Wainwright's was a thriving Flushdyke business supplying batteries for domestic radios in the pre-TV and pre-mains electricity era of the 1930s and 1940s. Radios were powered from large batteries and since there was no mains electricity, the batteries had to be changed every two or three weeks and returned to the shop for re-charging where they had a generator. Radios were a popular form of entertainment before television came on the scene in the 1950s and although mains electricity was becoming available in parts of Ossett, many houses in Flushdyke did not yet have electricity.

The shop also sold bicycles and gramophones as well as dealing in all the various ancillary items, Eventually, the Wainwrights moved away to live in Blackpool in the late 1950s and a man called Swift bought the premises, which he turned it into a garage and paint spraying shop. At the left hand side of the premises was Arthur Mitchell's house. To the rear of Wainwrights was Ossett Town's football field, allotments and in the distance Lodge Hill Farm.