, a Board Room and Chairman’s Office, there was also a Pensions Office and Head Office Accounts. For several years a large part of the ground floor was occupied by the Computer Services Division which eventually relocated to their own building at the Hollies, Newport Road, Stafford. After the Computer Services moved out the office space was used by Shipping, Heavy Transport and the Site Services. The second floor was occupied by the Site telephone exchange.

The Main Offices were demolished during January 2006 as part of the Site redevelopment and replaced by the Hough Retail Shopping Park.

Siemens Brothers purchased the land in 1901 and built the factory and offices which were ready to start production in 1903. In 1918 Siemens merged with several companies, including Dick, Kerr and Co., to become the English Electric Co. Two years later in 1920, The English Electric Co bought the Stafford Works. The English Electric Co merged with GEC (The General Electric Company) during 1968 and the Lichfield Road Site became part of GEC Power Engineering Ltd. On 22 March 1989 became part of GEC ALSTHOM, an Anglo French Joint Venture. On 22 June 1998 became part of ALSTOM with global HQ in Paris and finally on 2 November 2015 the Stafford Grid and Power Businesses became part of GE (General Electric, an American Company).

On a neighbouring site the Transformer Works remains and is still operational (April 2024) as part of the GE (General Electric) group.