Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III
Forfatter: Archibald Williams
År: 1945
Serie: Engineering Wonders of the World
Forlag: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Sted: London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York
Sider: 407
UDK: 600 eng- gl
With 424 Illustrations, Maps, and Diagrams
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HOW LONDON GETS ITS WATER. 195
Myddleton than the pecuniary help was the
royal protection thus assured against th©
promotion of rival schemes.
On Michaelmas Day, 1613, the New River
The New R’ was °Pene<^ officially, and its
completed water admitted to the reservoir
at Clerkenwell, whence wooden
points in the city. Its
pipes ran to many
designer did not reap
any great advantage
from his enterprise,
and died in debt to
the Corporation of
London for sums of
money advanced to
enable him to com-
plete the work. But
after the first period
of adversity the New
River went ahead—
swallowed
stroyed
schemes
vaded its
and flourished ex-
ceedingly. In quite
recent times the
original shares in
this company have
changed hands at
prices which may
justly be described
as fabulous, showing
a greater rise in
value over their
issued price than can be boasted by the shares
of any other commercial venture of which we
have knowledge.
For a considerable period the New River
or de-
smaller
that in-
territory,
SIR HUGH MYDDLETON, THE DESIGNER AND
CONSTRUCTOR OF THE NEW RIVER.
(Rischgitz Collection.)
reigned supreme. The Chelsea Waterworks
Company was incorporated in 1722. Large
reservoirs were made in St. James’s and Hyde
Parks, and pipes were installed to distribute
the water among a large number of houses in
the Whitehall and Westminster districts.
Increase in
the Number
of Water
Companies.
In 1745 a water business was established
to supply the East End. Then followed a
lull until 1785—when the Lambeth Water-
works Company received its
charter—in the extension of
waterworks, due no doubt
largely to the difficulty of con-
structing machinery of
power to pump
quantities of
suffi-
cient
large
water at a moderate
cost. Newcomen’s
“ atmospheric ” en-
gine, much used
during the earlier
half of the eight-
eenth century for
unwatering mines,
was greatly im-
proved upon by the
invention of James
Watt, who in 1769
patented his system
of steam condensa-
tion in a chamber
separate from the
cylinder in which the
vacuum formed was
used. This simple
but very important
innovation, added to
certain other im-
provements in me-
chanical detail, pro-
duced great econ-
omy in fuel consumption. By the end of
the century the steam pump had become
very efficient. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that in the early years of the nine-
teenth century several new water companies
should have been formed. In 1807 the West
Middlesex Waterworks Company was incor-
porated to supply the West End of London
with water drawn from the Thames near
Hampton. The year 1808 witnessed the in-