1850.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



20 



Estimating on the most liberal scale, the cost of timber, lead, and bricks, 

 for the raised troughs, the reservoirs, &c., and making ample allowance for 

 contingencies, we shall scarcely arrive at a larger sum than 150,000?.-"^ as the 

 probable total expenditure up to Michaelmas Day, 1613; — when the water 

 first flowed into the New River head, 85 feet above the mid tide level of the 

 Thames. 



Myddelton was now overwhelmed with laudations. He, however, being 

 a shrewd, practical man, with a clear eye for the main chance, proceeded to 

 retrieve his fortune by dividing his moiety of the concern into 3G shares, of 

 which he s.ld about half, so as to replace, in part at least, his adventured 

 capital. lie then, in conjunction with his new partners, set about laying 

 down wooden /pipes through the town for the distribution of the water, 

 which he shortly after began supplying to the inhabitants at an annual charge of 

 about \l. 6s. Sd. per house. As several thousands sterling per annum must have 

 been thus received from the outset, and nothing was divided for 20 years, we 

 may suppose that the excess of receipts, after paying cost of maintenance 

 and interest of loans, was applied in extending the pipes. In 1619 the 

 concern was incorporated by royal charter as the New River Company, with 

 Myddelton as its (irst governor. Myddelton, however, who mistrusted the 

 notorious selfishuess and rapacity of his royal associate, contrived, with great 

 sagacity, to exclude him from any share in the management. 



For nearly a century the New River Company had the metropolitan water 

 trade almost entirely to themselves. Morrys, indeed, continued to pump up 

 and sell the feculent water of the Thames ; and two small works, one at 

 Shadwel! (1660), the other at York-buildings, Villicrs-street, Strand (1691), 

 were also set up in the same trade. But both these latter establishments 

 were ultimately beaten by their stronger rivals ; and the York-buildings 

 Company, in particular, was broken up by the competitiou of the New River 

 Company, who, having ruined them, took possession of their district, buying 

 only such portions of the plant as suited their purpose, and leaving the rest, 

 an uncompensated loss, on the ousted company's hands. 



During the earlier part of their career the dividends of the water traders 

 were kept down by the frequent fracture and constant leakage of their pipes. 

 These, being of wood, were of so small a bore that eight or nine collateral 

 trains were required where now one capacious main is laid. One-fourth of 

 the whole water supply leaked through them, converting the ground of 

 London into an artificial sv.amp ; and the discovery of one broken pipe 

 would often involve 20/. or 30?. worth of digging and search. Notwith- 

 standing these difficulties, however, we find the New River shareholders 

 receiving, in 1663, 15/. 3s. 3d. per share on 72 shares, on which probably 

 (by the foregoing estimate) from 1,500/. to 2,000/. each had been subscribed. 

 From this time the profits increased rapidly ; and Myddelton, finding this 

 Very shrewdly proposed to the needy and prodigal Charles to buy back the 

 shares which his royal predecessor had acquired. King Charles willingly 

 gave up his 36 shares for an annuity of 500/. a year; being probably between 

 J and 1 per cent, on the capital which they represented. In 1C80 each New 

 Biver share is stated to have produced a net dividend of 145/.; so that, on 

 the re-acquired Crown shares alone, the company at that period must have 

 netted a balance of 4,720/. per annum clear profit. An unlucky mischance 

 having destroyed the company's ancient records, we are left very much in 

 the dark as to ther original outlay and gains. But the returns of their 

 modern expenditure on pipes and machinery, if pared down to a reasonable 

 valuation, show a total probable outlay of capital of from 500,000i. to 

 750,000/., at the utmost ; or from 7,000/.' to 10,000/. for each of the shares 

 which now nominally represent and sell for about double the mean of those 

 two sums. Even of this capital, a large proportion has, in reality, been 

 contributed in the shape of excessive water-rates by the public. 



The public water-service was gradually let slip by the corporation of Lon- 

 don during the 17th century; and, little by little, yielded up to chance and 

 private speculation. Many of the conduits, for example, which were 

 damaged or destroyed by the great fire in 1G6G, were left to their fate; the 

 melted pipes remaining unrepaired, and the tank-houses in ruin or de- 

 molished ; so that a writer of the time bewails the hard case of the poor 

 tankard-bearers, whose trade the conflagration had destroyed, "making them 

 like to perish by fire who were wont to live by water." In 1692 the Ilamp- 

 stead waters, with the reservoirs which a century before had been built, at 

 the public cost, for their reception, were given up by the corporation to some 

 private individuals who, having obtained a charter, formed the germ of the 

 present llampstead Water Company; and a few years later (1701), the cor- 

 poration let out the " Maribone" water, and several other conduit waters, to 

 one Soams, a speculative goldsmith, reserving only a proportion of the 

 supply for the use of the prisons and compters. 



It was in the same year that the family of Peter Morrys, after having 

 struggled on for nearly a century against the New River Company, was 

 obliged at length to give up the contest; and it was to the above-mentioned 

 Soams that they sold ofl:' their lease and plant for 38,000/. Soams seems to 

 have made a good bargain; for he resold the concern to a company for 

 150,000/. in 300 shares. To this company, with are cklessness now become 

 habitual, the corporation granted three more arches of the bridge, on leases, 

 like the former, equivalent to perpetuity; which leases the city was obliged 



* A watercourse of the dimensions of the New River is. we are informed, at this mo- 

 ment in course of execution in Holland, at a charge of 2.«)(Kl/. per mile j at which ratk 

 the cost of the New River (39 miles long) would be only 97,500^ 



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. 



A few years later, London having in the meanwhile rapidly extended west- 

 ward, the Chelsea Company was established (1723), to supply a large district 

 which lay beyond the range of the New River Company's pipes. 



Soon afterwards the pn]mlous district south of the Thames — in itself a 

 great city — attracted the notice of the water speculators. In 1758, the 

 germ of the present Soulhwark Company was set up ; and in 1785 a few 

 private individuals commenced, on a very humble scale, the now powerful 

 and lucrative concern known as the Lambeth Waterworks. 



These five companies, three on the north of the Thames, and two on the 

 south, possessed, until about the year 1805, the whole water trade of the 

 metropolis.* Each enjoyed an effective, though not a legal, monopoly in its 

 own district ; and of their profits some notion may be formed from the fact 

 that the Lambeth Company, which started with a capital of only 5,920/., in 

 32 shares of 185/. each, obtained water-rents of such amount as enabled 

 them in 33 years to invest, out of profits, 130,000/. in the extension of their 

 works, iesides paying dividends of 50 to 100 per cent, and upwards on the 

 subscribed capital. f 



To this palmy condition of the water companies the introduction of steam 

 power into the water service had not a little contributed. This improvement, 

 which we have adopted as marking the fourth epoch of our London water- 

 history, dates from 1782, when the Chelsea Company substituted one of 

 Boulton aud Watt's condensing engines for the tidal wheel which had pre- 

 viously worked their pumps. Five years afterwards (1787) the New River 

 Company, who had before employed, first a windmill, and then a horse- 

 engine, to impel the water through the upper levels of their district, also set 

 up a steam-engine on ^Vatt's condensing principle. Even the old Londou- 

 bridge Company erected a steam-engine to aid their water-wheels at lavs' 

 tides; and the three southern companies likewise found it their interest to 

 adopt the same rapid and economical means of pumping.J 



One invention involves another. The old wooden pipes, which required 

 renewal every 14 or 15 years, and were always leaking at the joints, soon 

 proved inadequate to sustain the increased pressure of the higher level to 

 which the water was raised by means of the new steam pumps. Hence the 

 gradual adoption about this period of iron pipes, which were laid down in 

 place of the wooden ones as these latter successively wore out. In this 

 metal mains of 3 feet diameter, it was found, could be easily cast ; and the 

 vast columns of water thus conveyed took up less space under the roadway, 

 caused less leakage, and required less frequent repairs, than half the stream 

 conveyed tin he clumsy hollow trunks before employed. Iron pipes have 

 their inconveniences, no doubt ; amongst which may be mentioned that they 

 appear apter than wood to accumulate, in the form of adherent incrustations, 

 the chalky deposit of the water; so that in 20 years a 5-inch pipe has been 

 found reduced to a 3-inch capacity ; and in 50 or 60 years it may probably 

 become necessary to incur the cost of taking it up, in order to remove this 

 obstruction. The tenacity of the newly-adopted material, however, being 

 such as to withstand with ease a pressure of 300 feet of water, facilitated 

 the introduction of a third great improvement — viz., the high service. This 

 fell in, happily enough, at the beginning of the present century, with the 

 gradual introduction of closets requiring elevated cisterns for their supply. 

 To the companies it proved highly advantageous, as affording them a pretext 

 for adding 50 per cent, to their rates. 



In 1805, however, an unexpected storm broke in upon their prosperous 

 career. A wafer mania, like our recent railway mania, began at that period 

 to spring up ; and on its sudden outbreak in 1810 the principle of competition, 

 to which the legislature had all along looked for the protection of the public, 

 was put upon its trial. Two powerful companies, which had been several 

 years occupied in obtaining tli£ir acts and setting up their machinery, now 

 took the field : one, the West Middlesex, attacking the old monopolists on 

 their western flank ; the other, the East London, invading their territory 

 from the opposite quarter. A the same time a band of dashing Manchester 

 speculators started the Grand Junction Company with a flaming prospectus ; 

 and boldly flung their pipes into the very thick of the tangled network, 

 which now spread in every direction beneath the pavement of the hotly con- 

 tested streets. 



These Grand Junction men quite astonished the town by the magnificence 

 of their promises. "Copious streams" of water derived, by the medium of 

 the Grand Junction Canal, from the rivers Colne and Brent, — "always pure 

 and fresh, because always coming in" — " high service, free of extra charge" 

 — above all, " uniniermittent mpply, so that customers maij do loithout cis- 

 terns;" — such were a few of the seductive allurements held out by these 

 interlopers to tempt deserters from the enemy's camp. 



* We pass over as insigniflcant three or four minor establishments no longer in exist- 

 ence, such as the small works at West-Ham, Shadwell, Rotherhithe, Bank-End, and 

 Hackney. We also leave out of the account the Hampstead Company, which supplies 

 spring water from Hampstead-hill to part of Kentish and Camden towns; the Kent 

 works, which supply water from the river Ravensbouriie to part of Deptford, Woolwich, 

 Greenwich, and Rotherhithe ; and the Paddington springs, which belong to the Bishop 

 of London's estate, and supply the inhubit.ints of the immediate vicinity. 



t The aggregate dividends received by the Lambeth shareholders during l*j years end- 

 ing 18;:i3, amounted to tit',.400/., or eleven times the amount of their original subscription. 

 Of these Hi years the U earliest also form p.irt of the 33 years (ending 18:!8) during which 

 the vast capitalisation of the revenue mentioned in the text took place. 



t The old steam-engines of Savery and Newcomen, in which the cylinder itself was 

 cooled at each stroke of the piston, had been tried so far back as the beginning of last 

 century by the York-buildings Company. 



