Home Transit
of Venus Sewer
History in Leeds Sundials in Leeds William
Gascoigne John Feild About
III. A STILL BORN PROGENY ?
Over the next 10 years Leeds Council spent about £10,000 per annum
on extensions to the new sewerage system. Private property owners however did
not seem to be responding with much enthusiasm to the new amenity. In December
1854 the Streets Committee noted that there had been very few applications for
the connection of house drains to the new sewers. In May 1857, the same
committee advertised a decision not to sewer any street unless 2/3 of property
owners in the street agreed to connect to the sewer.
The slow rate of improvement of sanitary conditions, despite the
new sewers, is illustrated by the continuing rarity of the flushing water
closet system in Leeds:
|
Year |
No.
of WC s |
|
1856 |
1005 |
|
1860 |
1628 |
|
1865 |
3221 |
|
1870 |
6000 |
In 1870 an estimated 30,000 privies were still in use in the
Borough of Leeds. The middensteads - great piles of human dung - were still a
feature of the Leeds streets. Writing in 1874, in his "Report on the
Sanitary State of Leeds", J.Netten Radcliffe described a middenstead
in Wellington Yard "which measures 21 feet long by 5 feet 10 inches
broad, and which is 6 feet deep below the surface of the ground. Into this
middenstead there fell not long ago a half tipsy man, plunging deep into the
revolting filth, and there, suffocated, he lay until, days afterwards,
discovered by the scavengers."
The lack of an effective piped water supply was no longer a
constraint on the spread of the WC. The water supply undertaking, upon becoming
a municipally owned utility in 1852, had works consisting of a Storage
Reservoir at Eccup (capacity 250 million gallons); a Service Reservoir at
Weetwood and one at Woodhouse Moor. After municipalisation large extensions
were made, including filter beds at Headingley (1860) and a pumping station at
Arthington on the River Wharfe.
In September 1866 Edward Filliter, the Council's Engineer, could
report to his employers that "the present supply of water is derived
chiefly from the River Wharfe at Arthington (whence you have Parliamentary
powers to pump 6 million gallons per day), and partly from the small gathering
ground about the Eccup Reservoir, with certain springs thereto."
Average consumption, he pointed out, was currently 4.5 million
gallons per day. However "should your consumption attain even 6
millions of gallons per day before a new scheme is actually in operation, you
will become dependent upon the Eccup gathering ground, and, if a stoppage by
accident or for ordinary repair should happen to one of your pumping engines at
Arthington, much uneasiness might justly arise among the inhabitants,
especially among your large consumers."
The piped water supply had freed industry from the banks of the
river. As a result, the needs of industry played no small role in forcing the
pace of development of the water supply.
Table
of Annual Water Consumption in Leeds
|
Year |
Average
gross daily consumption (gallons) |
Number
of houses supplied |
Number
of WC s |
|
1856 |
1,596,000 |
30,996 |
1005 |
|
1860 |
2,534,000 |
35,447 |
1628 |
|
1865 |
4,407,000 |
46,305 |
3221 |
To help meet the increased requirements three new impounding
reservoirs were built: Fewston, Swinsty and Lindley Wood in the Washburn Valley
15 miles north of Leeds. By 1883, 78,600 houses were supplied with piped water.
In the 1870's, not before time, the Sanitary Committee began a
campaign against the "abominable middenstead and cesspool". By
1889 there were 28,000 WC's in Leeds and by 1902 only 15,000 of the 100,000
tenants supplied with water had no WC.