Chapter 1 Remaking the countryside: urban engineering and the pursuit of water

Water supply across England and Wales

The nineteenth century was the time in which a number of municipal authorities took control of their water supplies, as well as other utilities such as gas and, towards the end of the century, electricity. Before this point, water was supplied to towns and cities by private water companies run by shareholders. For example, the Leeds Waterworks Company supplied the town from 1837, taking over from the improvement commissioners who had overseen supply since 1790.⁴ In a period of liberal, laissez-faire economics, it was natural for the private sector to provide resources for towns and cities. However, there were a number of reasons that prompted local governments to become involved in water supply. As populations and industries grew, demand for water increased, meaning that water companies had to contemplate more ambitious schemes. Companies faced two key issues in this regard: first, it was difficult for them to raise the necessary funds to finance such schemes; and second, it was increasingly difficult for them to enact infrastructural improvements to urban areas. Municipal authorities were better placed to address both of these issues – it was easier for municipal authorities to apply to Parliament to raise funds and to use the rates to help finance large-scale projects, while they were also in a position to facilitate digging up roads to lay pipes.⁵ There were also issues around water supply and public health: the cholera epidemic of 1832, the publication of Edwin Chadwick’s The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population in 1842, and the Royal Commission on the Health of Towns (1843–45) all resulted in an increased recognition of the problems polluted water posed to urban health.⁶ Furthermore, accusations of profiteering were often levelled at private water companies. An example of this was in Liverpool, where the water company was accused of prioritising profits over water quality and constant supply.⁷ For a number of reasons, municipal authorities were deemed to be better equipped to deliver pure water to residents and industries.

The process of municipalisation, though, was quite uneven. Because the impetus for reform came from local governments, it was local factors that determined the successful acquisition of waterworks. In the aforementioned case of Liverpool, concerns over the quality and quantity of supply meant that the town’s corporation was able to purchase the waterworks by 1847.⁸ Leeds was able to benefit from a clause inserted into the Act of Parliament authorising the creation of the Leeds Waterworks Company in 1837 that provided its corporation with an opportunity to purchase the works after a twelve-year period had elapsed, which the corporation did in 1852.⁹ Other towns and cities struggled to acquire their waterworks. Propelled by the zeal of the civic gospel, Birmingham acquired its waterworks in 1876; while, despite the collapse of Dale Dike reservoir in 1864 – a disaster laid firmly at the feet of the private water company – Sheffield was not able to purchase its waterworks until 1887.¹⁰ London’s supply was made up of a patchwork of private companies brought under one umbrella organisation in 1903 with the creation of the Metropolitan Water Board.¹¹ Despite the advantages municipal government had over private companies, some towns and cities continued to be supplied by private companies until the creation of the regional water boards in the 1970s. In cities such as Bristol and Newcastle, private companies were deemed to work well, which meant that the drive for municipalisation never gained momentum.¹² This uneven approach to water supply, predicated on local factors, was frustrating to some in the water industry. By the time consensus had shifted to a more centralised approach to water management in the twentieth century, successive governments had failed to successfully reform the sector to implement a singular vision.¹³ With the privatisation of the water industry in 1989 and the perpetuation of regional private water companies, the sector continues to lack a singular approach to water supply.

The remainder of this chapter will focus on a number of key waterworks projects that broadly outline the development of the industry from the 1860s until the 1960s, focusing on Leeds, Liverpool and Birmingham, with reference to other important works during this period.

Leeds and the Washburn Valley

The state of water supply in Leeds was not in a good place by 1866. As noted, Leeds Corporation had gained control of the waterworks in 1852. One of the main drivers of municipalisation in Leeds was an inadequate supply of water due to unforeseen growth in demand. Despite the construction of Eccup reservoir in 1842, members of the waterworks committee were soon on the lookout for new sources of water. The corporation initially targeted the upper Wharfe Valley, West Yorkshire, but were beaten to that source by Bradford in the mid-1850s. They settled for the lower Wharfe Valley, constructing a pumping station on the river at Arthington in 1855.¹⁴ It was not long, though, before the corporation was once again looking for new sources of water. Although Bradford profited from pure water in the upper Wharfe Valley, a number of mills along the river meant that by the time water reached Arthington it was quite badly polluted. A Leeds Mercury article from 1865 detailed a report from Dr. Hunter of the Privy Council that outlined the poor quality of water in Leeds: ‘It is certain that the River Wharfe […] receives large and constantly increasing quantities of filth’.¹⁵ A much greater scheme would be needed to supply the town with the quantity and quality needed to meet demand.

The borough surveyor for Leeds, Edward Filliter, presented a report on a new source of water for the town to the corporation in September 1866.¹⁶ He looked at four potential sources of water: the River Washburn, the River Nidd, the River Ure, and the rivers Burn and Laver, all in North Yorkshire. Of the four proposed sites, the Ure was discounted immediately due to the hardness of its water, which would not have been beneficial to the textile industry; the River Nidd possessed water that was soft but of questionable purity; but the rivers Washburn, Burn and Laver possessed soft and pure water. They also received a good amount of rainfall and were well located in relation to the already established Eccup reservoir, which meant that they could be connected to the town’s existing water system more conveniently. Four reservoirs were proposed as part of the Washburn scheme: Lindley Wood, a reservoir to compensate for loss of water to the River Wharfe; Swinsty, a service reservoir; Fewston and Thruscross, both storage reservoirs. As the Washburn was the nearest geographically to Leeds and was the cheapest scheme at approximately £150,000, Filliter recommended the Washburn ‘in respect of both economy and quality’.¹⁷

The scheme was not universally popular. Some of the opposition that centred on concerns with the landscape will be returned to in Chapter 2, but there were also concerns both within and outside the corporation regarding the finances of the scheme. Editorials in the Yorkshire Post, a fiscally conservative newspaper, called for a better use of public finances than costly public works such as the Washburn scheme. When the estimated cost of the scheme was revised by Thomas Hawksley, who acted as a consultant engineer, from £150,000 to £410,000, the Yorkshire Post criticised the corporation for the unforeseen costs, adding that these criticisms were not made in political partisanship, ‘but on the knowledge of facts in our possession’.¹⁸ On the other hand, some criticised the corporation for being too frugal. William Wheelhouse, a former Conservative town councillor, pointed to how Filliter’s recommendation was based on fiscal prudency, and suggested taking water from the Nidd as it would provide a larger and purer supply than what he deemed to be the temporary Washburn solution.¹⁹ Within the council chamber, the Liberal councillor George Linsley argued that Leeds should not waste money on such a small stream as the Washburn and put their resources towards a scheme from the Lake District. His characterisation of the Lake District summed up how many saw the area in terms of water supply in the nineteenth century: ‘the lakes were natural reservoirs – God’s reservoirs – for the supply of the large towns of England’.²⁰

The scheme also encountered opposition from local landowners, who registered their feelings during the parliamentary process. A number of petitions were submitted opposing the scheme; however, the main opposition came from the local landowner F. H. Fawkes. Fawkes owned land around the proposed Lindley Wood reservoir and, as a landowner in the south of the valley, had previously opposed waterworks in the area. He campaigned against the waterworks, writing several missives published in the Leeds newspapers. One such letter in 1866 lambasted the chairman of the waterworks committee, R. M. Carter, for suggesting in public that he supported a gravitation scheme in the valley, which he had been opposed to since 1851.²¹

Fawkes was one of the few opponents of the scheme who had the resources to object to the Leeds waterworks bill in Parliament. Municipal authorities and private water companies needed the permission of Parliament to build large structures outside their municipal boundaries: indeed, one of the reasons why municipal government took responsibility of water supply was because they were better placed financially and legally to gain statutory powers.²² Water authorities and their engineers would put the case to parliamentarians, with opponents of the bill bringing reasons as to why schemes should not be allowed to progress. Due to the vast amount of money needed to oppose a bill in Parliament, legal opposition was beyond many who would be affected by the scheme.²³ As such, opposition in Parliament usually rested on pre-existing land ownership and riparian rights, those who claimed to hold land adjacent to rivers who would be impacted by loss of water or land. In the case of some opponents, like Lady Franklin Russell who asserted riparian rights to a section of the River Washburn, claims were dismissed as lands did not quite touch the edge of rivers.²⁴ Other opponents proved to be more difficult to remove. Ultimately, the corporation entered into private negotiations with Fawkes – in return for dropping his opposition, Fawkes gained control over the location and general specifications of Lindley Wood reservoir, sole sporting rights around Farnley and Lindley Wood, and £45,000 for the use of land at Lindley Wood.²⁵ With Fawkes’s opposition removed, the way was clear for the passing of the Leeds Corporation Waterworks Act 1867, which empowered the corporation to build four reservoirs in the Washburn Valley within a ten-year period and granted the powers to raise £400,000.

It would take another two years for work on the Washburn scheme to begin. The Leeds Times reported on the breaking of ground by the mayor, Alderman T. W. George, in August 1869 at Lindley Wood, the site of the first reservoir to be built: ‘The first sod of the new reservoir was turned on the bank of the Washburn, and in as lovely a valley as it is possible to find even in this picturesque county of ours’.²⁶ The positive reporting of the event from the Leeds Times contrasts with that of the Yorkshire Post, which had been against the Washburn scheme from its inception. Using the inscribed silver spade presented to him by the waterworks committee for the event, ‘the Mayor then formally excavated the first sod, and in doing so he unfortunately bent and considerably spoiled the symmetrical shape of the silver spade’.²⁷ The article continued: ‘the Mayor then said he was exceedingly sorry that any mishap should have occurred […] but he felt quite sure it would be no augury at all as to the progress of their undertaking’.²⁸ How much of an ill omen this turned out to be will be discussed in the following chapter.

Needless to say, construction was not particularly straightforward. There were a number of issues with the landscape that made construction more difficult than anticipated, including cracks in the land and difficulty forming a stable foundation. It also made the project more expensive. As Table 1.1 shows, the costs of the scheme had outstripped the £400,000 estimate by 1873, before substantive work had begun on Fewston and Thruscross reservoirs.²⁹ An editorial in the Leeds Mercury noted somewhat optimistically that £250,000 would ‘probably’ be required to finish the works, a number that foreshadowed ‘an unpleasant increase in local taxation’.³⁰ The waterworks committee requested a report from Hawksley and Filliter ‘without a day’s unnecessary delay’ on the suitability of moving the proposed Thruscross reservoir, and how much further capital would be required to complete the scheme. A report was submitted by the engineers at the following meeting, stating that £200,000 would be required to complete the existing works, citing money spent on the purchase of land, the increase in costs of labour and materials since 1866, and problems with the land at Lindley Wood. They suggested if powers of borrowing were to be sought from Parliament that £400,000 should be requested in order to build a system capable of supplying water to the town for twenty years. This discussion, however, led to another proposal two years later. Filliter suggested to the committee to suspend the building of Thruscross reservoir indefinitely, and instead enlarge the already established Eccup reservoir.³¹ An Improvement Act was secured in 1877 granting Leeds the ability to enlarge Eccup and, crucially, secure an extra £200,000 to finish the works.

With work moved over to Eccup, the Washburn scheme finished in 1879 with the opening of Fewston reservoir. At a small ceremony the civic value was stressed, an attempt to build an early link between the countryside and the town. The mayor and waterworks committee member Alderman Robert Addyman responded to criticism received over the expenditure of the scheme, stating that: ‘those stupendous works had been carried out without a single penny of rate having been levied upon the town […] there ought to be no more grumbling heard from the ratepayers about the expense of the scheme, because they had not paid one farthing towards it’.³² The mayor further noted that it was an important day in the history of Leeds, ‘which would be of interest when all present at the ceremony were gone’.³³ Hawksley proclaimed that when the enlargement of Eccup reservoir was completed, ‘Leeds would be in possession of one of the finest, if not the very finest, waterworks in the United Kingdom’.³⁴ While Leeds had, indeed, secured a fine gathering grounds, grander waterworks elsewhere in the country were yet to come.

Liverpool and Vyrnwy

Unlike Leeds and the Washburn Valley, the construction of Liverpool Corporation’s Vyrnwy reservoir was long in the making. After becoming one of the first large municipal authorities to take ownership of their town’s waterworks in 1847, Liverpool proceeded to investigate several potential sources of water, with Rivington reservoir on the West Pennine Moors in Lancashire completed in 1856. However, the town was soon looking for new sources of water. With daily consumption around thirty gallons per day by 1864, the resources of Rivington were put under strain, resulting in the disruption of constant supply. While Yarrow reservoir, a supplementary reservoir to Rivington on the River Yarrow, was undertaken in 1867, it was clear that a new source of water was needed to fulfil increasing demand.³⁵ In 1866, the same year that the Washburn scheme was proposed in Leeds, the water engineer for Liverpool, Thomas Duncan, prepared a report on potential sites of water. Duncan looked at a number of sites including: Windermere, Haweswater and Ullswater in the Lake District; the Rivers Hodder and Ribble in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire; and a number of rivers and bodies of water in Wales, including Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid) and the River Dee. After examining all of these proposed sites, Duncan concluded that the only viable site was Bala Lake, favourable because of the quality of the water it held and the geology of the lake that meant it could be engineered effectively.³⁶

Despite the pressing need for more water, the water committee did not act on Duncan’s report. Duncan died in 1866, so the committee turned to Joseph Jackson to prepare a new report in 1873. As J. F. Bateman outlined in his 1875 report for the committee on potential water sources, Liverpool had managed to maintain a water supply from Rivington due to greater than average rainfall during the late 1860s, as well as the introduction of infrastructural improvements by the corporation’s engineer George Deacon, that helped to tackle waste.³⁷ However, supply was far from constant, sometimes only available for three hours a day. This clearly renewed the vigour of the water committee to find a more permanent and sustainable solution.

Joseph examined the same sites that Duncan had in 1866, with the addition of the River Wyre near Blackpool. Unlike Duncan, Brown dismissed Bala Lake as a potential source, citing a number of changes that had taken place between 1866 and 1873, including the construction of a railway along one side of the lake that would make engineering work difficult. Brown advocated for the River Wyre, which held water of a similar quality to Rivington and, being closer to the Liverpool, represented a cheaper scheme than other proposed sites, such as Haweswater.³⁸ Clearly unsure as to which route to take, in 1875 the water committee commissioned further reports from two of the most renowned water engineers of the nineteenth century: J. F. LaTrobe Bateman and Thomas Hawksley. Liverpool Corporation had experience working with Hawksley, having employed him to design and construct Rivington reservoir, while during the 1870s Bateman was employed by, among other authorities, Manchester, to help plan the waterworks at Thirlmere.

Having reviewed the sites and the conclusions of Duncan and Brown, Bateman concurred with Brown that Bala Lake would be unsuitable owing to the changes that had taken place in the area, as well as concluding that Bala Lake would not offer as much water to Liverpool as Duncan had suggested. Bateman, though, also dismissed Brown’s endorsement of the River Wyre, taking exception to Brown’s proposal to build one large reservoir at Bleasdale that would collect both pure and turgid water running down the hillsides. He also questioned Brown’s estimates regarding water supply and the cost of the scheme, which Bateman adjusted to be around £2.3 millon, as well as Brown’s assertion that the corporation should compensate local stakeholders with money rather than water, an unusual proposal given that manufacturers depended on reliable supplies of water to power their mills. Muddying the waters further, Bateman suggested that Liverpool should look to the Lake District, particularly Haweswater and Ullswater. Indeed, he proposed that Liverpool should bid jointly for this water with Manchester, an unrealistic proposition given the levels of civic rivalry at play during the second half of the nineteenth century.³⁹ As for Hawksley, he also dismissed Bala Lake because of the presence of railways in the area, as well as the proposed cost, which he placed at around £3 million. While Hawksley did not consider Haweswater and Ullswater, he did investigate Windermere, which he considered to be too expensive. Ultimately, Hawksley favoured the River Wyre, which he deemed to be able to provide Liverpool in excess of twenty million gallons per day, the estimated amount needed to supply the town comfortably, for around £2 million.⁴⁰

After commissioning four reports by 1875, Liverpool Corporation was no closer to settling on a new source of water. Time was also against the town. Hawksley noted in his report that if the corporation acted in 1875, given the state of supply, the earliest the new works would be ready would be 1881, ‘the latest period to which the introduction of an additional supply of water can be advisably deferred’.⁴¹ One source of water that had not been considered, though, was the River Vyrnwy. Following a resolution by a subcommittee of the water committee, Deacon compiled a report on the suitability of Vyrnwy in 1877, noting that it was ‘hitherto unknown except to the angler’.⁴² Vyrnwy had previously been suggested by Bateman as a potential source in evidence he had given to the 1869 Royal Commission on water supply for London, but no town or city had seriously considered it up until this point.⁴³ Vyrnwy offered the possibility of, in time, delivering up to fifty million gallons of water a day to Liverpool.⁴⁴ The quality of the water was excellent, with little to no filtering required, while there were few riparian interests that would offer resistance to the proposal. Most importantly, Deacon estimated the cost of the scheme at £1.2 million, cheaper than other proposed sites.⁴⁵ Further endorsement was given by Dr J. Campbell Brown, who conducted tests on the purity of the Vyrnwy waters, remarking that

it is superior to the present Rivington water, and would be a much safer supply. It is superior to the present supply of Manchester, Birmingham, and many other towns receiving water from sources of similar character. It is superior to Windermere, and practically as good as Ullswater and the main feeders of Bala Lake.⁴⁶

A final report by Alderman W. B. Forwood for the water committee summarised the positives and negatives of both schemes – ultimately, both Haweswater and Vyrnwy would provide ample, good quality water, with minor interference from riparian landowners. The difference between the two was the cost – Haweswater was estimated to cost around £1.5 million, whereas Vyrnwy was estimated at around £1.2 million.⁴⁷ At a time when councils consisted of a number of hawkish members mindful of overzealous municipal expenditure, as with Leeds, the lower cost of the scheme won the day for Vyrnwy.

While the proposal faced opposition in Parliament, as did most waterworks schemes, Liverpool managed to successfully progress their bill in 1880, which gave them powers to purchase land compulsorily for seven years in order to build the reservoir. As with Leeds, there were concessions in the bill, most notably that a new school and church was to be built by the corporation in Llanwddyn, as well as sporting rights over the reservoir being given to the Earl of Powis.⁴⁸ The construction of the reservoir, which began in 1881, went more smoothly than those in the Washburn Valley. The scheme was most notable for being the first in the United Kingdom to include a masonry dam, which allowed for a greater and stronger structure. The issues that arose with Vyrnwy, though, came behind the scenes. Liverpool Corporation had employed Thomas Hawksley as chief engineer on the project. Hawksley was one of the predominant water engineers of his day, having worked with Liverpool on its Rivington waterworks among some 120 other schemes during his career. However, four years into the Vyrnwy project, Hawksley announced his resignation from the scheme.

Concerns had been growing within the corporation about the ever-increasing cost of the waterworks, which was starting to surpass the estimate given to Parliament. In response, Hawksley told the waterworks committee that the estimate given was just that, an estimate, and that costs often increased during construction, as they had in the Washburn Valley. An incendiary meeting of the corporation took place on 4 March 1885. It started with the explanation that the project costs had increased to around £2 million from £1.2 million. The chairman of the waterworks committee, Councillor Bower, noted some reasons for this increase: the corporation had been forced to compensate a number of stakeholders in the area, whose opposition had been raised in Parliament after the initial estimate had been submitted, while the embankment was higher than originally planned and the tunnel lower, which again added to the costs.⁴⁹

This explanation did not satisfy some members of the corporation. Councillor Thomas Hughes raised a salient point for many – the Vyrnwy scheme had been chosen over Haweswater because it was cheaper. As noted earlier, the lower cost of Vyrnwy was the primary reason why the water committee, and ergo the corporation, chose that site, with Haweswater the more favoured site before costs were taken into account. Hughes continued that the original estimate for the embankment was around £300,000, while Hawksley now put the cost at around £800,000. Alderman A. B. Forwood was more forthright in his opinions, stating that Hawksley had deceived the corporation. After questioning the disparities between the original estimates and the current figures, he implored the chairman of the water committee ‘to say whether an engineer who could so mislead the council did not require bringing before the committee for an explanation and whether they ought to endorse that further expenditure until a satisfactory explanation was given of the deceit that had been practised on the Council’. After refusing to retract the accusation of deceit, Forwood put forward an amendment to compel Hawksley and Deacon to compile separate reports on the reasons why expenditure had exceeded the estimates by so much.⁵⁰

While this amendment was rejected, the criticism endured during this meeting was enough for Hawksley to resign. In a letter to the waterworks committee reprinted in the Liverpool Mercury, Hawksley took exception to the allegations, stating that:

With these incidents and accidents past, present, and to come, I have no further concern than that it seems to be wished – a not very uncommon practice – to fasten upon the absent and unheard man – as a scapegoat, perhaps – the sins, if they be sins, of promoters, of opponents, of Parliament, of the Council, of the committee, and even of Nature herself.⁵¹

The criticism endured from councillors, though, was not the only reason that Hawksley stood down from his position. It was then revealed that the relationship between Hawksley and Deacon had been somewhat misrepresented. Hawksley had agreed to work for the corporation on the understanding that he would be chief engineer and that Deacon would be resident engineer and his subordinate. As later discovered by Alderman Forwood, the water committee had altered a committee resolution and changed the wording of Deacon’s contract so that he would work ‘in conjunction with’ Hawksley; in other words, they would jointly be chief engineer. In a series of scathing articles published in the Liverpool Mercury following Hawksley’s successful arbitration in 1888 against the corporation over his resignation, accusations were made on the relationship between Deacon and the chair of the water committee, Councillor Bower, which may have involved business dealings.⁵² It also emerged that Hawksley had complained numerous times to Bower over the conduct of Deacon, who he deemed to be overstepping his mark and, at times, not displaying the requisite engineering knowledge for such a large project.⁵³

In spite of the turmoil behind the scenes, the Lake Vyrnwy project was completed by Deacon and opened in 1892. In time, the waterworks would become a key civic landscape for Liverpool, an area utilised to promote civic identity, examined further in Chapter 3. But attitudes to Vyrnwy were not particularly optimistic when the scheme was completed. The Liverpool Echo reported that the scheme had cost around £2.5 million, in contrast to the projected £1.25 million. For the Liverpool Mercury, the incident with Hawksley showcased the worst aspects of municipal government: ‘we venture to think, and we express our thoughts unreservedly, that no Corporation, great or small, ever committed itself so lamentably to its own honour and so disastrously to the interests of the ratepayers as has the Liverpool Corporation […] over this Vyrnwy scheme’.⁵⁴ The scheme had become an acid test for the governance of the city, showing the importance of waterworks to the wider health of the council. Vyrnwy would go on to successfully supply the city with good quality water for decades, but its behind-the-scenes troubles highlight how fractious the execution of these great waterscapes could be.

Birmingham and the Elan Valley

Birmingham, the second city of the United Kingdom, joined other large towns and cities towards the end of the nineteenth century in sourcing a new and large watershed. Impetus was given to finding a new water supply in the 1870s due to the corporation finally purchasing the city’s private waterworks. The water engineer Robert Rawlinson, in his report to the corporation on new sources of water for the city in 1871, urged the council to purchase the Birmingham Waterworks Company so that it could properly facilitate the large-scale project the city needed. Of the sources surveyed by Rawlinson for Birmingham, the rivers Elan and Claerwen in Radnorshire, Wales, were deemed to be the most suitable, offering excellent quality water and enough quantity to supply the city for many years. Indeed, as the Birmingham Daily Post noted, ‘As a gathering ground, Mr Rawlinson thinks nothing better could be found in the country, nor could better be desired.’⁵⁵

The waterworks, though, were not purchased by the corporation until 1876. Unlike other towns and cities, the process of identification was more straightforward. Works were subsequently undertaken to sink new wells and to construct Shustoke reservoir on the River Bourne, meaning that the need for a large-scale waterworks did not arise until the late 1880s. By this point, population, as well as industrial demand, was rising in Birmingham. Additionally, like much of England, the city had undergone the drought of 1887 that threatened the ability of the corporation to offer constant water supply.⁵⁶ There was also another reason for haste: London. As noted in the case of Liverpool and Vyrnwy, various metropolitan authorities and engineers had been eying the Welsh gathering grounds for a number of years by 1890. While the Royal Commission into water supply for London had settled for the River Thames despite the presence of cholera, following Bateman’s recommendations in 1869, future works in Wales to supply the capital had not been dismissed.⁵⁷ In targeting the rivers Elan and Claerwen, Birmingham was potentially making itself a rival to London, and any parliamentary process would no doubt favour the capital.⁵⁸ For a number of reasons, then, Birmingham had to act with some urgency by 1891 to secure the waters of the Elan Valley.

Unlike Liverpool, which sought multiple experts that provided different, competing visions, Birmingham employed James Mansergh to inspect the area recommended by Rawlinson nearly twenty years earlier. Mansergh concurred with Rawlinson’s views on the Elan Valley and designed a plan to abstract water. The plan would be split into two. The first phase of the plan would concentrate on the River Elan, starting with the construction of Caban Coch reservoir at the confluence of the rivers Elan and Claerwen, two storage reservoirs at Pen y Garreg and Craig Goch, and a further submerged reservoir at Garreg Ddu. The second phase of the scheme would be built as and when required in the future, consisting of three reservoirs on the River Claerwen: Dol y Mynach, Cil-Oerwynt, and Pant y Beddau. Indeed, it was envisioned that Pant y Beddau would not be needed for another fifty years. Ultimately, the second phase of the scheme would never be built as originally conceived, but it highlights the forward planning of Mansergh and the Birmingham Corporation that such a scheme was devised.⁵⁹

One of the intriguing aspects of the Elan Valley, so far as members of the corporation were concerned, was the almost virginal quality of the landscape. In passing judgement on the proposal, Sir Thomas Martineau, the former Lord Mayor of Birmingham and chairman of the water committee, spoke of his visit to the area:

He stood on the hills and saw for a great distance all in the area of the watershed, and there was not a house, or an enclosure, or even a tree. The whole district was about as absolutely wild as any member of the Council had ever seen, and coming back to Birmingham and walking into our crowded streets it was difficult to believe that a district of that kind so free from habitations so absolutely wild in its character, existed within 90 miles of the city.⁶⁰

There are several aspects to note here. First, the distinction between the wild but calm ambiance of the Elan Valley and the busy but chaotic nature of the city perfectly illustrates Maria Kaika’s urban/rural dialectic: that to urban authorities the urban and the rural could embody competing characteristics simultaneously.⁶¹ Second, the way in which the Elan Valley is defined as wild implies the ability of the corporation to tame the wilderness through urban engineering, a quality highlighted in American contexts by William Cronon.⁶² Third, the picture of wilderness and isolation presented by Martineau was simply not true. As David Lewis Brown has highlighted, there were a number of residents and local interests affected by the proposed reservoir, so many that the bill to approve the Elan scheme took five months to ratify and included a hybrid select committee to hear all opposition, including those petitioning on behalf of the rural poor of the area. The bill was passed in June 1892 with no fewer than sixty clauses attached to help protect local interests.⁶³ Far from being an area untouched by humanity that Martineau depicted, the reservoirs would have a great impact on the local communities of Radnorshire, an impact that will be returned to in Chapter 6.

The construction of the reservoirs themselves was relatively straightforward. Work on Caban Coch began in 1894, while excavations for Pen y Garreg and Garreg Ddu started a year later. The landscape did provide problems for engineers to solve – Caban Coch is situated on Silurian grit, while the reservoirs further up the valley were built on a foundation of slate. One journalist praised the work of Mansergh in dealing with these issues effectively – as will be shown in Chapter 2, foundations could be very problematic for engineers both during and after construction.⁶⁴ By the time King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra came to open the works in 1903, Birmingham had managed to construct their enormous chain of reservoirs in just under ten years. The royal procession that opened the waterworks shared similarities with the opening of Leeds Town Hall – opened by Queen Victoria in 1857 – and other civic processions in the nineteenth century city that Simon Gunn has highlighted: the royal party was accompanied by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Birmingham, who would be met at the filter beds by, in order, the Lord Bishop of St. David’s, the chairman of the waterworks committee, members of the waterworks committee, then the engineer James Mansergh and the resident engineer. Despite not being in the city and, therefore, away from the urban arena, as Gunn has noted, this procession still gave physical form to social authority – members of the corporation were given precedence over the men who actually designed the scheme, and, therefore, we can see continuity with expressions of urban authority within the city itself.⁶⁵

The interwar years

The quest to fulfil urban thirst did not stop after the First World War. Despite the harsh economic milieu of these years, several notable waterworks projects were undertaken and completed. Water projects during this period were predicated on two prominent factors: predictions of urban growth that required more water sooner rather than later, and issues with existing water supplies. On the former factor, it seems that a number of changes to living standards influenced the supposed growth of water usage: namely, tapped supply to individual homes and a decline in communal facilities.⁶⁶ A related factor was the development of suburban council housing in many English cities during the interwar years: Liverpool rehoused 140,000 residents into around 33,000 new houses, while in Manchester nearly 22,000 suburban council houses had been built by 1933.⁶⁷ The 1930s also saw the development of major municipal housing projects such as the Wythenshawe estate in Manchester and Quarry Hill in Leeds, all of which required more water for plumbed baths and toilets.

Issues with existing water supplies were felt particularly keenly during the drought years of the 1920s and 1930s: 1921, 1929 and 1933–34, which showed up inefficiencies in cities like Leeds. A number of large projects were either initiated or progressed during these years, including Manchester’s Haweswater scheme, Ladybower reservoir serving the East Midlands, and Leeds’s Leighton reservoir among others. Haweswater and Leighton are illustrative of the issues that water authorities encountered during this period. Parliamentary approval was given to Manchester to abstract water from Haweswater in 1919, in spite of opposition similar to that of Thirlmere, if not as voracious.⁶⁸ After a lengthy parliamentary process, which resulted in Manchester being compelled to share water from Haweswater with other municipalities in the local area, the chairman of the water committee, Sir Edward Holt, remarked that:

It was a Bill that was an absolute necessity, for Manchester must have an adequate supply of water. The city had secured a supply for at least sixty years, and Manchester, if it had to progress, would need all the water it could get.⁶⁹

This was not quite the case, though. Due to the impact of the First World War, the population of cities like Manchester did not increase at the expected rate. Additionally, Ritvo has argued that the estimates for water usage put forward by proponents of Haweswater were overgenerous, predicated on an ideology of ever-increasing demand.⁷⁰ Although there were changes in standards of living, many of the changes such as reliable piped supply to each house became more widespread towards the end of the 1930s and the start of the 1940s, meaning that this rise in living standards did not seriously affect water usage until after the Second World War.⁷¹ By the time construction actually began, some ten years after Parliament had approved the project, the reservoir was not quite as necessary as first thought. Water from Haweswater did not reach Manchester until 1941.⁷²

Leeds had to wait just as long as Manchester for their Leighton reservoir to bear fruit. First proposed in the 1890s and subject to parliamentary approval in 1901, a series of mishaps and mismanagement meant that the Ure Valley project was delayed by a number of years. Initially featuring five reservoirs including Leighton, it came to light that the landscape near Masham, North Yorkshire, was not suitable for reservoir development, with £300,000 wasted on Colsterdale reservoir, a site that was never finished. Attention turned to Leighton reservoir, but the interruption of the First World War and the poor economic environment of the 1920s meant that primary work on the reservoir was not finished until 1926, while water did not flow regularly to the city until the 1930s. As in Manchester, Leeds discovered that its much needed scheme was not, in fact, much needed because of infrastructural improvements that had been made before the First World War, as well as an unexpected decline in population growth during the interwar period. While towns and cities continued to eye the urban hinterland as a space of further expansion predicated on continued and sustained urban growth, a number of factors interceded to suggest that continued growth was not the only way to manage water supply.

The post-war years

Issues related to water supply reappeared after the Second World War. John Hassan has highlighted that, in contrast to the interwar years, demand after the Second World War increased at an unprecedented rate, particularly as the complex and growing requirements of heavy industry in parts of the North East, Yorkshire and South Wales needed to be met.⁷³ Additionally, water shortages were ever present throughout the 1950s, culminating in the drought of 1959.⁷⁴ It is within this context that the building of Rutland Water in the East Midlands, completed in 1976, was seen by local residents as aiding the provision of water for the nation. This, though, was not the case, as water continued to supply the local area even after the regional water boards were established.⁷⁵

The state of the water industry was much changed from the second half of the nineteenth century. Water was not nationalised by post-war Labour governments despite it being Labour policy up until 1965.⁷⁶ There were various stakeholders in water supply that made nationalisation unfeasible, such as landowners, industrialists and river conservancy boards, to name a few.⁷⁷ Despite this, Hassan has highlighted attempts by central government to improve the water industry amid increased demand, leading to the 1963 Water Resources Act, which sought to radically reorganise the water industry, implementing centralised river authorities to directly manage and sustain rivers across the country.⁷⁸ The establishment of the river authorities under this act, followed by the establishment of the regional water boards in 1973, saw central government play an increasingly interventionist role in the governance of water without fully nationalising the industry.

The development of ministerial orders during the interwar and post-war periods made it easier to pass uncontroversial local government legislation. This had a large impact on water legislation, which often fell into this category, at least in the eyes of policy makers. Additionally, austerity following the end of the Second World War meant that central government did not have the resources to fund municipal authorities to build waterworks.⁷⁹ Indeed, Glen O’Hara has noted that in 1959 over fifty ministerial orders were passed that allowed authorities to slow or halt the release of water from reservoirs, indicating that measures were needed other than impounding more water.⁸⁰ However, growing demand mixed with dry weather led to the severe water shortage of 1959 that left the resources of cities like Leeds ‘strained “to the limits”’. As time went by and economic recovery from the Second World War had taken hold, central government was more willing to invest in water schemes to combat shortages.⁸¹

The Leeds Corporation’s waterworks committee began to move towards securing an additional source of water as early as 1952, perhaps prompted by the water shortage of 1949 that had seen storage levels fall to as low as a thirty-day supply.⁸² Drought, a scarcity often produced as much by infrastructural frameworks of water management as by rainfall, often acted as an instigator for debate and reform, particularly regarding the inception of a national water grid in the twentieth century.⁸³ This can be seen in the political debates that took place within the waterworks committee during the 1950s, as Labour members used the issue of water shortages to homes and industry for political gain against the Conservative-led corporation.⁸⁴ In July 1952 the waterworks committee returned to the Washburn Valley, visiting the proposed site for a reservoir at Thruscross. A memorandum on the development of a new impounding reservoir in the Washburn Valley was subsequently approved by the committee later that year.⁸⁵ It was made clear during the 1950s that, unlike earlier plans for Thruscross reservoir from the 1870s, construction would require flooding the village of West End, the impact of which is explored in more detail in Chapter 6.

Soil tests were carried out in 1953; however, it was not until 1959 that affirmative action was taken by the corporation to request powers from Parliament to construct the reservoir for an estimated £1,600,000.⁸⁶ An editorial in the Yorkshire Evening News highlighted this drawn-out process, noting the lack of funding from central government during the immediate post-war period, which changed after the drought of 1959, illustrated in the deficiencies in the country’s water supplies.⁸⁷ Due to the development of ministerial orders, there was no need to attempt a costly local government bill. Although Thruscross required the flooding of West End, much of the land had already been purchased by the Leeds Corporation in the early twentieth century in an attempt to abate pollution. There was, though, opposition to the scheme from local interests and members of Parliament, who were particularly concerned about access for farmers across the valley.⁸⁸ Negotiations between the corporation and the respective objectors led to all concerns being addressed, in particular the construction of a new road and the reconstruction of the local church, resulting in the passing of the Leeds Corporation (Thruscross Reservoir) Water Order in December 1960.⁸⁹

Leeds was not the only city to return to watersheds that had provided in the past. Undergoing the same pressures as those in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Liverpool sought a new water supply in the 1950s. After once again considering a supply from the Lake District, they turned to the River Tryweryn, near Bala in Wales. Tryweryn had been mentioned as a potential source of water in the 1870s; however, its relative proximity to Lake Vyrnwy, which was already connected to Liverpool, made the scheme attractive. Liverpool proposed an eight-hundred-acre reservoir that required flooding the village of Capel Celyn. While Liverpool successfully completed construction of Llyn Celyn reservoir in 1965, the project stimulated a level of opposition not seen in Wales until that point. As noted above, taking water from Wales to supply English towns and cities was not novel by the 1960s, but Llyn Celyn helped to crystallise the intersection between water politics and emergent Welsh nationalism, becoming a bitter symbol of Welsh identity and complicating the idea of a national water story.⁹⁰

A much less controversial return to Wales was undertaken by Birmingham. The second part of the Elan and Claerwen project was to construct three reservoirs on the River Claerwen. However, due to technological advancements, Birmingham Corporation decided to build one large reservoir. Parliamentary approval for Claerwen reservoir was given in 1946, with the reservoir classified as a high priority project following the Second World War. Construction started in the same year – not a moment too soon, given that Birmingham was struggling with supply for the first time since the 1880s. In 1952, the reservoir was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II, mirroring the opening of the Elan Valley reservoirs by her great-grandfather in 1903.⁹¹ While there was only one reservoir instead of the originally planned three, the enormous size of Claerwen reservoir compensated for this. The dam has a depth of 184 feet and is four miles in length, meaning that it stored 21.8 billion gallons of water, approximately the same as the three original Elan reservoirs combined.⁹²

Manchester also tried to return to a profitable gathering ground, eyeing up Ullswater in the Lake District to add to Thirlmere and Haweswater. In an example of the cyclical nature of history, though, Manchester faced stringent opposition from local and regional interests who were concerned with the impact the reservoir would have on the local aesthetic. There were also increasing concerns in the 1960s about the ecological effects of reservoirs, seen most prominently in the opposition to Teesside’s Cow Green reservoir.⁹³ Unlike the efforts of the Thirlmere Defence Association just under one hundred years previously, the defenders of Ullswater won the day, with the Ullswater bill defeated in Parliament in 1961. Manchester would eventually take water from Ullswater, gaining permission to abstract water from that lake and Windermere, but the use of underground pumps rather than the construction of a dam meant that both lakes remained untouched to the naked eye.⁹⁴

To return to the case of Leeds, the construction of Thruscross reservoir was not as tumultuous as the building of the other reservoirs. The Thruscross reservoir built in the 1960s was quite different from the one originally envisioned by Edward Filliter in the 1860s, largely due to advances in engineering and water technology but also due to differences in design.⁹⁵ The original reservoir was due to have a watershed of 4,500 acres and a storage capacity of 540 million gallons, which was comparable with the other contemporary reservoirs.⁹⁶ The revised proposal saw the watershed increase to 7,120 acres and the storage capacity to 1,725 million gallons.⁹⁷ As such, the reservoir is much larger than the original three; while the surface area is less than that of Swinsty and Fewston reservoirs, the greater depth means that the storage capacity dwarfs the reservoirs in the lower valley.

Although little detail of progress is provided by the committee minutes, the Yorkshire Evening Post provided infrequent reports on the development of the reservoir, which are examined in more detail in Chapter 2. Despite not being completed by the original target of 1965, construction was completed by January 1966, when a civic ceremony with the waterworks committee took place. After the chairman of the committee, Alderman William Hemmingway, had shut the dam valve, the Evening Post reporter Malcolm Barker brought him a cup with water from the reservoir, ‘the first water from Thruscross’.⁹⁸ The official opening by the Lord Mayor, Alderman J. S. Walsh, took place on 7 September 1966, with sentiment echoing the completion of Fewston reservoir in 1879: ‘Its completion is a notable occasion not only for all connected with the city’s waterworks committee and the Leeds City Council but also for everyone living within the undertaking area of supply’.⁹⁹ Both occasions marked an important milestone in the history of Leeds, as well as the completion of the work Edward Filliter had set out to undertake in 1866, one hundred years prior, showing that the provision of water remained an important part of civic identity.¹⁰⁰

Conclusion

The water industry changed greatly in the one hundred years covered in this chapter. It is almost impossible to cover all aspects of the industry in detail – there were great changes in sanitation and approaches to water and public health. But in introducing some of the larger waterworks undertaken in England and Wales in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it is possible to see the broad strokes of development. There was change over this period: reservoirs and waterworks projects became increasingly larger owing to technological developments and increased demand. As seen after the Second World War, opposition to waterworks projects in certain areas was beginning to be successful, the start of a sea change in how authorities would approach water management that was not solely predicated on building ever more reservoirs. There was also continuity: as will be explored in more detail in future chapters, the belief in the engineer’s ability to tame the wilderness remained resolute. Communities were affected as badly in the 1960s as they were in the 1860s, as seen in the number of examples cited in the twentieth century that included flooding villages. It is also clear that, until the 1970s, waterworks were driven by local authorities and dictated by local needs and local factors. This sense of the local and its placement in a national context is critical to how reservoirs and waterworks were conceptualised as extensions of the city in the countryside and a key theme of the book. To paraphrase Thomas Barclay, whose quote opened this chapter, the task would remain vast well into the twentieth century.

This chapter has provided an introduction to the main case studies looked at in Waterscapes. It is possible to see that the impact of reservoir projects was not just consigned to the delivery of water. In future chapters, themes such as the cultural landscape, recreation and environment will further expand on this, but this chapter has shown how politics, economics and expertise all intersected with and helped to shape urban waterworks. The impact of waterworks was also not uniform – while Birmingham was able to establish a successful waterworks without many issues, Liverpool’s Vyrnwy project was quite unpopular during and immediately after its construction due to the amount of money that had been spent on the project as well as the clear mismanagement of the project by the water committee, which led Thomas Hawksley to resign. As with criticisms of Leeds’s Washburn Valley scheme, Vyrnwy would, in time, become more popular with urban residents. The reservoir would form a key link with the city and become an emblem of civic identity. How civic identity intersected with changes to the environment is the subject of the following chapter.

Notes

1. 1.  Thomas Barclay, The Future Water Supply of Birmingham (Cornish Brothers, 1892), 1.

2. 2.  Barclay, Future Water Supply of Birmingham, 29.

3. 3.  Harriet Ritvo, The Dawn of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and Modern Environmentalism (University of Chicago Press, 2009).

4. 4.  Richard Samuel Pepperd, ‘The Growth and Development of Leeds Waterworks Undertakings, 1694–1852’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, 1973), 58.

5. 5.  Robert Millward, Private and Public Enterprise in Europe: Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, 1830–1990 (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 44.

6. 6.  Bill Luckin, Pollution and Control: A Social History of the Thames in the Nineteenth Century (Adam Hilger, 1986). For a wider debate on the development of infrastructure and public health, see Christopher Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick: Britain, 1800–1854 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

7. 7.  Sally Sheard, ‘Water and Health: The Formation and Exploitation of the Relationship in Liverpool, 1847–1900’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 143 (1994): 151.

8. 8.  Sheard, ‘Water and Health’, 142.

9. 9.  Leeds Waterworks Act 1837, 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. lxxxiii. Available at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Will4and1Vict/7/83/contents/enacted.

10. 10.  Shane Ewen, ‘Sheffield’s Great Flood of 1864: Engineering Failure and the Municipalisation of Water’, Environment and History 20, no. 2 (2014), 205, https://doi.org/10.3197/096734014X13941952680954.

11. 11.  John Broich, London: Water and the Making of the Modern City (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), 142.

12. 12.  Judith Thornton and Peter Pearson, ‘Bristol Water Works Company: A Study of Nineteenth Century Resistance to Local Authority Purchase Attempts’, Water History 5, no. 3 (2013), 307–30, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-013-0083-1.

13. 13.  Glen O’Hara, The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

14. 14.  Andrew McTominey, ‘Bad Neighbours? Water Supply and the Civic Rivalry of Leeds and Bradford, c.1850–1887’, International Journal of Regional and Local History 12, no. 1 (2017), 31, https://doi.org/10.1080/20514530.2017.1353769.

15. 15.  ‘The Health of Leeds: Dr. Hunter’s Report’, Leeds Mercury, 1 December 1865, 4.

16. 16.  Leeds Corporation, ‘Leeds Waterworks Committee Minutes, volume 2, 1861–1870’, West Yorkshire Archive Service (WYAS), LLC22/1/2, 223.

17. 17.  Edward Filliter, ‘Report on the Best Mode of Obtaining an Additional and Purer Supply of Water for the Borough of Leeds’ (1866), 9–13.

18. 18.  ‘Editorial’, Yorkshire Post, 26 January 1867, 4.

19. 19.  William St James Wheelhouse, ‘The Washburn Scheme’, Yorkshire Post, letter to the editor, 5 October 1866, 3.

20. 20.  ‘Leeds Town Council’, Yorkshire Post, 11 October 1866, 4.

21. 21.  F. H. Fawkes, ‘Leeds Water Supply’, Leeds Mercury, letter to the editor, 2 October 1866, 7.

22. 22.  Millward, Private and Public Enterprise in Europe, 44.

23. 23.  ‘Private Bill in Parliament’, The Yorkshire Post, 21 February 1867, 2.

24. 24.  ‘Local News’, Leeds Times, 29 June 1867, 3

25. 25.  Marion Sharples, The Fawkes Family and Their Estates in Wharfedale, 1819–1936 (Thoresby Society, 1997), 51.

26. 26.  ‘Local News: The Future Water Supply of Leeds’, Leeds Times, 28 August 1869, 3.

27. 27.  ‘The Future Water Supply of Leeds’, Yorkshire Post, 24 August 1869, 3.

28. 28.  ‘The Future Water Supply of Leeds’, Yorkshire Post, 24 August 1869, 3.

29. 29.  Information for this table was collected from the following sources: costs for 1870 are from ‘The Undertaking of the Leeds Corporation’, Leeds Mercury, 4 May 1871, 7; costs for 1873 are from ‘Leeds Water Supply’, Leeds Mercury, 31 May 1873, 11; and costs for 1875 are from ‘The Progress of the Waterworks’, Leeds Mercury, 3 April 1875, 10.

30. 30.  ‘Editorial’, Leeds Mercury, 16 May 1873, 2.

31. 31.  Leeds Corporation, ‘Leeds Waterworks Committee Minutes, volume 3, 1870–1878’, WYAS, LLC22/1/3, 129–130, 132–36, 226–7.

32. 32.  ‘The Leeds Water Supply: Completion of the Washburn Scheme’, Yorkshire Post, 4 November 1879, 5.

33. 33.  ‘The Leeds Water Supply: Completion of the Washburn Scheme’, Yorkshire Post, 4 November 1879, 5.

34. 34.  ‘The Leeds Water Supply: Completion of the Washburn Scheme’, Yorkshire Post, 4 November 1879, 5.

35. 35.  John Frederick Bateman, ‘New Water Supply: Report of Mr John Frederick Bateman C.E., F.R.S.’, 1875, Liverpool Record Office (LRO) 352.6 WAT, 3–7.

36. 36.  Bateman, ‘New Water Supply’, 7–8.

37. 37.  Bateman, ‘New Water Supply’.

38. 38.  Bateman, ‘New Water Supply’, 8–12.

39. 39.  Bateman, ‘New Water Supply’, 14–31.

40. 40.  Thomas Hawksley, ‘New Water Supply: Report of Mr. T. Hawksley, C.E.’, 1875, LRO 352.6 WAT.

41. 41.  Hawksley, ‘New Water Supply’, 23.

42. 42.  George Deacon, ‘Report of the Borough and Water Engineer as to a Supply from the Upper Waters of the Vyrnwy in North Wales’, 1877, LRO 352.6 WAT, 9.

43. 43.  Broich, London: Water, 49.

44. 44.  Deacon, ‘Report’, 11.

45. 45.  Deacon, ‘Report’, 17.

46. 46.  J. Campbell Brown, ‘Appendix to Supplementary Report of the Borough and Water Engineer as to a Supply of Water from the Upper Waters of the River Vyrnwy in North Wales’, 1878, LRO 352.6 WAT, ii.

47. 47.  W. B. Forwood, ‘Water Supply: Notes and Observations’, 1879, LRO 352.6 WAT.

48. 48.  Liverpool Corporation Waterworks Act 1880, 43 & 44 Vict. c. cxliii, 7–32. Available at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Vict/43-44/143/contents/enacted.

49. 49.  ‘Liverpool City Council’, Liverpool Mercury, 5 March 1885, 3.

50. 50.  ‘Liverpool City Council’, Liverpool Mercury, 5 March 1885, 3.

51. 51.  ‘The Cost of the Vyrnwy Scheme’, Liverpool Mercury, 30 March 1885, 6.

52. 52.  ‘The Vyrnwy Scandal: Hawksley v. the Corporation I. Introduction’, Liverpool Mercury, 19 Sept 1888, 5.

53. 53.  ‘The Vyrnwy Scandal: Hawksley v. the Corporation III. Mr Deacon’s Agreement’, 21 Sept 1888, 5.

54. 54.  ‘The Vyrnwy Scandal: Hawksley v. the Corporation I. Introduction’, Liverpool Mercury, 19 Sept 1888, 5.

55. 55.  ‘Birmingham Water Supply: Report of Mr. Rawlinson, C.B.’, Birmingham Daily Post, 18 May 1871, 5.

56. 56.  ‘Birmingham City Council’, Birmingham Mail, 7 April 1891, 3.

57. 57.  Broich, London: Water, 50.

58. 58.  Broich, London: Water, 50.

59. 59.  ‘The Birmingham Water Scheme’, Birmingham Daily Post, 13 October 1891, 4; David Lewis Brown, The Elan Valley Clearance (Logaston Press, 2019), 41.

60. 60.  ‘Birmingham City Council’, Birmingham Mail, 7 April 1891, 3.

61. 61.  Maria Kaika, City of Flows: Modernity, Nature, and the City (Routledge, 2005), 14.

62. 62.  William Cronon, ‘Modes of Prophecy and Production: Placing Nature in History’, The Journal of American History 76, no. 4 (1990), 1122–31, https://doi.org/10.2307/2936590.

63. 63.  Brown, Elan Valley Clearance, 22–38.

64. 64.  ‘Feat of Engineering: Three Great Dams at Elan Valley’, Birmingham Newspaper Scrapbook, part 2, 1867–1907, Library of Birmingham, LF 71.061 243371.

65. 65.  City of Birmingham Waterworks Department, ‘Visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen to the Elan Valley Works, Rhayader: Official Programme’, 1904, Library of Birmingham, L/./45/31; 202633.

66. 66.  John Hassan, A History of Water in Modern England and Wales (Manchester University Press, 1998), 53–5.

67. 67.  Charlotte Wildman, Urban Redevelopment and Modernity in Liverpool and Manchester, 1918–1939 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 22–3.

68. 68.  Ritvo, Dawn of Green, 163–4.

69. 69.  ‘Manchester Water: Supply Assured for Sixty Years’, Manchester Evening News, 3 December 1919, 4.

70. 70.  Ritvo, Dawn of Green, 164. Also see Andrew McTominey, ‘Waterworks, Municipal Government and the Environment in Twentieth-Century Britain’, Urban History 51, no. 3 (2024): 600–615, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926823000597.

71. 71.  Hassan, History of Water, 55.

72. 72.  Ritvo, Dawn of Green, 168.

73. 73.  Hassan, History of Water, 85, 87.

74. 74.  Vanessa Taylor et al., ‘Drought Is Normal: The Socio-Technical Evolution of Drought and Water Demand in England and Wales, 1893–2006’, Journal of Historical Geography 35, no. 3 (2009): 568–91, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhg.2008.09.004.

75. 75.  Denis Cosgrove et al., ‘Landscape and Identity at Ladybower Reservoir and Rutland Water’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 21, no. 3 (1996): 545, https://doi.org/10.2307/622595.

76. 76.  Christine S. McCulloch, ‘The Water Resources Board: England and Wales’ Venture into National Water Resources Planning, 1964–1973’, Water Alternatives 2, no. 3 (2009): 462.

77. 77.  Robert Millward, ‘The Political Economy of Urban Utilities’, in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Volume 3: 1840–1950, ed. Martin Daunton (Cambridge University Press, 2001), 348.

78. 78.  Hassan, History of Water, 86; O’Hara, Politics of Water, 89.

79. 79.  John Sheail, ‘Local Legislation: Its Scope and Context’, Archives 30 no. 113 (2005): 48, https://doi.org/10.3828/archives.2005.3.

80. 80.  O’Hara, Politics of Water, 31.

81. 81.  O’Hara, Politics of Water, 90.

82. 82.  Leeds Corporation, ‘Leeds Waterworks Committee Minutes, volume 12, 1949–1961’, WYAS, LLC22/1/12, 24.

83. 83.  Taylor et al., ‘Drought Is Normal’, 578.

84. 84.  ‘Aldermen Clash on Waterworks “Lost Years” Criticism: Ministry Asked Leeds to Defer New Schemes’, Yorkshire Post, 3 November 1949, 6.

85. 85.  Leeds Corporation, ‘Leeds Waterworks Committee Minutes, volume 12’, 121, 131.

86. 86.  Leeds Corporation, ‘Leeds Waterworks Committee Minutes, volume 12’, 142, 335–6.

87. 87.  Hassan, History of Water, 90.

88. 88.  W. A. Evans to Messrs Sharpe, Pritchard and Company, 27 June 1960, Leeds CB Thruscross Reservoir: Water Order 1960, National Archives, HLG 127/29; Parliamentary correspondent, ‘Minister May Visit Doomed Village’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 2 June 1960, 3.

89. 89.  Church commissioners to secretary of ministry of housing and local government, 15 August 1960, Leeds CB Thruscross Reservoir: Water Order 1960, National Archives, HLG 127/29; Leeds municipal correspondent, ‘Work on New Dam Starts in Spring’, Yorkshire Post, 9 December 1960, 13.

90. 90.  Ed Atkins, ‘Building a Dam, Constructing a Nation: The “Drowning” of Capel Celyn’, Journal of Historical Sociology 31, no. 4 (2018): 455–68, https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12186.

91. 91.  Birmingham Corporation, City of Birmingham Waterworks (James Upton Ltd, 1967), 16–18.

92. 92.  Birmingham Corporation, The Elan Valley Works of the Birmingham Corporation (Birmingham Corporation, 1968), 2.

93. 93.  Christine S. McCulloch, ‘Political Ecology of Dams in Teesdale’, in Long-Term Benefits and Performance of Dams, ed. Henry Hewlett (Thomas Telford, 2004), 49–58.

94. 94.  Ritvo, Dawn of Green, 168–70.

95. 95.  Norman Smith, A History of Dams (Peter Davies, 1971), 234.

96. 96.  The Architect, ‘New Waterworks in Yorkshire’, Leeds Mercury, 18 September 1871, 4.

97. 97.  Local government correspondent, ‘300 Years of Progress: Population Supplied by Undertaking Has Increased Hundredfold’, Yorkshire Post, 7 September 1966, 11.

98. 98.  Malcolm Barker, ‘First Cup from New Reservoir’, Yorkshire Evening Post, 5 January 1966, 10.

99. 99.  Dennis Bolton, ‘Thruscross Reservoir Holds Extra 50 Days’ Supply: Safeguard for Leeds Consumers’, Yorkshire Post, 7 September 1966, 10; Local government correspondent, ‘Reservoir Opened in the Sunshine: Delayed Scheme Comes to Fruition’, Yorkshire Post, 8 September 1966, 14.

100. 100.  Debates around the decline of civic pride have developed over recent years. Following Simon Gunn’s assertion that civic pride peaked in the 1870s and declined up until 1914, historians such as Tom Hulme, Charlotte Wildman and Peter Shapely have argued that civic pride remained an important feature of urban life beyond the First World War and, indeed, into the post-Second World War period. See Simon Gunn, The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class (Manchester University Press, 2000), 163–86; Tom Hulme, ‘ “A Nation of Town Criers”: Civic Publicity and Historical Pageantry in Inter-War Britain’, Urban History 44, no. 2 (2017): 270–92, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926816000262; Charlotte Wildman, ‘A City Speaks: The Projection of Civic Identity in Manchester’, Modern British History 23, no. 1 (2012): 80–99, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwr067; Peter Shapely, ‘Civic Pride and Redevelopment in the Post-War British City’, Urban History 39, no. 2 (2012): 310–28, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926812000077.