London Bridge Waterworks Company: PURCHASE RECORDS

Organisation and Records:

The Metropolitan Water Board was modelled on local authority lines both in its committee and departmental structure. There were five main committees under the Board: Finance, Law and Parliamentary, Works and Stores, Appeal and Assessment and General Purposes with one major sub-committee - Water Examination. LMA holds minutes and papers of the Board and all committees.

By 1906 the departmental structure had been established which remained broadly in place until the Board's abolition in 1974 and which is reflected in the arrangement of the records:

Chief Engineer's Department:

The separate company administrations were only gradually amalgamated into a single system with the individual engineers' districts surviving the longest, primarily for operational reasons. The districts created many records that have survived into the archive and are briefly described below covering the period to 1937 when the whole system was reorganised on a functional rather than a geographical basis, splitting distribution from supply.

1903 1905 1913

New River New River

East London; Eastern; Northern

Chelsea

Grand Junction; Western

West Middlesex

Southwark and Vauxhall; Southern

Lambeth

Kent Kent

Clerk's Department:

Apart from the principal file registries, there are also series of plans, photographs, signed contracts, parliamentary papers and a collection of 'exhibits' culled from the archives of the predecessor companies by a Thames Water officer.

Solicitor's Department (until 1924 part of the Clerk's Department):

The two principal series are the file registries covering all legal aspects of the Board's work, including property and rating disputes.

Surveyor's Department:

The main series is the hundred volumes of the Metropolitan Water Board's land terrier - official copies of the land transaction conveyances not only of the Board but of its predecessor companies. It covers the areas where the various bodies held land and not where they supplied water.

Treasurer and Comptroller's Department:

The main series are the financial ledgers.

Director of Water Examination's Department:

The only records surviving are printed reports of investigations by the Director.

The Metropolitan Water Board was established in 1902 under the terms of the Metropolis Water Act of the same year with a statutory area of 576 square miles, of which it directly supplied 540. Its Board met for the first time in 1903 and was composed of 66 members from every local authority concerned (some smaller authorities had joint representation) and the Lee and Thames Conservancies. This number was increased to 88 in 1956 (due to population growth) but reduced to 39 on the reorganisation of local government in 1965.

During 1903 and 1904 arbitration appeals were heard regarding compensation for the companies' shareholders and in 1904 the 'appointed days' for transfer of the undertakings took place, July 25 for the New River Company and June 24 for the rest. The new undertaking also included the areas covered by the Urban Districts of Enfield and Tottenham which had retained their own powers of supply (from wells) although they had also been heavily dependent on the New River and East London companies.

Its first task was to complete schemes inherited from the companies and effect the rationalisation of the eight separate undertakings, primarily in engineering, staffing, administration and water rates. To this end Staines reservoir was opened in 1904, the Kempton Park works in 1906, Walton reservoir in 1907, Honor Oak reservoir in 1909, and Island Barn reservoir in 1911.

Progress on the financial and administrative side was slower and politically sensitive especially in the rationalisation of water charges. Criticisms of the Board continued through the 1910's and eventually in 1919 it agreed to the setting up of a committee by the Ministry of Health under Sir Horace Monro to review the workings of the 1902 Water Act. The committee reported in 1920, largely supporting the Board's management of the undertaking and the resulting Metropolitan Water Board (Charges) Act of 1921 strengthened its financial position.

In 1914 the Round Pond was closed after three hundred years in operation and on its site in 1920 the Board's new headquarters at New River Head were opened. In 1936 another connection with the early history of the capital's water supply was broken with the decision to allow the lease on Hampstead and Highgate ponds to lapse. It had been in existence since 1543.

In 1947 a Departmental Committee was set up by the Ministry of Health on Greater London Water Supplies with a remit "To examine the present system of water supply administration in the Greater London area and to consider and report on the question whether changes in that system are desirable in the public interest and if so what should be the constitution, powers and duties of the new body or bodies in which control should be rented". The Board was in favour of, in effect, a single regional body based on the hydro-geological area of the London Basin but there was a great deal of opposition to the proposal and nothing of substance was enacted although indirectly it led to the creation of the Thames Water Authority in 1974.

The post war period saw the inauguration of a number of major schemes including the opening of the George VI reservoir at Staines in 1947, the William Girling reservoir at Chingford in 1951, the Ashford Common works in 1958, the Thames to Lee Valley trunk main (to supplement supplies from the River Lee) in 1960, the Elizabeth II reservoir at Walton in 1962 and the Coppermills Works (the last great project completed) in 1972. By 1974 the daily amount of water supplied by the Board had risen from an original 220 million gallons in 1904 to 420 million gallons (with peaks up to 500 million).

The Thames Water Authority came into existence under the 1973 Water Act on 1st August of that year. The last meeting of the Metropolitan Water Board took place on 29th March 1974 and the Authority assumed full control three days later.