Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

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-