Collection GB 0074 CLC/B/227-122 - LONDON BRIDGE WATERWORKS

One production unit.

GB 0074 CLC/B/227-122 1780 Collection One production unit. London Bridge Waterworks Company

The distinction of being the first to supply London houses with water by mechanical means goes to a certain Peter Morris, a land drainage engineer and a servant of Sir Christopher Hatton, the Lord Chancellor. His nationality is uncertain. Stow describes him both as a Dutchman and a German. Negotiations between Morris and the City started in 1574 but it was not until 1581 that he was granted a five hundred year lease of the first arch at the northern end of old London Bridge to house a tide wheel driving pumps of his design. In 1582 he obtained a similar lease of the second arch to accomodate another wheel. These enabled him to supply houses in the southern and eastern parts of the City.

The works were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 but their reconstruction was authorised by Act of Parliament in the following year. In 1701 the lease of the fourth arch of the bridge was granted to Morris's grandson, Thomas. Morris and his family sold the undertaking for £38,000 to Richard Soame who also acquired a forty three lease of the City conduit waters and an undertaking at Broken Wharf, near St Paul's, started in 1594 by Bevis Bulmer, a mining engineer, for the supply of the western end of the City. The whole was united into a partnership called "The Proprietors of the London Bridge Water Works" and was subsequently divided into 1,500 shares of a nominal value of £100 each.

By the mid eigteenth century the waterworks consisted of five water wheels occupying three arches and driving sixty four small pumps. Some 1,500,000 gallons a day were pumped on an average. In 1761 a lease of the third arch of the bridge was obtained for the purpose of affording a supply to Southwark. In 1767 two further arches were leased, the fifth from the northern end and the second from the southern end of the bridge, the latter being used in place of the third for the Southwark supply. Among the eminent engineers consulted as to the effect of these additions on the structure of the bridge and on the navigation were Brindley, Smeaton and Robert Mylne, the architect of the Blackfriars Bridge and later engineer to the New River Company.

A steam engine was installed at the northern end of the bridge about the year 1762 in order to assist the supply at the turn of the tide. At the beginning of the 19th century the works are stated to have been capable of furnishing a supply of nearly four million gallons a day. The great fall of water occasioned by the water wheels endangered navigation through the bridge and in 1822 an Act was passed for their removal. To ensure the supply of water, provision was made for the undertaking to be conveyed to the New River Company who forthwith began to dismantle the wheels. The old bridge was taken down in 1831 and replaced with one designed by John Rennie, this survived until 1968.

Deposited in the Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section, which merged with the London Metropolitan Archives in 2009.

History of the London Bridge Waterworks, 1780.

One volume.

Available for general access.

Copyright to this collection rests with the City of London.

English

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

For the records of the London Bridge Waterworks Company see ACC/2558/LB.

Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

January to May 2011. Waterworks Water resources management Water supply Information sources Documents Business records Enterprises Companies Utility companies Water companies Industrial facilities Facilities London Bridge Waterworks Company London England UK Western Europe Europe Thames, river

Deposited in the Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section, which merged with the London Metropolitan Archives in 2009.

History of the London Bridge Waterworks, 1780.

One volume.

Available for general access.

Copyright to this collection rests with the City of London.

• anglais

• latin

English

For the records of the London Bridge Waterworks Company see ACC/2558/LB.

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

• anglais