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 HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LONDON WATER SUPPLY, 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 CREATION OF MAN 
 
 TO 
 
 A.D. 1884. 
 
 BY 
 
 ADAM GLADSTONE. 
 
 FRIGE SIXPENCE. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 1884.
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LONDON WATER SUPPLY, 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 CREATION OF MAN TO A.D. 1884. 
 
 The geographical position of London and the geolo- 
 gical formation of its soil demonstrate conclusively 
 that long anterior to the date of the creation of man 
 there was a good water supply in London. 
 
 How early in the history of the human race the 
 descendants of our first parents came to London is 
 not known. The authentic history of this great 
 Metropolis is comparatively modern, and I must not 
 indulge that secret and perhaps unconscious desire of 
 flattering the propensity in human nature to venerate 
 antiquity, which has prompted many not only to 
 preserve what is good rather than fly to what is new 
 and untried, but to indulge in the most absurd inven- 
 tions for the sake of assigning a very early period to 
 the establishment of London as a centre of British 
 polity, industry, and local self-government. Thus 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth, as he is called, a monk who 
 wrote in the twelfth century, ascribes, on the authority
 
 of an ancient j^riti^li manuscript by Walter, Arch- 
 deacon of RliYclycen (Oxford), and written about the 
 fourth centur}' . the foundation of the City of London 
 to Brute, a descendant of ^Eneas, who migrated to 
 this countr}^, according to his relation, about half a 
 century after the destruction of Troy ; and he reckons 
 from him seventy kings who reigned successively 
 before the arrival of Julius Cassar. 
 
 There are men avIio deny to London so ancient a 
 history, and ignore altogether traditions of a date 
 anterior to tlie in^'cntion of letters ; but there are 
 manv others erreat and ^^-ood, includin<T Lord Coke 
 and Bisho}) Gibson, the editor of Camden s Britannia, 
 who favour these ancient legends. 
 
 It is sufficient for my purpose to j^oii^t out that 
 neither in the legendary nor the authentic history of 
 our Metr.opolis does there appear ever to have been a 
 time before the arrival of Julius C^sar when the 
 inhabitants found a scarcity of water. 
 
 It is quite true that when Caesar came to Britain 
 our Britisli forefathers were not probably large con- 
 sumers of water, either for domestic or sanitary pur- 
 poses, but every man had what he required. As 
 there were no liouses, there were no cisterns, no 
 fittings, and no water rates. Csesar says a British 
 town was no more than a " thick wood fortified by a 
 ditch and a mound." The ditch served the double 
 purpose which in our times is served by our rivers 
 and streams ; for notwithstanding the boasted advance- 
 ment of the race during twenty centuries, the local 
 sanitary authorities are still the great enemies of those 
 who supply water, because, for economical reasons, 

 
 3 
 
 they liave converted the pure aqueducts which Nature 
 has provided into carriers for filth. 
 
 At that early period, Caesar tells us, our British 
 forefathers were but half- clothed, and that with skins 
 of beasts. They dwelt in huts built of hurdles and 
 mud, which were the only kind of liabitation they 
 w^ere capable of rearing. 
 
 What an amount of history can be written on a 
 single page, if it is only sufficiently condensed ! 
 
 From the time when the ancient British water- 
 carrier dipped his pail of reeds into the ditch near his 
 hut to obtain his daily supply of water to this year 
 of grace 1884, there has been one long battle between 
 those whose desire is to secure a wholesome supply 
 of water and those who pollute the natural sources of 
 such supply. If there had been a Royal Commission 
 of Ancient Britons, they would have used similar 
 language regarding tlie pollution of their ditches as 
 the Royal Commission now sitting has just used 
 regarding the pollution of the Thames and the Metro- 
 politan Board of Works, the gTeat sewage authority 
 of London. The Commission find that " the dis- 
 charo^e of sewage in its crude state during the whole 
 year, without any attempt to render it less off'ensive 
 by separating the sohd or otherwise, is at variance 
 with the original intention and with the understand- 
 ing in Parliament when the Act of 1858 was passed." 
 " The discharge from the main outfalls becomes very 
 widely distributed by the motions of the water, 
 both up and down the river, being traced in dry 
 seasons through the Metropohs, and almost as high 
 as Tedclington." . ;. ;
 
 If the crude sewage of a city witli a population of 
 more than four millions can, without serious ill-effects, 
 be poured into the Thames, and after oscillating up 
 and down the river for fifteen miles or more, form 
 foul banks of mud, it is plain that the whole theory 
 and practice of modern sanitar}^ improvement must 
 l^e a mockery, a delusion, and a costly humbug. 
 Yet the Royal Commission now sitting say such are 
 the facts produced under the modern legislation of 
 1858 by that ne'er-do-well Board, the Metropolitan 
 15oard of Works. It is a most serious thing for the 
 ratepayers to find, after a quarter of a century's trial, 
 that this Board has blundered in every important 
 work it has undertaken. 
 
 Some say, as the present Postmaster-General did 
 when the Board wanted to tamper with water supply, 
 '' The Board is already overworked, and it would be 
 unwise to throw upon it this additional duty." If 
 this be so, why not reduce its duties, so that the 
 jmblic may have something done as it ought to be? 
 
 What of the times before the Metropolitan Board, 
 when London had but one Government, and that the 
 grand old Corporation? Of times Avhen the Lord 
 Mayor and Aldermen, riding forth on horseback, with 
 their ladies following in wagons, took their annual 
 survey of the conduits, after Avhich they used to hunt 
 the hare across the neighbouring fields, then dine 
 with the Chamberlain, after dinner go to hunting the 
 fox, and after " great halloomg at his death and 
 blowing of homes " ride back through London to 
 the Mansion House? This was before the advent 
 of the water-mill at London Bridge, or the water
 
 schemes of the great Master Myddelton. Then there 
 were no Medical Officers of Health or Sanitary In- 
 spectors connected with London government. The 
 slender streams brought into the City by the conduit 
 hardly furnished the pojuilation with water enough 
 " for the poor to drinke and the rich to dress their 
 meate." The cost of water carriage rendered thorough 
 ablution an impossibility to the indigent, and even to 
 the wealthiest an occasional and expensive indulgence. 
 As for street -washing it was never thought of, but left 
 to the casual operation of the rain. The gutters were 
 black lines of stagnant hlth, which every shower bore 
 downwards to the lower levels, and washed ultimately 
 into the river. Heaps of refuse, cabbage-leaves and 
 cinders, lay rotting in every part of the City even 
 before the dwellings of noblemen and prelates. No 
 wonder that the strong and bold "took thfe wall" of 
 the weak in their walks through the City, shouldering 
 the more timid pedestrians aside towards the pestifer- 
 ous kennel, in which, as Dean Swift vividly records, 
 
 " Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood. 
 Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud, 
 Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood!" 
 
 But we must return to the details of our history 
 of London water supply rather than pursue the 
 equally interesting history of those governing bodies 
 through whose guilt of omission and commission this 
 water supply has been constantly contaminated. 
 
 We will leave the Ancient Britons and the period 
 of the Roman occupation with but one further re- 
 mark: that the engineering ability of the Romans 
 was not required in London to jirovide aqueducts
 
 such as in other parts of Europe are monuments of 
 Roman civilisation, because here there were wells and 
 streams of pure water amply sufficient for all purposes. 
 
 Down to the thirteenth century Londoners knew 
 only this primitive mode of supply; and with pail 
 and pitcher they were wont to resort to the shores of 
 the Thames, to Wall-brook, to Old-bourne, to Long- 
 bourne, to Holy-well, Clements-well, Clerken-well, 
 and other places for their supphes. 
 
 The second period in the history of London water 
 supply commenced with the artificial conduit system. 
 In 1235, when the encroachment of buildings and the 
 heightening of the ground had spoiled or dried up 
 many of the fountains and rivulets, causing a dearth 
 of water which the rapid growth of population still 
 further increased, we find the Lord Mayor and Com- 
 monalty, at the request of King Henry III., engaged 
 in bringmg fresh supphes from the town of Tyburn 
 by six-inch pipes of lead, and setting about the erec- 
 tion of a great stone cistern lined with lead and hand- 
 somely castellated, for the public use in Westcheap. 
 
 This — the " Great Conduit," as it was called — was 
 the first of its kind in London, and its tedious and 
 expensive construction occupied fifty years. As the 
 population increased, and the old sources of supply 
 became more and more contaminated with sewage, 
 more distant springs at Highbury, Paddington, Hack- 
 ney, and Hampstead were laid under contribution 
 and brought in earthern pipes, brick drains, or tubes 
 of lead to the Cit}\ 
 
 For more than three centuries the Lord Mayor 
 and Commonalty, aided by the private gift of many
 
 wortliy citizens, continued to ^nppl}' London with 
 water; but so wretched was tlie supph', and so 
 neoflected were the conduits and other means of 
 supply, that at the period of the in\'ention of the lift- 
 ])ump in 1425 London was in the semi-barbarous 
 condition described by Swift and otliers in this respect. 
 The pump shared the common fate of new in^'entions, 
 and was slow to win popular acceptance. 
 
 In 1580 Peter Morris took a lease from the Lord 
 Mayor and Aldermen of the hrst arch of London 
 Bridge for fixe hundred years at ten shillings a year, 
 and there built his famous water-mill for pumping 
 Thames water into the City. Elm-wood mains and 
 lead pipes conveyed the water to the houses of Lon- 
 doners, and "my Lord Maior and Aldermen" came 
 in state to witness the hrst water monopohst throw a 
 jet of water over the steeple of tlie chu'^ch of St. 
 Magnus. Tlie conception, grand as it was, did not 
 exceed the grievous necessities of tlie times ; for the 
 water supplied by Morris from the Thames, besides 
 being limited in quantity, was often exceedingly 
 turbid and foul, and the unspeakable squalor of 
 the poor occasioned well-grounded apprehensions that 
 the plague — in those days a fearful sojourner in Lon- 
 don — would renew its dreadful visitations. Moved 
 ])y such considerations, the Corporation had already, 
 towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, obtained power 
 fl'om Parhament to cut a river for conveying water 
 to the City from any part of Middlesex or Hertford- 
 shire. This done, they rested on their oars with true 
 corporate procrastination for six or seven years, till 
 suddenly in 1G03 the plague broke out, and raged
 
 8 
 
 with such virulence that in one week it carried off 
 upwards of a thousand persons in the Metropolis. 
 
 Thus fearfully admonished for their wretched pro- 
 crastination, the Government of London were roused, 
 and sent surveyors to examine the springs and 
 water sources round London, to see where water 
 could be obtained, and having, after much delay, 
 fixed on the springs of Amwell and Chadwell, in 
 Hertfordshire, as sufficiently copious and j^ure for 
 their purpose, they obtained in 1607 a new Act, 
 authorising the conveyance of these waters by an 
 aqueduct to the City. Meantime, the horrors of the 
 plague had gone, and two years of that vacillation 
 and debate so characteristic of such bodies followed. 
 
 Notwithstanding the corporate wealth, their cour- 
 age failed, and they made over to Master Myddelton 
 the power to construct the New Eiver, with any pro- 
 fit that might accrue from the enterprise. There 
 were vested interests then. Toll were taken — per- 
 haps, by Common Councillors — for the use of conve- 
 nient dipping-places in the Thames and the streams 
 flowing into it. 
 
 Peter Morris and Bevis Buhnar and others joined 
 with the common Londoners in jeering at the madcap 
 scheme of Myddelton. He was harassed with vexa- 
 tious obstructions of the owners of land across which 
 he had to cut his trench. After the civil impediments 
 came the physical difficulties of the enterprise, and 
 foremost among them the undulations of the ground, 
 which obhged the projector, for the even distribution 
 of the flow, to give his channel so devious and me- 
 andering a course, nearly doubling the crow-flight
 
 estimation of its length and the computed cost of the 
 work, so that by the time Myddelton had brought it 
 to Enfield, just about half-way to London, his pro- 
 gress was stopped by exhaustion of funds. Myddel- 
 ton pleaded the final success of his scheme before the 
 Avise and rich men of the City, but without avail. 
 Scorned by the people themselves, he went to their 
 representatives, the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and 
 before them pleaded the advantages of a good and 
 .sufficient water supply, and the duty of the local 
 authority to assist him in securing it, but all to no 
 purpose. The Corporation met the application with 
 a distinct refusal. Myddelton, in his exigency, 
 applied to the canny King, and he, with characteristic 
 rapacity, offered his help, on condition that a moiety 
 of the concern should be made over to him for his 
 exclusive profit and emolument. To these hard 
 terms Myddelton perforce acceded; and subsequently 
 James the King granted their valuable charter to 
 James the Trader and Company, under the title of 
 the New Kiver Company. With the money provided 
 by the King, Myddelton, resuming his operations with 
 his wonted energy, finally completed the work in 
 1613, twelve months before the expiration of the 
 term allotted for its achievement. It was a great day 
 for the lovers of pomp and show when Koyal and 
 civic personages of high dignity assembled at Clerk- 
 enwell to see the flood-gates opened and the stream 
 run gallantly into the cistern, amidst the triumphal 
 sounds of drums and trumpets, eighty-five feet above 
 the mid- tide level of the Thames. The New River 
 Company still hint that London should be grateful
 
 10 
 
 for all this work of their founder ; for in the dingy 
 room where appellants wait before admission to the 
 august Board of Directors, there is a picture of this 
 day of rejoicing, when Myddelton was overwhelmed 
 with laudations as excessive in their warmth as the 
 previous discountenance had been in its coldness. 
 The rash and ruined schemer was now a " magnimin- 
 ous genius," and his achievement was not only 
 " immortal," but even '•god-like." 
 
 Myddelton was not only a shrewd practical man, 
 with a clear eye for the main chance, but he was a 
 quiet Christian gentleman of high moral character, 
 seldom absent on Sundays from his accustomed seat 
 in St. Matthew's, Friday Street. He knew what a 
 blessing his work would be to plague stricken Lon- 
 don, to the poor, whom lovers of wealth and ease had 
 robbed of their natural supplies of water. He mis- 
 trusted the notorious selfishness and rapacity of his 
 Royal associate, and, dividing his moiety of the con- 
 cern into thirty-six shares, he not only proceeded to 
 retrieve his fortune, but, in conjunction with his new 
 partners, he contrived to exclude his Royal associate 
 from any share in the management ; and in the Royal 
 charter which incorporated the Company in 1619, 
 there was an express clause reserving to the pro- 
 prietors of the "Adventurers' Shares," so called in 
 contradistinction to those held by the King and his 
 assigns, all powers of management. 
 
 The great Company then formed had the Metro- 
 politan water trade almost entirely to itself for nearly 
 a century. Morris and his family continued the 
 water-wheel at London Bridge, and subsequently the
 
 11 
 
 concern was sold to a company, and extended, tlie 
 Corporation granting three more arches of the bridge 
 on leases similar to the first — which leases the City 
 had to redeem at a heavy cost to the public, when it 
 became necessary to pull down old London Bridge, 
 and to remove the water-wheels beneath it. 
 
 The Chelsea Company was the second Water Com- 
 pany, and was established in 1723. This Company 
 just one hundred years ago introduced steam-poAver 
 into the water service, by substituting one of Boulton 
 and Watt's condensing-engines for the tidal-wheel 
 which had previously worked their pumps. 
 
 Since the commencement of the present century 
 three new Companies — the West Middlesex, the East 
 London, and the Grand Junction — have been formed 
 on the north of the Thames, and three — the Vaux- 
 hall, the Lambeth, and the Kent — on the seuth. 
 
 In 1810 the principle of competition amongst the 
 Companies suddenly broke out, and was encouraged 
 by the Legislature; but it was soon seen that the 
 public were the losers by such a system, and the 
 Companies ceased this warfare in 1817. 
 
 In 1821 the first Parliamentary investigation took 
 place. 
 
 During the sixty years that have smce elapsed 
 there have been Royal Commissions, Parliamentary 
 inquiries, W^ater Bills, and schemes, to bring rivers 
 and lakes from distant parts, with reports and pam- 
 phlets by thousands, experts on each occasion 
 showing, on tlie one side, the excellence of the 
 London water supply, and, on the other, the hardships 
 of poor Londoners who are compelled to drink the
 
 12 
 
 " sewer - tainted liquid" supplied by the "Water- 
 mongers' Monopoly." 
 
 Amidst reports and suggestions, the Companies 
 have held their own and prospered. It has been very 
 hard at times to withstand the daring statements of op- 
 ponents, and public opinion has frequently condemned 
 the Companies unheard. The old cries are always re-ap- 
 pearing, perhaps in new forms : Why should London 
 wait ? Why not abolish the water monopoly ? Create 
 a water trust. Empower the Corporation or the 
 Metropolitan Board to buy up the Companies, and 
 give London a wholesome and constant supply, such 
 as is given in many a provincial town. 
 
 Manchester manages its own water business : why 
 should not London do so ? 
 
 These are all questions and suggestions which 
 assume that London is badly served. 
 
 The magnitude and requirements of London are 
 not considered when talking of Manchester and smaller 
 provincial towns. The special requirements and the 
 special government of London place the Metropolis 
 beyond comparison with the provincial towns, where 
 the water supply is in the hands of the municipal 
 authorities. 
 
 There are only five out of the two hundred and 
 seventy Parliamentary and Municipal Boroughs in 
 England and Wales which exceed in poj)ulation the 
 smallest district supplied by a separate Metropolitan 
 Water Company. 
 
 Only two of the Water Companies supply popula- 
 tions less than three hundred thousand persons, and 
 the two largest — the New River and East London — 
 supply a district containing a population equal to that
 
 of the five largest towns in England, the New River 
 Company alone supplying a population equal to that 
 of Liverpool and Manchester united. 
 
 The area supplied by the eight Water Companies 
 is about forty times that of Liverpool and Man- 
 chester, and extends far beyond the area of the 
 Metropolitan Board of Works. 
 
 As to the quality of the water between 1828 and 
 the present time, numerous official reports have been 
 made by Royal Commissions, Select Committees, and 
 other public authorities, all tending to show that the 
 present sources of supply are, if the water be properly 
 filtered, as good as any others, and far more con- 
 venient. The Duke of Richmond's Commission in 
 1866 said, " That the abundance, permanence, and 
 regularity of supply, so important to a large metro- 
 polis, are secured much more efficiently by the great 
 extent and varied geological character of a large 
 hydrographical basin, such as the Thames, than by 
 the necessarily very much more limited collecting- 
 areas that can be made available on the gravitation 
 system." ..." Further, that there is no evidence to 
 lead us to believe that the water now supplied by the 
 Companies is not generally good and wholesome." 
 
 Mr. Ayrton's Committee said in 1867: " We are 
 satisfied that both the quantity and quality of the 
 water supplied from the Thames are so far satisfactory 
 that there is no ground for disturbing the arrange- 
 ments made under the Act of 1852, and that any 
 attempt to do so would only end in entailing a waste 
 of capital and an unnecessary charge upon the owners 
 and occupiers of property in the Metropolis." 
 
 As Dr. Frankland and all other official water
 
 14 
 
 examiners agree, the water is better now than then ; 
 a fortiori such a committee would be satisfied now. 
 
 Continuous efforts have been made, under the 
 provisions of the Thames Conservancy Acts, to im- 
 prove the condition of the Thames ; and if, as may 
 be hoped, an enhghtened Municipahty should ere 
 long take the place of the present sewer authori- 
 ties, and London sewage be dealt with otherwise 
 than for the purpose of polluting the Thames, still 
 greater improvement in the water may be expected. 
 
 Since 1852 the Metropolitan "Water Companies 
 have not been allowed to take water from the Thames 
 below Teddington Lock, or from any part of the 
 tributary streams within the range of the tide. The 
 wisdom of this is demonstrated by the recent report 
 of the Eoyal Commission on Sewage Discharge. The 
 improvement in the sanitary laws and the increasing- 
 powers of sanitary authorities, and especially the 
 action of the Conservators of the Thames, have had 
 a great effect in preventing the passing of sewage, 
 or other offensive or injurious matter, into the river 
 above the intake of the Water Companies. 
 
 The Companies have spent, and are spending, 
 large sums of money in preventing the pollution of 
 the natural sources of water. If Parliament would 
 prevent the Metropolitan Board of Works and the 
 other local sanitary bodies along the Thames, the 
 Lea, and other sources of water, from discharging 
 sewage into the rivers, the Water Companies could 
 provide water at less cost for filtration. 
 
 Notwithstanding all their difficulties, the Com- 
 panies are, according to the official returns (see 
 Dr. Frankland's report to the Local Governmen
 
 15 
 
 Board, 8tli February 1884) supplying 140,000,000 
 gallons a day, or more than thirty gallons a day 
 per head, of a quality and at a price per gallon which 
 compares favourably ' with any other supply in the 
 kingdom. In Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and 
 other places it is often urged that the water-rates 
 are less than in London, whilst there is a constant 
 supply in those towns. This is true ; but it is also 
 true that the habits and requirements of Londoners 
 are such that the consumption of water per head is 
 nearly twice as much in London as in those towns. 
 
 It is difficult to see how the sources of London 
 w^ater supply could be improved by theorists. The 
 Avater from brooks and rivers is condemned by one 
 because, "from tlie very nature of the case, simple 
 surface supplies are always impure. The. surface 
 wash of every section of the country is largely con- 
 taminated with vegetable and other organic matter, 
 and is seldom in any sense fit for domestic use." 
 Another condemns the supply from deep wells and 
 borinofs, because " of the larj^e amount of mineral matter 
 they usually carry." The water of shallow wells is also 
 condemned, because "it is found that the upper levels 
 of all subterranean Avater strata are contaminated by 
 the drainage of all the filth of the vicinity." 
 
 It must be concluded that water, to be fit for 
 domestic uses, must be considered as a manufactured 
 article, and that as much depends upon the processes 
 of filtration and other means of purification as upon 
 the sources of supply. 
 
 A year or two ago the amount invested by share- 
 holders in the London Companies was valued at more 
 than thirty millions of money. Even this sum de-
 
 16 
 
 creases in magnitude when considered with the work 
 done ; and this is the only way to understand such 
 large figures. 
 
 The annual value of property in the Metropolitan 
 water area, according to the valuation lists, exceeds 
 thirty millions ; so that a single rate of twenty shil- 
 lings in the pound would provide a fund for the pur- 
 chase of all the interests of the Companies. 
 
 For a year's rent a 30/. householder would buy 
 his share of the total value of the Companies. It is 
 to be hoped, however, that when such a proposal is 
 again made, it will be made by a truly Municipal 
 body having the confidence of the people. Ratepayers 
 know by sad experience how many millions have 
 been spent in London during the last few years by 
 local bodies, and with such unsatisfactory returns. 
 
 The persons who are ready to give their time to 
 the public without some substantial return " in meal 
 or malt " are very few, so that London government, 
 as it is, is largely in the hands of jobbers with talent 
 and their followers without, (xood government is 
 worth paying for ; and whether the government of 
 the water supply of London is paid for through 
 (hrectors and shareholders, it is a gain to the public 
 so long as we have value for money. 
 
 Few men would agree to put the London and 
 Xorth- Western Railway under the management of 
 the Lord Mayor and Aldermen or of the best Vestr}^ 
 or Board of Guardians in England, or even under 
 the Metropolitan Board of Works, who are the picked 
 men of London vestrydom. !N^o, in railway matters, 
 as in water business, we had better bear the ills we 
 have than fly to others we know not of.
 
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