Works of sewage disposal : with some historical notes on problems arising in connection with the treatment of effluents from the textile industries, 1870-1931.

  • Bradford (West Yorkshire, England)
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Works of sewage disposal : with some historical notes on problems arising in connection with the treatment of effluents from the textile industries, 1870-1931. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that process it loses in many cases as much as 60 per cent. of its weight, that 60 per cent. consisting partly of the natural fat and partly of the dirt and manure clinging to The Local the fleeces. As a consequence the effluent Difficulties. from the woolcombing water is extremely “rich” in organic materials and it is also Wony CHONG, lhe is indicative of the magnitude of the problem which this trade creates that no less than one-fifth of the wool produced in the whole world or four-fifths of the quantity grown in and imported into England is washed and dealt with in the area of this single municipality. As the wool trade increased in Bradford protest was made by the residents on the river banks against the growing nuisance. In 1868 Mr. William Rookes Crompton Stansfield, the ownet of Esholt Hall and estate about three miles from Bradford, took legal action in the Court of Chancery. He asked that the Corpora- tion should be “restrained from causing of permitting to pass any sewage filth or other offensive matter either solid or liquid into the Bradford Beck in such a manner that the same may pass therefrom into the River Aire to the injury of the plaintiff, and from in any manner polluting the River in its course past Poem lesiO lie tiallmectatcam dine = @orporation “presented to the \Courtwa sy icuapormi ne difficulties in which they found themselves. All schemes of precipitation or deodorization of sewage at that time invented had proved unworkable on a large scale. The Rivers Pollution Commission which had been severe on Bradford’s sanitary condition, had been appealed to for useful advice and aid, but “the Royal Commissioners were at a loss how such cases should be dealt with,” and it was argued “if the most able officers whom the Government can select are thus embarrassed it may readily be believed that Local Boards are in equal difficulty.’ The only project ingenuity could devise, an expedient of despair, was the construction of a vast sewer which should take the sewage of the whole of the industrial district of Yorkshire in the valleys of the Wharfe, Aire, and Calder, away down to the sea. But this was too big a scheme for the Government to sanction or aid. The Court realised the difficulty and, without acceding to the demand that it should forbid the passage of Bradford sewage into the river at all, it attempted to forbid any intensification of 4]