Preliminary report on the drainage of the metropolis / By Mr John Phillips, Chief Surveyor. July 23rd, 1849.

  • London (England). Metropolitan Commission of Sewers.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preliminary report on the drainage of the metropolis / By Mr John Phillips, Chief Surveyor. July 23rd, 1849. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    2/22 page 2
    Necessary to establish first principles. Defects of pre¬ sent system, and their causes. Contamina¬ tion of the atmosphere. Under exist¬ ing circum¬ stances the evils are irre« mediable. Pollution of the Thames and its tribu¬ taries. The consideration of the entire drainage of the whole of this area is involved in the instructions for this Report, but primarily it is necessary to discuss and esta¬ blish the first principles of Town Drainage, which have not yet been determined by the Court, but upon which depends the great question of outfall; and this I shall proceed to do, confident in the practical experience of many years, and in the results of long and anxious consideration of the subject. It is practically impossible to provide a perfectly innocuous system of Town Drainage while combining in one channel the house-washings and night-soil with the land and surface drainage. They must be separate. It is only within the present half-century that night-soil, the drainage of houses, and other offensive matter, have been permitted to discharge into the sewers, which before that time were constructed for the reception of land-drainage and rain-water only. This combination of surface and foul water in the sewers, although an error in principle, has been extended to all parts of the metropolis and its suburbs, and the consequent evils consist of accumulations of foul matter in the house-drains and sewers, whereby noxious vapours are generated; which filling the large space of such drains and sewers not occupied by the sewage, thence escape into the houses and streets through innumerable inlets, and thus pervade and contaminate the atmosphere of the whole town. Nothing further is necessary to demonstrate this fact than the universal experience of the past few weeks—that the whole of the atmosphere of London is perceptibly tainted by emanations from the sewers, and that the population are complaining by whole parishes of such a fearful state of things, which imperfect and injudicious flushing rather aggravates than removes. The very necessity which now exists as a rule to resort to the expensive pro¬ cesses of flushing and trapping to prevent accumulation and to keep down the malaria where it most prevails, further proves this combined system of drainage eminently at fault in its first principles. It is not the gullies that create the mischief, but this combination of house and surface drainage in one channel. Supposing the number of gullies to be diminished, the defects of the present system would not be remedied, inasmuch as the noxious gases would be not less freely generated, and the effluvia would be driven into the habitations through the house-drains instead of into the open thoroughfares. Nei¬ ther would any actual benefit be derived by the general trapping of gullies, since experience proves the effect to be the same as described above; and therefore the defects of the present combined drainage, however they may be palliated or modi¬ fied by such expedients, are irremediable. Moreover, the dangerous consequences arising from the house-drains discharging their contents into the sewers are not confined to the houses and streets; but as the sewers are constantly pouring floods of filth into the Thames and its tributaries, those waters also are disgustingly polluted; and in addition to these evils, the sewage, which, if saved, would be a source of great revenue to the rate-payers, and of the utmost value as a fertilising agent, is wasted and lost.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3