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(Quarter Mile Section - T 12) |
BRIEF HISTORY DURING THE SNOW ERA (1813-58)
Borough Waterworks Company
The origins of the Southwark Water Company start with the Borough Waterworks Company which in 1770 took over a water house between the Southwark and London bridges that supplied Thames River water to a nearby brewery (see 1792-9 and 1770-1822 maps below). The residents of Southwark in the broad area near the brewery were supplied water from two waterwheels under arches of the London Bridge via the London Bridge Waterworks Company. By a Parliament act of 1822, the London Bridge Waterworks Company was dissolved and its water license for Southwark residents was sold to the New River Company. Shortly thereafter, John Edwards Vaughn, the owner of the Borough Waterworks Company, bought the license from the New River Company, merged Borough and the former London Bridge Waterworks Company, and formed the Southwark Water Company.
Southwark Water Company
Two powerful steam engines were erected by Vaughn at his Southwark Water Company site to pump river water through iron pipes, varying in diameter from three to 16 inches. The company extended a large iron main along the bottom of the middle of the River Thames, eight feet below the low water mark to a location by the London Bridge. The opening of the pipe, or mouth, was situated a short distance up-stream from the old and later the new London Bridge. The mouth was covered with an iron semi-sphere, perforated with many small holes. Inside was a mesh screen to catch particles that may have passed through the small holes. The company used no reservoirs but instead pumped river water to a cistern at the top of a sixty-foot high tower. The water then flowed by gravity to the consuming houses. Among consumers of the Southwark Water Company, the reputation for quality was poor, as depicted in a widely circulated caricature by George Cruikshank (see 1832 image below).
"Between 1839 and 1849 many changes took place in the water-supply of London. The Southwark Water Company united with the South London Waterworks Company (merger occurred in 1845) to form a new water works under the name of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company. The water works at London Bridge were abolished, and the united company derived their supply from the Thames at Battersea Fields, about half-a-mile above Vauxhall Bridge."
- Snow, John. Communication of Cholera, 1855, p. 60
"...in every district to which the supply of the Southwark and Vauxhall ... Water Company extends, the cholera was more fatal than in any other district whatever."
- Snow, John. Communication of Cholera, 1855, p. 64
Vauxhall Water Company
The South London Water Waterworks Company was renamed the Vauxhall Water Company in 1834. At the same time, the company acquired some of the water distribution area that was formerly served by the Lambeth Waterworks Company. As a result some areas south of the River Thames were supplied by both the Vauxhall Water Company and the Lambeth Waterworks Company. Later this intertwining distribution of water would be used by Dr. John Snow in conducting the grand experiment of 1854.
Thereafter in 1845 the Vauxhall Water Company and Southwark Water Company merged to form the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company.
Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company
The intake and reservoirs of the merged company, established at Battersea south of the River Thames, covered nearly 18 acres of ground. Their steam engines had the power to force water to a perpendicular height of 175 feet, thus enabling them to supply Thames river water to Brixton and the surrounding higher areas. Yet all was not well. Arthur Hassall, in his 1850 book, Microscopic Examination of the Water Supplied to the Inhabitants of London, wrote of the company, "It is water the most disgusting which I have ever examined. When I first saw the water of the Southwark Company (before the merger), I thought it as bad as it could be, but this far exceeded it in the peculiarly repulsive character of living contents."
In 1855, new waterworks were established at Hampton (i.e., 22 miles up-river from the Vauxhall Bridge, even further than the Chelsea and Lambeth Waterworks Companies), as was required by the 1852 Metropolitan Water Act of Parliament (see 1855 picture below). Parliament in this act declared that no water company after August 31, 1855 (with one exception -- Chelsea Waterworks -- which was granted one additional year to comply) should take its water from the River Thames below Teddington Lock. The company complied, but not until near the August 1855 deadline. Two reservoirs were constructed by Southwark and Vauxhall in the Hampton area along with a 36 inch diameter water main (go to cell C1) for conveying the cleaner water to the company's Battersea site in London. Another reservoir was built in 1855 in land between Peckham Rye and Nunhead Cemetery in South London. With these changes, the quality of the company's water greatly improved, although as late as 1874 the filtration system was still criticized as unreliable by Hampton residents (who also received the water). By 1869, Southwark and Vauxhall had installed a modern percolation filtration system at the Battersea site in London (see 1869 map below), adding to the general improvement of the supplied drinking water.
Click here for more information about the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company, its relation to the Lambeth Waterworks Company, and its role in the grand experiment of 1854.
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(Quarter Mile Section - T 12) |
Sources:
Anonymous. Illustrated London News, 1855.
Dickinson HW. Water Supply of Greater London, 1954.
Godfrey Edition. Old Ordinance Survey Maps, Pimlico, Sloane Square and Nine Elms, 1869.
Godfrey Edition. Old Ordinance Survey Maps, Hampton, 1894.
Mathews W. Hyraulia - the Mode of Supplying London with Water, 1841.
Weinreb B, Hibbert C (eds). The London Encyclopaedia, 1993.
South London Water Company in 1830
Click here to see details before 1834 renaming and 1845 merger
Reservoirs of South London Water Company in 1830
Click here to see details before 1834 renaming and 1845 merger
Cruikshank Image of Southwark Water Company
Click here to see 1832 caricature
