Drinking water supply has a long history in Britain and can be a fascinating subject in the study of community, and of wider interest to social and economic historians. Manor court rolls from the medieval period onwards contain numerous references to the need to keep public wells free from contamination. Many rural settlements depended on such wells, or pumps, into the twentieth century. In urban areas water carriers, often poor young boys, operated in towns to transport water to wealthier households, for a fee.
The Romans constructed aqueducts to bring water into towns and military fortifications. These were significant feats of engineering. The one which partly survives at Dorchester was twelve miles long. Similar aqueducts were constructed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to serve large urban centres, for example, Plymouth and Cambridge.
Wenceslaus Hollar, Etching of the New River Head in Islington north of London, made in 1665 (Public Domain)
Many medieval and early modern towns had conduits in which water was brought through by pipes. The most famous and ambitious of these works was the New River. Between 1609-14, the New River Company constructed a pipeline from Hertfordshire to London. With such schemes householders connected to the water system paid a water rate. Poorer families were dependent on communal standpipes paid for by their landlords. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, private companies constructed reservoirs on the outskirts of towns for drinking water. Sometimes groups of millowners obtained private Acts of Parliament to build reservoirs to ensure a constant supply of water to turn their water wheels. The building of reservoirs was, however, not without issues. Two of the great disasters of the period were due to the bursting of embankments, the 1852 Bilberry reservoir disaster and the 1864 ‘Sheffield Flood’ which together caused hundreds of deaths.
Private companies continued to provide water well into the nineteenth century when municipal authorities began to take over responsibility. The 1848 Public Health Act gave local authorities the power to provide such services. The rapid growth of industrial towns in this period led to considerable issues for those responsible for providing constant supplies of water. Domestic water consumption increased substantially and rapidly as the population rose and higher standards of health were attained. Simultaneously, demand from industry grew enormously. Issues with clean water supply plagued urban society in the nineteenth century, leading to work by physicians like Dr John Snow attempting to rectify this.
In the late nineteenth century and twentieth centuries, substantial reservoirs were constructed in moorland areas to supply major population centres far away, such as Manchester which drew its water from the Lake District and Birmingham which drew its water from central Wales. Since 1859 Loch Katrine in the Trossachs has served the Glasgow area’s water needs. Many of these feats of engineering were newer and larger impounding dams. The effects on the landscape were in some cases controversial, especially with the removal of villages and farmhouses to make way for reservoirs.
Nigel Brown, An overflowing Craig Goch dam (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Following a wave of privatisations, the Water Act 1989 changed the ten authorities into ten private water companies, each operating as a local monopoly. Scotland retained public ownership of its water services following a public campaign, and Scottish Water, a publicly owned entity, continues to manage these services. In the present day water supply in Britain continues to be a debated issue.
Researchers looking to investigate historic water supply may find information in various sources. Some historic infrastructure may still be visible, and in many cases still in use, and therefore discoverable through fieldwork. Archaeological investigations may reveal evidence of past works. References to water and its supply may be found in a range of sources, such has been its historic importance and ubiquity. For example, water carriers were sometimes bequeathed to in early modern wills. Many of the historic water companies were taken over by local authorities and subsequently by new private companies following water re-privatisation. Such records may be found in the archives of these successor companies, usually held in local record offices. For example, the records of the New River Company are now held in The London Archives. Records of councils and the Water Authority are also valuable resources.
References and Resources:
Information for this post was taken from the excellent David Hey (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History (1996), 393-4, 482
Jean Cass, ‘Water Supply’ in Clyde Binfield et al. (eds.), The History of the City of Sheffield, 1843-1893 (1993)
Brian Robinson, Walls Across the Valley: The Building of the Howden and Derwent Dams (1993)
Ray Goulder, ‘Lost ponds in Yorkshire Wolds villages’, East Yorkshire Historian, 24 (2023), 48-58.
‘A Brief History of Water Supply and Sanitation’ in Cary Grant, The Water Sensitive City (2016)s
Louis Platman, A brief history of running water | Museum of the Home
Elly Robson, Politics of water: A report on London’s early water infrastructure. https://www.qbcentre.org.uk/research/water-supply-politics
 | A guest post by
|
Great article, thank you
I recently learned about Lamb’s Conduit Street in London, named for the conduit paid for by William
Lambe to supply water to residents in the West End in the 16th Century. He apparently also provided free buckets to poor women so they could make a living delivering water. The conduit itself is gone, but the street name, and a commemorative fountain, remain.