Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company

Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company

The Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company was a utility company supplying water to parts of south London in England. The company was formed by the merger of the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Companies in 1845 and became part of the publicly-owned Metropolitan Water Board in 1903.

Origins

outhwark Water Company

The Borough Waterworks Company was formed in 1770, originally supplying water to a brewery and the surrounding area, which spanned the distance between London and Southwark Bridges. The adjacent area was supplied by the London Bridge Waterworks Company. London Bridge Waterworks was dissolved in 1822, and its water supply licence was purchased by the New River Company. The Borough Waterworks Company purchased the licence from the New River Company later that same year, and it was renamed the Southwark Water Company. The company extracted water from the River Thames using steam engines to pump it to a cistern at the top of a sixty foot high tower."Southwark & Vauxhall Water Company - Brief History during the Snow era", UCLA Department of Epidemiolgy]

Vauxhall Water Company

The South London Waterworks Company was established by private act of parliament in 1805. The company extracted water from the Thames beside Vauxhall Bridge. In 1833 the company supplied 12,046 houses with approximately 12,000 gallons of water.Joseph Fletcher, "Historical and Statistical Account of the present System of Supplying the Metropolis with Water" in "Journal of the Statistical Society of London", Vol. 8, No. 2. (Jun., 1845), pp. 148-181.] In 1834, the company was renamed the Vauxhall Water Company.

Amalgamation

On 10 January 1845 the two companies submitted a memorial to the Health of Towns Commissioners proposing amalgamation. The memorial noted that since 1834 competition had increased between Southwark, Vauxhall, and Lambeth Water Companies and that the "results of that competition were as inconvenient to the public as they were disastrous to the companies, and afforded the very strongest illustration of the truth of the doctrine... that the principle of competition cannot with advantage be applied to the operations of water companies." The effect of competition on the companies was described as "an immense expenditure of capital in utter waste - double or treble sets of mains and pipes being laid down in districts where one set would better have served the inhabitants. An enormous annual outlay, equally in utter waste, -in the salaries of canvassers and commission to agents, who procured tenants; in the bills of plumbers, who changed the service pipes of the tenants from one set of mains to another; in the charges of taking up and relaying roads and pavements on the like occasions; in double and treble sets of turncocks and pipe-layers; and, as the climax of absurdity, a payment of all parochial and district rates in every parish on all the pipes of all the companies, in proportion to the capital expended on assumed profits or interest, which it is needless to say had no existence."

The bill promoted by the two companies successfully passed through parliament, and the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company formed later that year. The area supplied by the SVWC was centred on the Borough of Southwark, reaching east to Rotherhithe, south to Camberwell and in the west including Battersea and parts of Clapham and Lambeth.John Weale, "The Pictorial Handbook of London", London, 1854]

Infrastructure

The amalgamated company established waterworks at Battersea Fields with two depositing reservoirs with a capacity of 32 million gallons; and two filtering reservoirs holding 11 million gallons. In 1850 the company's water was described by the microbiologist Arthur Hassall as "the most disgusting which I have ever examined". The Metropolis Water Act 1852 was enacted in order to "make provision for securing the supply to the Metropolis of pure and wholesome water. Under the Act, it became unlawful for any water company to extract water for domestic use from the tidal reaches of the Thames after 31 August 1855, and from 31 December 1855 all such water was required to be "effectually filtered". ["An Act to make better Provision respecting the Supply of Water to the Metropolis", (15 & 16 Vict. C.84)] Accordingly, new waterworks had to be constructed further up river.

In the meantime, an outbreak of cholera in 1854 led to the deaths of 286 people supplied by the company. [ [http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/snow/cholerasouthlondon.html John Snow "Cholera and the Water Supply in the South Districts of London, in 1854", "Journal of Public Health", (1856), UCLA School of Epidemiology, accessed 6 March 2008] ] The Stain Hill Reservoirs were constructed in Hampton in 1855, with a 36-inch diameter main to Battersea. A third reservoir was opened later in the year between Nunhead Cemetery and Peckham Rye. In 1903 the SVWC supplied a population of 860,173 in 128,871 houses of which 122,728 (95.3%) had a constant supply. [Percy Ashley, "The Water, Gas, and Electric Light Supply of London", "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 27, Municipal Ownership and Municipal Franchises" (January 1906), pp. 20-36]

ee also

*London water supply infrastructure

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • West Middlesex Waterworks Company — The West Middlesex Waterworks Company was a utility company supplying water to parts of west London in England. The company was established in 1806 with works at Hammersmith and became part of the publicly owned Metropolitan Water Board in… …   Wikipedia

  • London water supply infrastructure — London s Water Supply Infrastructure has developed over the centuries in line with the expansion of London and now represents a sizeable infrastructure investment. For much of London s history, private companies supplied fresh water to various… …   Wikipedia

  • Joseph Quick (1809-1894) — Joseph Quick (6 November 1809 30 March 1894) was an English civil engineer who was closely involved in improvements to water supply in the great industrial cities of the nineteenth century. Both his father and his son (author of The Water Supply… …   Wikipedia

  • Metropolitan Water Board (London) — The Metropolitan Water Board s headquarters in Finsbury. Now residential. (November 2005) The Metropolitan Water Board was founded in 1903 to bring the nine private water companies supplying water to London under a single public body. The members …   Wikipedia

  • Molesey Lock — Molesey Lock[1] The lock after the release of 160,000 Rubber ducks at the start of the Great British Duck Race in September 2007 Waterway …   Wikipedia

  • List of historic buildings and architects of the United Kingdom — The Historic buildings of the United Kingdom date from the stone age to the twenty first century AD, and tell the story of the architecture of the United Kingdom.See also: List of British architects Pre Historic buildings structures Roman… …   Wikipedia

  • Nine Elms — London borough Wandsworth Ceremonial county Greater London Region London Country England Sov …   Wikipedia

  • Hampton, London — infobox UK place country = England static static image caption = The Thames at Hampton map type = Greater London region= London population= official name= Hampton latitude= 51.4220 longitude= 0.3667 london borough= Richmond constituency… …   Wikipedia

  • Nunhead — Coordinates: 51°27′44″N 0°03′03″W / 51.4622°N 0.0508°W / 51.4622; 0.0508 …   Wikipedia

  • Sunnyside Reservoir — Infobox lake lake name = Sunnyside Reservoir image lake = caption lake = image bathymetry = caption bathymetry = location = Richmond upon Thames coords = type = reservoir inflow = outflow = catchment = basin countries = United Kingdom length =… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”