Water to Tyneside: A History Of The Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company. by Robert William Rennison - 1979

Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company., 1979. A very good 361 page hardback book without inscriptions or other markings. Light shelfwear, mild scratch to cloth on outside of rear cover. For three hundred years water has been supplied to the towns of Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead by an unbroken succession of water undertakings. Initially in the hands of speculators, the water supply came under the control of an insurance company before becoming the responsibility of a statutory company in 1834. Following the interest in public health and sanitation which subsequently occurred, the Whittle Dean Water Company, later to become the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company, was formed in 1845, principally due to the efforts of two of Newcastle's most illustrious men, Armstrong and Grainger. Founded at the beginning of a period of unprecedented population growth, the new company strove constantly to keep pace with the demands placed upon it, augmenting its resources by forming impounding reservoirs and river pumping stations. As a result of cholera epidemics suffered by the area, the pumping stations were progressively moved upstream to avoid the growing pollution of the river and it was the last of the epidemics, in 1853, which led to the Company becoming the subject of close scrutiny by the Newcastle Corporation, almost resulting in control passing to the town; it was the decision to build Catcleugh reservoir which averted take-over, an adequate supply being thus assured. The Company also became involved in providing bulk supplies of water to neighbouring authorities and the latter half of the present century has seen a widening of its interests and an immense increase in its area of supply. With these developments has come a need to develop new sources, both Tynemouth Corporation and the Northumberland County Council having been associated with the Company in joint schemes. Since 1974, however, responsibility for the provision of large resource works has passed to the Northumbrian Water Authority, now building the Kielder reservoir, a work which will meet the Company's requirements until well into the next century. . First Edition.. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good.