Report on the cholera epidemic of 1866 in England : supplement to the twenty-ninth annual report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths, and marriages in England / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command.

  • Great Britain. General Register Office.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the cholera epidemic of 1866 in England : supplement to the twenty-ninth annual report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths, and marriages in England / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    214/436 (page 106)
    The opinion of the Board of Trade upon Captain Tyler’s Report was com- municated to the Secretary to the East London Waterworks Company in the following letter :— “ Board of Trade (Railway Department), Sir, Whitehall, 20th June 1867. I am directed by the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade to inform you that on the 13th November 1866 their Lordships received from certain inhabitant householders paying rents for, and supplied with water by the East London Waterworks Company, a memorial complaining of the insufficient quantity and impure quality of the water supplied by the East London Waterworks Company. In pursuance of the 9th Section of the Metropolis Water Supply Act, 1852, (15 & 16 Viet. c. 84), my Lords appointed Captain Tyler to inquire into the grounds of that complaint, and to report to their Lordships thereupon. My Lords have now received from Captain Tyler his report upon the matter so referred to him, and I am to transmit to you herewith a copy of it. Upon consideration of that report it appears to their Lordships that the com- plaint of the memorialists is well founded, and I am therefore directed, in pursuance of the 12th section of the Metropolis Water Supply Act, 1852, hereby to give notice thereof to the East London Waterw^orks Company, and to point out to you that, after the receipt of this notice, the Company are by the 13th section of the same Act required, within a reasonable time, to remove the grounds of such complaint. I am to request that the receipt of this notice may be acknowledged, and to state that my Lords v/ill be glad to be informed of the steps which the Company propose to take to remove the grounds of the complaint. I am, &c. The Secretary to the (Signed) Robert Ct. W. Herbert. East London Waterworks Company, 16, St. Helen’s-place, Bishopsgate-street.” In reply to this letter the Secretary of the East London Company addressed, on 29th July 1867, a rejoinder to the Board of Trade, from which the following is an extract; “ Into the question raised by the memorialists respecting the connexion of the Company’s water with the fearful epidemic of last year, the Directors abstain from entering, not merely because Captain Tyler found it only a ‘ case of grave suspicion,’ and one in which ‘ proximity to absolute proof’ had only been ‘ nearly reached,’ or because the Directors are conscientiously satisfied that the water neither caused nor continued the mischief, but because it appears to the Directors that this is by no means the real issue, for the Board fully admits, and the public? is entitled to expect, that if it were conceded on all hands that the water had no connexion with or bearing upon the epidemic, the duty of protecting it from impurity, and of supplying it in the best practicable condition, would still be imperative. “ The Directors do not controvert nor comment upon Captain Tyler’s report respecting the Old Ford reservoirs. “ Unfiltered water was to some slight extent, and under special and unfrequent circumstances, admitted into the covered reservoirs from the uncovered reservoirs. The fact is to be regretted ; although the Directors believe (and in this Captain Tyler acquiesces) that no actual mischief resulted from it. In September last, at all events, any repetition of such a proceeding was rendered impossible by cutting off the connexion between the uncovered and the covered reservoirs ; and by clauses introduced by the Company into an Act which has now received the Royal Assent (see section 17 of the ‘East London Waterworks (Powers) Act, 1867’) provision is made for absolutely filling up the uncovered reservoirs within a limited period. “ Again, it was suggested that there was involuntary soakage of water from these uncovered reservoirs into the covered reservoirs. This susiucion (which appeared to Captain Tyler not well founded) will of course be at an end by filling up the uncovered reservoirs.