The Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company supplied drinking water to the towns of Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead, in the north east of England, from 1845 until 1974. It was initially called the Whittle Dean Water Company, but changed its name in 1863, and gradually increased the area which it supplied. It merged with the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company in 1992 to form North East Water, which was merged into Northumbrian Water in 1995.
Early history Newcastle and Gateshead were relatively small places despite being important for the export of coal, and it was not until the arrival of the railways in the second quarter of the nineteenth century that the population began to increase significantly. It became an important centre for engineering, a chemical industry developed, and following improvements to the River Tyne by the Tyne Improvement Commission, established in 1850, the trade in coal increased rapidly.
Both towns were initially dependent on springs for the supply of water, but in 1680 Cuthbert Dykes built an engine at Sandgate to supply Newcastle with water extracted from the Tyne. Details are not known, but it was presumably water powered. In Gateshead, water was obtained from springs located outside of the town and supplied to the residents by the Ellison family. Both schemes were superseded by a new system, proposed by William Yarnold in 1697. He negotiated with the Common Council of Newcastle to allow him to lay pipes and build storage cisterns, but also took the precaution of obtaining an act of Parliament to authorise the works, with the (9 Will. 3. c. 46 ) being granted in 1698. Water for both towns was obtained from springs at Heworth Common, to the south of Gateshead. He built two reservoirs with earth embankments in Gateshead, and the water was distributed through wooden pipes. The supply to Newcastle was carried across the Tyne Bridge in a lead pipe, and fed the cisterns, from where it was piped to houses. The supply was only available on one day a week, with some being supplied each week, but the scheme was not a financial success, and Yarnold soon left. Nevertheless, the works continued to operate until 1770, supplying 161 properties. During this period the Common Council also supplied water to street fountains, known locally as pants, at no cost to the residents.
In 1769 Ralph Lodge proposed taking over the Common Council's supply, but they did not give their full approval. Lodge developed a source of water at Coxlodge, around north of the town, and came to an arrangement with the council to build a reservoir on the Town Moor. He bought up Yarnold's works, so that there would not be two competing systems in the towns, and although there were complaints from the council in 1785, with the council threatening to obtain their own act of Parliament to construct works if things did not improve, they did not pursue this course of action, and Lodge's works continued to operate until 1797, when they were taken over by an insurance company, the Newcastle Fire Office. They sunk a shaft at Coxlodge, to tap into flooded coal workings, and the water fed a new reservoir on Town Moor through a diameter pipe. They were supplying per day, but the supply was only available for two days per week.
1831 was a disastrous year for the Newcastle Fire Office, as some of their springs dried up and the shaft was damaged, requiring them to construct a new one. They used carts to distribute river water to customers while trying to resolve the situation, which led to an outbreak of cholera. Between December 1831 and March 1832, 306 people died of the disease in Newcastle and 234 in Gateshead. The link between the use of river water and the disease was not clearly understood at the time, and after the epidemic was over, the company proposed a scheme to filter river water on a permanent basis, but did not proceed with this option.
Newcastle Subscription Water Company
The Newcastle Subscription Water Company was first proposed in November 1832, at the same time as the Newcastle Fire Office were expressing their regrets at their difficulties. While the prospectus for the new company made much of service to the townspeople, the aims were clearly to break the monopoly of the Newcastle Fire Office and to make money for investors. There was some hostility between the two companies, and when a bill was put before Parliament, the corporation found that they did not have the powers to allow the new company to open up the streets to lay water mains, as they had previously granted exclusive rights to do this to the old company. Petitions were presented both for and against the new company, and there were allegations that the Newcastle Fire Office withheld water for fire fighting if a building was not insured with them. The bill eventually became the (4 & 5 Will. 4. c. xviii) on 22 May 1834.
The Fire Office sought tenders for new cast-iron pipes, to replace wooden ones, and the enlargement of Swan Pond to form Carr Hill reservoir. The Subscription Company could only supply Newcastle and the surrounding settlements, with Gateshead specifically excluded. They constructed a pumping station at Elswick, to pump water from the river to a reservoir at Arthur's Hill. Much of the work was carried out before the enabling act of Parliament was obtained. Robert Hawthorn supplied the pump in 1834, it being the first Cornish engine to be manufactured in the North-East. The Subscription Company filtered the water before pumping it to their reservoir, the filters covering , and being capable of supplying per day. The designer of the works is unclear, with Thomas Hawksley, Joseph Glynn and Joshua Richardson all claiming to have done so.
Antagonism between the two companies continued for a short while, but in 1836 the Fire Office sold their works to the Subscription Company for £15,000. The new company thus were able to supply Gateshead as well as Newcastle, and served a population of some 80,000. Water was still only supplied intermittently, and this caused controversy when fires broke out, although the directors of the Subscription Company also owned the Tyne Mercury newspaper, which did not report events if they were not favourable to the company's reputation. In the aftermath of a fire at John Atkinson's coachworks, where water had not initially been available, a new company was proposed. Newcastle were supportive of the plans for Newcastle and Gateshead Union Water Company, but Gateshead appointed a committee to check progress, and as the bill went through Parliament, proposed significant changes, including the requirement that the mains should be pressurised at all times. An act of Parliament was obtained on 19 June 1840, to allow extraction of water from the River Pont and from the drainage of Prestwick Carr, but no further progress was made. The Subscription Company tried to improve their supplies, but there were regular complaints that the water was sometimes brackish.
Whittle Dean Water Company The 1840s saw Edwin Chadwick championing sanitation for the poor, with the publication of his Report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain in 1842 summing up three years of research. A royal commission then looked into the sanitary conditions in the major towns of England and Wales. Dr Robert Reid, who visited Newcastle in December 1843 and January 1844 for the commission, found the poor living in overcrowded conditions. In Pipewellgate, just three privies served a population of 2,040. In Gateshead, which Reid calculated had a population of 38,747, there was only one sewer of about . Water was sold to the rich relatively cheaply, but the poor paid five times as much for the same water. In a second report published by the commission in 1845, Newcastle was criticised, because only 8 percent of the houses were supplied with water directly, the water was often of poor quality, and the charges to the poor were unjust.
During this period, plans were formulated for the Whittle Dean Water Company, with a reservoir at Whittle Dean, capable of holding a year's supply of water. The men behind the scheme were Richard Grainger, an eminent builder, Thomas Sopwith, a consulting engineer, and the industrialist William George Armstrong. They wrote to the Duke of Northumberland to see if they could carry out exploratory work, and were informed that the Duke would support the scheme if it was one in which the inhabitants of Newcastle would take an interest, rather than a private enterprise to make money for the promoters. The Duke's interest is shown by the fact that he recommended that the main pipeline should be increased from to diameter, and his recommendation was accommodated. Newcastle Council were impressed by the calibre of those promoting the company, which included medical doctors, the mayor and four former mayors, together with leading industrialists. A bill was presented to Parliament on 28 February 1845, and after Sopwith, Armstrong, Grainger and the engineer James Simpson gave evidence, the (8 & 9 Vict. c. lxxi) received royal assent on 30 June 1845. The Subscription Company had sought to oppose the bill, but agreed to sell their undertaking to the new company for £55,000. This allowed them to use the existing reservoirs and pipework of the Subscription Company, saving the cost of duplicating these facilities. A subscription list was opened, but after seven days, requests for shares totalling £160,000 had been received, and so it was closed again.
The Whittle Dean Water Company was established with a working capital of £150,000, and powers to borrow up to £50,000, if required. Plans to extract water from the River Pont and the Tyne, which were part of the original bill, were dropped, as the Whittle Dean could supply per day, double the amount estimated to supply Newcastle and Gateshead. With Simpson as Chief Engineer, the company used the existing infrastructure while their new works were being constructed. They renewed the lease on Carr Hill reservoir, and found that the four reservoirs on Town Moor were better than expected, only needing to be cleaned and repaired. Simpson had pioneered the use of filters, and those at Elswick were renewed. Dawson, the superintendent, was asked to conduct experiments to see if water could be supplied every day, rather than every second day as had happened under the Subscription Company. A pump was installed at Holmes Close ponds in Gateshead, to pump water to Carr Hill reservoir. Tenders to construct the reservoirs at Whittle Dean were invited on 16 January 1846, and the contract was awarded to Ridley and Atkinson on 11 February.
At the first annual general meeting held on 30 January 1846, the company pledged to provide a constant supply of water to all properties. Measurement had shown that Whittle Dean could supply per day. Armstrong was appointed as secretary to the company, which would take over the offices of the Subscription Company in the Royal Arcade. Armstrong had previously written to the town council, suggesting that water from the mains could be used to power hydraulic cranes, to enable ships to be loaded and unloaded more cheaply, and since he offered to convert one of the cranes at his own expense to prove the concept, his offer was accepted. Its success led to further cranes being erected in 1847, and Armstrong formed a partnership with the Newcastle Craneage Company to manufacture hydraulic machinery, which led to the formation of the engineering industry and a significant increase in the population.