150 
J. HOPKINSON—WATER AND WATER-SUPPLY 
About a quarter of a century after this, when only two of the 
nineteen arches of old London Bridge were occupied by water¬ 
wheels, a number eventually increased to five, the Citizens of 
London, by Act of Parliament made in the third year of the reign 
of James the First, “had free libertie given unto them and were 
enabled to bring a ffresh streame of runing water to the North 
part of the said Citty of London from the springs of Chadwell and 
Amwell, and other springs in the Countie of Hertford, and not far 
from the said springs.” For some years this scheme remained in 
abeyance, but in 1608 Sir Hugh Myddleton commenced to carry 
it out at his own cost,* and after five years’ labour, and with con¬ 
siderable assistance in funds from the King, the gigantic work was 
completed, and the water from the Chadwell and Amwell springs, 
diverted from the Kiver Lea, flowed into London in a wooden 
conduit called the New Kiver, then 40 miles in length, but now 
reduced to 28 miles, and no longer constructed of wood. A brief 
account of Sir Hugh Myddleton’s undertaking will be found in 
our “Transactions,”! and I need only mention here that when, in 
1619, the New Kiver Company was formed, there could have been 
no intention of adding to the supply which these springs and 
the Kiver Lea afforded by boring into the Chalk. 
The only other Company taking water from the Kiver Lea, and 
from borings in the Lea Valley, is the East London Waterworks 
Company, which was established in 1807, and in the following 
year purchased the Shadwell waterworks, by which East London 
had been supplied with water since 1669, and the West Ham 
waterworks, by which, from 1747, water had been pumped from 
a branch of the Lea. This Company is authorised to take 10 
million gallons daily from the Thames. 
The Chelsea waterworks were established in 1723; the Lambeth 
in 1785 ; the Grand Junction in 1798 (then a department of the 
Grand Junction Canal Company); the West Middlesex in 1806; 
and in 1845 the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company 
was formed by the amalgamation of the Southwark, which had 
existed from 1771, with the Vauxhall, dating from 1804. All 
these Companies take their supply of water from the Thames, the 
maximum they can draw being 120 million gallons daily. 
There is one other London Water Company, the Kent, incor¬ 
porated in 1809 to purchase the Kavensbourne waterworks, which 
had been established in 1701 to supply water from the river of that 
name. In 1857 the Company sunk a well in the Chalk, at Deptford, 
and five years later abandoned the Kavensbourne, which had become 
polluted, since which time the whole supply has been derived from 
deep wells in the Chalk, now ten in number. 
Previously to 1852 the Thames Companies took their supply of 
water from the tidal portion of the river; but in that year there 
was passed a very important Act of Parliament, known shortly as 
the Metropolis Water Act, 1852. Its principal provisions are that 
* He was knighted on completion of the work. 
t ‘Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist Soc.,’ Vol. Ill, p. lxix. 
