BIRMINGHAM’S WATER
A presentation by
Jordan Edwards
Shannon Clinton
Mawuena Dzotsi
In 1873, Joseph Chamberlain became Mayor of
Birmingham. Before his time in office, the city’s
council leaders were not very efficient –
especially as regards to public works. Many
citizens lived in terrible conditions. The city’s
water supply was considered a danger to public
health – approximately half of the city’s
population was dependent on groundwater
drawn from wells. Much of that was polluted by
sewage.
A cartoon from the 1850’s showing the filthy living conditions.
Piped water was supplied to the city only three
days per week. The Birmingham Gas Company
and the Birmingham and Staffordshire – two rival
companies were locked in disruptive
competition: continually digging up the city
streets to lay their pipes.
The filthy alleyways that separated the slums.
During the 19th century, at the time of the
Industrial Revolution, Birmingham's
population grew rapidly.
Clean water was in short supply and there
were major epidemics of water-borne diseases
including typhoid, cholera and diarrhoea.
Birmingham City Council, led by Joseph
Chamberlain, set about finding a clean water
supply for the City.
A Birmingham Slum
Birmingham's need for water,1890
Combating cholera and typhoid
In the closing years of the nineteenth century the city
of Birmingham, in the English midlands, was under
pressure from the growing pace of industrialisation. Its
population was expanding rapidly as workers and their
families were attracted by the prospect of new jobs in
the factories and mills, even though living conditions for
many in the slum districts of the city were appalling.
Similar problems existed in many other industrial cities
in Britain.
A slum with steps to keep the filth out.
• Birmingham was not alone in this filth and
disease or in the apparent inability of its
private sector to correct it. In 1858, the
stench from the River Thames in London
– flowing with untreated sewage – drove
MPs from the Palace of Westminster. The
Times newspaper called it the Great
Stink.
A typical street in Victorian Birmingham
•Alongside cholera – which killed more than
14,000 in London in 1854 – deaths from
tuberculosis and other infectious diseases were
common: a result of the filthy conditions of the
poor in the Capital and every other industrial
city especially Birmingham.
Back to Back houses with outside Privies and wash rooms
• Under Chamberlain’s, the man in charge of
Birmingham organised the town’s supply
of power, heat and light; new city
buildings were erected;
• Water supplies were brought under local
town control; and many acres (hectares)
of Birmingham’s slums were cleared and
laid out for new streets and open spaces
modelled on Parisian boulevards.
Large numbers of people had to use wells polluted by
Birmingham
sewage. The crowded and unsanitary conditions
slums.
often resulted in deadly epidemics of water-borne
Thomas
diseases such as typhoid and cholera.
Street,
The essential need in order to combat these was an
demolished
ample supply of clean water, for the amount of
1876
water used in the city had doubled between 1876
Birmingham
and 1891. There was little prospect of being able
Central
to meet the ever growing demand for water from
Library
existing sources.
Pipes being laid in Birmingham to bring water to its people.
The Corporation of Birmingham was
understandably anxious to secure new water
supplies for the city sufficient to meet its needs
for many years ahead. The Water Committee
had commissioned surveys in 1891 of possible
sources of new water, and the area around the
valleys of the rivers Elan and Claerwen in midWales, some 75 miles to the west of
Birmingham, were reported by experts to be
ideal for the purpose.
• James Mansergh had previously identified the
Elan and Claerwen Valleys' potential for water
storage; the area had :– An average annual rainfall of 1830mm.
– Narrow downstream valleys which made building the
dams easier.
– Impermeable (rock that does not allow water
through) bedrock preventing the water seeping away.
– Altitude - the area is mostly higher than Birmingham
enabling the water to be transported by gravity,
without needing to be pumped.
The Elan Valley area bought and developed by Birmingham.
The Birmingham
Corporation agreed and an
Act of Parliament was
passed for the compulsory
purchase of the total water
catchment area of the Elan
and Claerwen Valleys (180
square kilometres).
In 1893 the building work
began.
An artists impression of the valley to be flooded.
100 occupants of the Elan Valley had to move, only
landowners received compensation payments. Many
buildings were demolished, 3 manor houses, 18 farms, a
school and a church (which was replaced by the
corporation as the Nantgwyllt Church).
A railway line was constructed to transport the workers and
thousands of tonnes of building material each day. This
took three years.
A village of wooden huts was purpose built to
house most of the workers on the site of the
present Elan Village
New workers spent a night in the dosshouse to
be deloused and examined for infectious
diseases, only then were they allowed across
the river to the village. Single men lived in
groups of eight in a terrace house shared with a
man and his wife.
An early photograph of the workers village.
• A school was provided for those under 11, after
this they were expected to work.
• The village employed a guard to look out for
illegal importation of liquor and unauthorised
visitors.
• There was a hospital for injuries and an isolation
hospital. A bath house which the men could use
up to 3 times a week but the women only once!
• The pub was for men only. Other facilities
included a library, public hall, shop and canteen.
The school with its teachers and assistants.
The Hospital.
Digging the water channels for the Dam.
The Dams near completion.
CABAN COCH DAM
Garreg Ddh Viaduct
Slide courtesy of Birmingham Reference Library
• In July 1904 King Edward VII and Queen
Alexandra opened the Elan dams and water
started flowing along 118 km of pipeline to
Birmingham.
• The whole of the Elan scheme had cost £6
million and employed 50,000 men in total.
• The Foel Tower stands 52m above the Frankley
Reservoir in Birmingham. The gradient of the
aqueduct which links them averages 1 in 2,300,
which allows the water to flow by gravity alone.
• The dams were built in two phases, firstly
construction in the Elan Valley and later the
Claerwen. The foundations of Dol-y-mynach dam
were laid in phase one as the site would have
flooded once Caban Coch had filled up.
• Local rock was only suitable for use inside of the
dams. The hand-chiselled facing stones were
transported from Glamorgan.
• The whole of the Elan scheme had cost £6
million and employed 50,000 men in total.
300 million litres of water a day from the Elan Valley can be
extracted to supply Birmingham. Once the Claerwen Dam
was completed this nearly doubled the available water for
Birmingham.
The building of the second phase dams was delayed due
to the 1st and 2nd World Wars. Work started in 1946,
engineering advancements required the building of just one
large dam rather than 3 smaller ones.
This dam, the Claerwen, is built of concrete but stone
faced to harmonise with the older dams.
A total of 470 men worked on this dam, they were
housed in the local community and all transport was by
road.
The dam was completed in 1952 when it was opened
by Queen Elizabeth II.
Our thanks to
Birmingham Reference Library
who helped us by providing photographs and maps
for this presentation.
AND OF COURSE Mawuena Dzotsi