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.

General Register Office Northern Ireland

Date:: 1868

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.

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$r r 7 1834 to supply the toAvn with water only from the Tyne. This water was eveDtually proclaimed bad ; iu 1845 the Whittle~Dean ^^ater Company got its first Act under which it brought water from a drainage area of 3600 acres, 12 miles from Newcastle, in October 1848. It had a reservoir capable of holding 215 million gallons, and its daily consumption was one million gallons. The supply of water^ from Whittle Dean in J1849 was abundant, and the demand increased; it amounted to a million and a half gallons a day at the end of the year. The lowest quantity in the reservoir was 100 million gallons. This epidemic year the mortality by cholera was not so high in Newcastle as in other towns ; it was at therHe of 42 toT^^OOO filing iTTJMewcastle and Caleshea^ Thrown was congratulated by Dr. Headlarn on its comparative immunity. In the next year (1850) a drought followed, and the Whittle Dean supply failed ; the company then resorted to the source heretofore condemned by its projectors. blTTaF the sanre time prudently purchased. For 99 days, from July 23d to October 31st, they pumped water from the Tyne at the rate of about 850,000 gallons a day ; the water after subsidence in two beds was filtered through a bed of 10,000 feet area. No cholera ensued ; and the mortality from all causes in that year (23 per 1000) waslSeIbvWthe~average (26). The company in 1851 enlarged their drainage area to 4600 acres, and acquired the overflow of the Pont, which was brought down by a cut about March. The reservoirs were full in May. The supply of water was abundant in the rainy 1852. In May 1853'the company began to supply the manufacturers down the river; and the estimated daily amount abstracted from the reservoirs was 3,000,000j gallons ; while only 2^ million gallons went down to the town. So early as May and June the slip of water was suspected, and the officers of the company estimated the loss at half a million gallons daily tin’ough the bottom _of the Arthur’s Hill re^rypn\ What could they do ? they had engaged to ~su]j^y 24- miTlion gallons^of water daily. They had the old resource. They~15umpcd~ agaiuJrom^ Tyne 50 million gallons, or about 700,000 gallons a day, comrnencing^^iT'JuTy 5th, and ending on the morning’’oF Se^ fenJ3er 15tlq Vv^hen cholera was at its height. The shallow Tyne is a tidal river, and the tide rising from 11 feet to 15 feet carries the sewage up by Elswick, where the culvert of the company took up the water. The tide flows from 4^ to 5 hours, and ebbs from 7 to 7J hours. The sewage of the town no doubt is flowing past Elswick two hours after low water when the water was taken for analysis by Dr. Thomson, and found to contain organic matter. The company supplied Miller, their man at the engine, with a tide table, charged him to commence pumping four hours after high water, and to go on for 2^ hours while the river was stili running down, so as to cease pumping a little before low water. Whether this instruction was strictly carried out or not it is impossible to say, as the town authorities kept no look-out, but left the affair absolutely in the hands of the company. The water was pumped into two tanks for subsidence, then passed through the old and for a time disused filter 100 feet square, whence it was pumped up to the Arthur’s Hill reservoirs, and mingled with the waters from purer sources before delivery. The company supplied a population of 63,055* people out of 144,067 in the two districts with water in the year 1853 ; their supply reached directly only 7875 people in 1845. It is worthy of remark, however, that the Tyne water was supplied for 99 days in 1850, and for 55 days in 1853, without any perceptible eflfect on the diseases of the people, who during both years were immersed hourly in an atmosphere of Evidence of Mr. Main (Q. 5768) before Cholera Commission, p. 359. In answer to an inquiry of the Registrar-General in February last, Mr. Main stated that the number of inhabitants supplied directly, without reckoning those supplied from public pants or fountains, was 62,740 iu 1849, 91,350 in 1853, and 160,305 in 1866. The population of Newcastle and Gateshead was 137,237 in the year 1851, and 170,377 in 1861; the mean annual increase 3314. Gateshead district contains gome outside parishes, with a population of 25,822. «$