Clean Water

Seething Wells Water - Surbiton’s Hidden Heritage

During the 19th century, the population of London grew and put pressure on the ancient sewage system and water supply.  The Thames had become polluted with the city’s refuse. People and industry had been pouring it’s sewage, chemicals, dead animals into the river and gradually it became congested with pollution. People hoped the river would wash the refuse out to sea, but being tidal it just moved back and forth with the river flow.

Water companies were increasingly supplying residences with a direct water supply. But that supply was straight from the Thames. Popular feeling was that this water was not good for health. At that time people had started to look at water through microscopes but had not yet made the link between disease and dirty water. Arthur Hassle In his Microscopic Examination of the Water Supplies to the Inhabitants of London in 1850, said:

“a portion of the inhabitants of the metropolis are made to consume, in some form or another, a portion of their own excrement, and moreover,  to pay for the privilege.”

There was a demand for clean water. The Chelsea Water Company, experimented with a water filter bed at Pimlico in 1829. James Simpson was the engineer. But the Thames was so polluted that he believed the only way to get clean water was to filter it before it had become polluted. That is, to extract it up-stream and away from the centre of London.

Here a some more in depth articles produced by volunteer researchers for this project - please click on a link