BIRMINGHAM’S WATER A presentation by Jordan Edwards Shannon Clinton Mawuena Dzotsi

1. BIRMINGHAM’S WATERA presentation by Jordan EdwardsShannon ClintonMawuena Dzotsi

2. 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. 

3. A cartoon from the 1850’s showing the filthy living conditions.

4. 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.

5. The filthy alleyways that separated the slums.

6. 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.

7. A Birmingham Slum

8. 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.

9. A slum with steps to keep the filth out.

10. 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. 

11. A typical street in Victorian Birmingham

12. 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.

13. Back to Back houses with outside Privies and wash rooms

14. 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. 

16. Pipes being laid in Birmingham to bring water to its people.

17. 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 mid-Wales, some 75 miles to the west of Birmingham, were reported by experts to be ideal for the purpose.

18. 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.

19. The Elan Valley area bought and developed by Birmingham.

20. 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.

21. An artists impression of the valley to be flooded.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. An early photograph of the workers village.

25. 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.

26. The school with its teachers and assistants.

27. The Hospital.

28. Digging the water channels for the Dam.

33. The Dams near completion.

34. CABAN COCH DAM

35. Garreg Ddh Viaduct

36. Slide courtesy of Birmingham Reference Library

42. 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.

44. Birmingham celebrates the supply of clean fresh water

45. 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.

47. 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.

48. 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.

49. Our thanks to Birmingham Reference Librarywho helped us by providing photographs and maps for this presentation.

50. AND OF COURSE Mawuena Dzotsi