 The Lake Vyrnwy dam was built to impound drinking water for Liverpool in the 1880s. | |
| Industry | Water and sewage |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1847 |
| Fate | Taken over |
| Successor | North West Water Authority |
| Headquarters | Liverpool, England |
Key people | James Newlands, Thomas Hawksley |
Liverpool Corporation Waterworks and its successors have provided a public water supply and sewerage and sewage treatment services to the city of Liverpool, England. In 1625 water was obtained from a single well and delivered by cart, but as the town grew, companies supplied water to homes through pipes. There were two main companies by the 1840s, but the water supply was intermittent, and there was general dissatisfaction with the service. Liverpool Corporation decided that such an important service should be provided by a public body, and sought to take over the water supply companies.
A series of acts of Parliament were obtained, the first being the Liverpool Sanatory [sic] Act 1846, which created three key posts, the Medical Officer of Health, the Inspector of Nuisances, and the Borough Engineer. The latter post was filled by James Newlands, a visionary man who defined the role of the Borough Engineer, to be copied by many other towns and cities. He set about creating large scale maps of Liverpool, building a water-based sewerage system, making provision for bath houses, wash houses, swimming lessons, minimum sizes for rooms, paving and street lighting. The sewage was emptied into the River Mersey for the tides to take away, but he saw this as an interim measure, with a sewage treatment works being required. This part of his vision was not implemented until the 1980s.
The second act was the Liverpool Corporation Water Act 1847, which allowed the corporation to buy out the private water companies, and subsequent Acts authorised the construction of reservoirs, initially on Rivington Pike, where a total of eight reservoirs were eventually completed, most of the work being overseen by the engineer Thomas Hawksley. The work included sand filters to treat the water before it entered a pipeline to Liverpool. The volume of water that this scheme supplied was rather less than that estimated, and the promised constant supply of water to residents reverted to an intermittent supply, as the population expanded and the volume of water used by households increased. This issue was eventually resolved by building the Vyrnwy Reservoir in Wales and a 68-mile (109 km) aqueduct to convey the water to Liverpool.
Following the Water Act 1973, both water supply and sewerage services were taken over from the Corporation by the North West Water Authority, which subsequently became United Utilities. Newlands' vision for a sewage treatment works was realised in 1991, when a works was completed in Sandon Dock, which was extended by a £200 million upgrade in 2016, utilising the adjacent Wellington Dock. Hawksley's sand filters for the Rivington chain of reservoirs were replaced by a £38.9-million water treatment works in 1994, although the water is now used to supply Wigan rather than Liverpool. The Liverpool Sanatory Act became the model for the Public Health Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. 63), which saw many other towns benefit from the reforms Newlands introduced. He reduced mortality in Liverpool significantly, and crowds lined the streets for his funeral in 1871.