page_title: London water supply infrastructure
section_title: Expansion
hierarchical_section_title: London water supply infrastructure / Nineteenth century / Expansion
caption_attribution_description: Standpipe Tower, Kew Bridge The tower contains large tall pipes that absorbed the surge of water from each stroke of the steam pumps to prevent damage to the mains. For more information on Kew Bridge Steam Museum, see Link
context_page_description: London's water supply infrastructure has developed over the centuries in line with the expansion of London. For much of London's history, private companies supplied fresh water to various parts of London from wells, the River Thames and in the three centuries after the construction in 1613 of the New River, the River Lea, which has springs that divert alongside Hertford at an elevation of 40 metres AOD. Further demand prompted new conduits and sources, particularly in the 150 years to 1900 as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolution caused a boom in London's population and housing.
  A crisis point was reached in the mid 19th century with biology proving outbreaks of cholera and other disease arose from commercial extraction of water from the Tideway, where the city once had its main filter beds and purification buildings. The Metropolis Water Act 1852 allowed all water extractors three years to find wells or non-tidal sources. London's water businesses nationalised as the Metropolitan Water Board and then re-privatised.
context_section_description: Although the legislation that established the London water companies intended that they would compete for customers, in 1815 the East London company drew up a legal agreement with the New River Company defining a boundary between their areas of supply.
  The London Bridge Waterworks Company was dissolved in 1822, and its water supply licence was purchased by the New River Company. Later that same year, the Borough Waterworks Company purchased the London Bridge licence from the New River Company, and it was renamed the Southwark Water Company. The company extracted water from the River Thames using steam engines to pump it to a cistern at the top of a 60-foot-high (18 m) tower.
  The West Middlesex Waterworks Company established a 3.5 million gallon reservoir at Campden Hill near Notting Hill.  In 1825 the company built a new reservoir at Barrow Hill next to Primrose Hill in North London.
  In 1825, the ponds of the Chelsea Waterwork Company were used as the basis of the Grosvenor Canal which was opened to traffic that year. By this time there were complaints about the quality of the water that the company was drawing from the River Thames, and in 1829, under engineer James Simpson the Chelsea Waterworks Company became the first in the country to install a slow sand filtration system to purify the water.
  In 1829, the East London Waterworks Company moved their source of water further up river to Lea Bridge as a result of pollution caused by population growth. Clean water was now abstracted from the natural channel which had been by-passed by the Hackney Cut, to a new reservoir at Old Ford. In 1830 the company gained a lease on the existing reservoir at Clapton.
  In 1832 the Lambeth Waterworks Company built a reservoir at Streatham Hill, and in 1834 obtained an Act of Parliament to extend its area of supply. In the same year, the Company purchased 16 acres (65,000 m²) of land in Brixton and built a reservoir and works on Brixton Hill adjacent to Brixton Prison.
  In 1833 the South London Waterworks Company was supplying 12,046 houses with approximately 12,000 gallons of water. In 1834, the company was renamed the Vauxhall Water Company.
  The Grand Junction Waterworks Company built a pumping station near Kew Bridge at Brentford in 1838 to house its new steam pump and two similar pumps purchased from Boulton, Watt and Company in 1820. The water was taken from the middle of the river and pumped into filtering reservoirs and to a 200 ft (61 m) high water tower to provide gravity feed to the area. A six to seven mile (11 km) main took the water to a reservoir on Campden Hill near Notting Hill  capable of containing 6 million gallons.
  In 1841 the East London Waterworks Company was supplying 36,916 houses.
  On 10 January 1845 the Southwark Waterworks Company and the Vauxhall Waterworks Company submitted a memorandum to the Health of Towns Commissioners proposing amalgamation. A consequent bill successfully passed through parliament, and the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company was formed later that year. The area supplied by the SVWC was centred on the Borough of Southwark, reaching east to Rotherhithe, south to Camberwell and in the west including Battersea and parts of Clapham and Lambeth.  The amalgamated company established waterworks at Battersea Fields with two depositing reservoirs with a capacity of 32 million gallons; and two filtering reservoirs holding 11 million gallons. In 1850 the company's treated water was described by the microbiologist Arthur Hassall as "the most disgusting which I have ever examined".
  In 1845 the limits of supply of the East London Waterworks Company were described as "all those portions of the Metropolis, and its suburbs, which lie to the east of the city, Shoreditch, the Kingsland Road, and Dalston; extending their mains even across the river Lea into Essex, as far as West Ham." The water supplied by the company was taken from the Lea, with waterworks on 30 acres (0.12 km²) of land at Old Ford.
caption: Standpipe Tower at Brentford
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