Identity area
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Authorized form of name
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Dates of existence
History
The West Middlesex Water Works were established in 1806 to supply the Western Suburbs. They were originally proposed by Robert Dodd, a civil engineer, to supply the area around Hammersmith and Kensington. The company was incorporated in 1806 with a capital of £80,000. After a disagreement over the location of the works, Dodd resigned and William Nicholson took over in 1807 to oversee the establishment of a works at Hammersmith. Under an act designed to increase the capital of the company by £160,000, the area covered by the West Middlesex Water Company was extended to include the parishes of St James Westminster, St Anne's Soho, St Mary-le-Strand, St Clement Danes, St Paul's Covent Garden, Paddington, Marylebone, St Pancras, St George Bloomsbury and St Giles in the Fields.
In 1825 a pump was built to channel water to a new resevoir at Barrow Hill, near Primrose Hill. New resevoirs were constructed at Barnes in 1838 and in 1866 the company entered into an agreement with the Thames Conservancy which allowed it to draw an extra 4 million gallons of water from the river per day.
The company was taken over by the Metropolitan Water Board under the Metropolitan Water Act, 1902 (2 Edward VII, c.41).