Chelsea Waterworks Company

The Chelsea Water Works Company was established by letters patent in 1723 "For the better supplying the City and Liberties of Westminster and parts adjacent". Under Royal Warrants of 1725 two ponds in Green Park were converted into reservoirs and a third reservoir was constructed in the Walnut Tree Walk, Hyde Park. The supply to these reservoirs was obtained from a system of small canals extending from the north of Victoria Station to the Thames at Chelsea.

Its expansion was initially assisted by its ability to supply the royal palaces, a responsibility which also forced it in 1742 to introduce an atmospheric pumping engine after severe shortages during the winter of 1739-40, the first economically successful steam pumping engine in London.

In 1809 it obtained powers to take water direct from the Thames (as the other companies already did) but the source was particularly polluted and liable to turbulence. This led the Company's chief engineer, James Simpson, to introduce the slow sand filtration system in 1829, a system still in use in 1974.

The deterioration in the quality of the water supply resulted in the company closing its works and moving from the tideway. In 1856, following the enforcement of the 1852 Metropolis Water Act, a new intake, filter beds and a pumping station were opened at Seething Wells, Surbiton. The filtered water was pumped to service reservoirs on Putney Heath. Water continued to be drawn at Surbiton until 1877 when an intake and four reservoirs were opened at Molesey, the water being pumped from here to Surbiton for filtration.

The Cheslea Water Works Company was the smallest of the Metropolitan water undertakings acquired by the Metropolitan Water Board in 1904, following the Metropolis Water Act of 1902.