Wallis on Sanitary Questions - Louth Lincs 1838

This page deals with the main points in a pamphlet A Few Thoughts on Sanitary Questions by T W Wallis Land Surveyor and Consulting Sanitary Engineer (hereinafter Thoughts) published in Louth in 1872.

Thomas Wilkinson Wallis (1821-1903)

Thomas Wilkinson Wallis was probably Victorian England’s greatest carver in wood. He eventually gave up this work, because of failing eyesight. He is also interesting to the social historian because he provided accounts of household expenditure over a prolonged period. However, this page is only concerned with his role as a surveyor, sanitary inspector and commentator on public health issues.

The main source for Wallis’ activities is his 1899 Autobiography¹ . His public involvement in health issues began in 1872, when he wrote a series of articles for the Advertiser; these were reprinted as Thoughts. In 1873 he was appointed to a new post of inspector of nuisances on a salary of £100 pa. This was a part-time post and he carried on other work as a private surveyor. In 1878 the niggardly Louth Borough Council reduced his salary to £60 “because I had done so much there would be less to do in the future”. In 1885 he was appointed borough surveyor at a salary of £120 pa. (Autobiography pp 178, 188, 208, 218)

His basic proposition was that “an abundant supply of good water, and a complete system of house, street and district drainage, are so intimately interwoven that a consideration of either subject must necessarily involve reference to the other.” (Thoughts p 6)

Background: Unhealthy Louth

Wallis pointed out that Louth ought to be a healthy town.

Situated as this town is upon a gentle declivity, with watercourses … traversing the town and parish from west to east of sufficient capacity to carry away naturally all surface drainage; with water fairly plentiful and good, when obtained uncontaminated with the impurities of the earth through which it percolates into the wells; with no trades or manufactories specially injurious to health; with these advantages Louth should rank as one of the healthiest towns in the kingdom, But what are the facts? The death rate of Louth has averaged for the last twenty years (the returns earlier than that are not readily accessible) about 24 per 1000, whereas the standard of healthy towns is 17 per 1000. (Thoughts p 12)

The accuracy of the statistics calculated by Wallis is dubious. Press reports indicate that the mortality figures produced by the medical officer of health fluctuated. However, there is no doubt that Louth’s death rate was unnecessarily high with periodic outbreaks of the usual infectious diseases. Wallis mentioned that his housekeeper contracted smallpox in 1888, but Louth never had an epidemic on the scale of Lincoln’s typhoid epidemic of 1904/5, when over 100 people died.

Water

In 1872 Louth had no piped water supply. Some houses took water from the town centre springs, Aswell Spring and St Helen’s Spring.² Water was mainly provided by private pumps drawing water from wells or springs. In addition many houses collected rainwater, softer and so more suitable for washing. An 1823 advertisement for a large building in Mercer Row stated that it had a pump of fine spring water and two rainwater cisterns.³ Typically the larger houses had private pumps in their yards or gardens. An 1852 advertisement for a “mansion of moderate size” stated that its kitchens were supplied with both rain and spring water, the former being stored in an underground tank, and a forcing pump distributed water to other parts of the house.⁴ However the majority of houses shared pumps.

Of course an efficient pump did not guarantee pure water. Successive editions of White’s directory stated that throughout the Louth area water was available “at a depth of about 27 yards” but most wells did not approach that depth; indeed the simple pumps in general use could not raise water so high. Wallis stated:

During my term of office as Borough Surveyor [1881-93], I had to deal with three public wells the water from which had been condemned as unfit for drinking purposes. I succeeded in constructing such works as to entirely cure the imperfections and restore the supply of water to a wholesome purity. These three wells are known as the “Fish Shambles Pump” the “Market-place Pump” and the “James Street Pump.”

These seem to have been the only public pumps. It was reported in 1877 that an outbreak of typhoid in Healey’s Court (for this street see Housing Paupers ) was attributable to the pollution of the well serving the court. After the pump had been locked as a safety precaution the inhabitants had to get their water “from the pump in the Market Place or wherever they could get it.”⁵

Wallis emphasised that one of the greatest risks attendant on defective sewers was the contamination of wells. Spring water at source was not necessarily free from pollution. Wallis noted (Thoughts p 28) that the flow from Aswell Spring was highly variable and influenced by rainfall; and the squalid housing nearby increased the pollution risk.

Wallis hoped for improvement through the supply of piped water. Many English towns had been provided with piped water by profit-making water companies established by local acts of Parliament. Such an act had been passed for Louth in 1854 but it led to no result, because the necessary capital was not forthcoming.

A new proposal for a water company was made in 1870. It primarily involved forming a reservoir that took water from the “Silver Springs” near Hubbards Hills but with a reserve right to take water from the town centre springs. This aroused considerable opposition, but a consultant engineer’s report established that the reserve right was unnecessary and that the extraction of water for the reservoir would not have a material effect on the town centre springs. Parliamentary approval was eventually obtained in 1871, the authorised share capital being £20,000 (2,000 £10 shares). It was reported in September 1873 that 140 buildings had been connected to the mains and in 1877 the number had risen to 420 houses (about 17% of the inhabited houses in Louth) and 40 business premises.⁶ but subsequent progress was slow. As late as 1901 it was estimated that only about 4,000 people (roughly half the town’s inhabitants) had piped water.⁷ In 1923 the company was acquired by Louth Borough Council.

The slow provision of piped water may be attributed to the usual Ludensian unwillingness to spend money on improvements. Under the scale of charges the supply of piped water to small houses would cost only 2d a week, but the great majority of these houses were tenanted and yielding such low rents that the landlords were not interested in improvements. Some choices may have been influenced by the availability of water filters. In a prosperous household the water consumed at the dining table would probably come not direct from the pump but from a portable water filter that used animal charcoal. By the 1870s filters capable of converting apparently dirty water into apparently clean water were widely available (many in the ornate cases preferred by Victorians). It was reported in 1867 that a sample of piped water in Lincoln “was of a greenish yellow hue before filtration” but after being passed through one of the leading brands of filter “was perfectly bright and clear”.⁸. Later in the century it was recognised that, unless the charcoal was changed frequently, the apparently clean filtered water might contain bacteria. In any event, the poor could not afford the filters.

Sewerage

When Wallis first wrote on the issue in 1872 Louth had a system of public sewers: see Improvement Commissioners However, there was no sewage treatment works until shortly before World War I; the sewers all led directly or indirectly to the River Lud.

This would be bad enough if the water of the Lud had free course, and so carried away some of the pollutions poured into it. It would then have the character of an open sewer, very objectionable it is true, but worse than this the Lud is converted into a huge cesspool by the water being held up by the six mills. Instead of a rapidly running stream, we have comparatively still water, which is constantly being fed with the liquid refuse from nearly all the town. Further, according to an official report on this subject, there are 254 closets emptied into the sewers and thence into the Lud; and if we take the usual number of persons to a house, viz., four, the result is that the excreta of 1,000 persons, to speak in round numbers, is annually deposited in the Lud. (Thoughts p 13)

The date of the “official report” referred to is not known. In 1873 Wallis did his own survey and found that the number of water closets had increased to 442. (Autobiography p 180) The sewers themselves were unsatisfactory.

As a rule they are too small; and, principally owing to defective workmanship and faulty design, and also in not making a full use of the natural fall or undulation of the ground, the smallness of the sewers is rendered further defective by the deposit of silt; in some cases to nearly, and in others to more than, half the depth of the sewers. (Thoughts p 13)

However most houses were not connected to the sewers.

Then again there are nearly 2,000 pits or cesspools requiring to be emptied, which is done at various intervals of time, under no system, or control, with no flushing apparatus or supply of water to insure the cleansing of such places. (Thoughts p 13)

I had sundry sanitary work at my own house [in Gospelgate]. I had found a large cesspool, long since covered up, near the kitchen door. A cart load of sewage mud was taken out. (Autobiography p 178)

Wallis’ 1873 survey gave a figure of 2,342 “dry closets”. These ranged from large cesspools of the type described above to small portable containers. The “night soil” in the latter was removed during the hours of darkness by “scavengers”, who apparently also dealt with the ashpits. (Victorian houses produced large quantities of ash, because coal was used for cooking as well as heating; other rubbish was sometimes thrown into ashpits.) The collected material was normally sold to farmers as “Louth manure”. On Wallis’ recommendation the Borough Council agreed “to provide the necessary staff for night work in cleaning out all ash-bins and dry closets, which had hitherto been left to private enterprise, resulting, in many cases, in chronic nuisances”. (Autobiography p 178)⁹

Wallis pointed out that the cost of providing adequate sewerage could be exaggerated by over-specification. It was unreasonable to expect a town’s sewers to cope with the heaviest rainfall or to provide drainage for cellars (Thoughts p 15).

Streets

Wallis commented that many Louth streets were inconveniently narrow, with a “maximum of dampness with a minimum of sunshine, producing cold and chilliness which is so detrimental to health.” But his main concern was the surfacing of the streets. (In the early nineteenth century there were debates between the supporters of two great civil engineers, Telford and Macadam. It came to be recognised that, admirable as Telford’s methods might be for completely new roads, Macadam’s techniques were attractive for the maintenance of existing roads and streets.)

In the 1820s the Improvement Commissioners had recognised the desirability of having properly surfaced streets with footways (“causeways”) along the sides and at intervals crossing places to enable pedestrians to cross the streets without getting too muddy. The minutes are sometimes difficult to follow, but it seems that granite blocks were used for the crossing places and “pebbles” (obtained by ship from Spurn Point) for at least some of the footways. The meaning of “pebbles” is unclear: in the first half of the nineteenth century there was a large trade at Spurn Point in both cobbles and gravel; but by the time when Wallis was writing further extraction had been prohibited.¹⁰ For example, when the commissioners decided (minutes 8.12.1826) that Rosemary Lane should be surfaced with pebbles, this might have meant cobblestones or mere gravel.

Wallis made it clear that in his day the normal street surface was gravel, which was unsatisfactory in a number of respects.

The material of which the streets of Louth are composed is so sharp and gritty to walk upon either when repaired, or when it has been “just washed in a shower,” that one would suppose it was peculiarly designed [for the] rapid wearing away the soles of our boots…

Street repairs took the form of adding more gravel, which soon produced “either oceans of mud, or clouds of dust.” This was followed by

… men labouring with scraper and broom to concentrate the mud and loose gravel into a kind of sloughy embankment on the sides of the street, which, if not removed at once, becomes a snare and a pitfall for the unwary pedestrian; then dust-men and road-men with shovels and brooms and carts gather up the refuse in greater quantities than the amount of the metal put on, and convey it away to some mysterious place, perhaps to fill up an exhausted lime pit [with a] mass of mud and nastiness… (Thoughts p 21)

Wallis considered that this macadam system so increased the cost of maintenance that it would be more economical to incur the capital cost of paving the streets with granite slabs; but there is no sign that the borough council took this seriously. In the end, but not in the nineteenth century, the problem was solved by the use of bitumen to bind the stones together: the “macadamised” streets became tarmac.

Curiously, Wallis made only a passing reference to asphalt, even though it had for more than 20 years been used in Louth for certain footways, presumably to seal the gaps between stone slabs, as in the “slabbing and asphalting on the south side of Eastgate”¹¹. Its use was slowly extended; in 1877 Newmarket had been improved by the provision of an asphalt pavement from Upgate to Aswell Lane (and also by the extension of the gravel footway from the Brown Cow to the railway bridge.)¹²

Improvements

The closing pages of Wallis’ pamphlet displayed optimism that proved to be largely unjustified. In relation to streets he referred to major improvements that had taken place earlier in the century: the culverting of the stream from Aswell Spring, so that it flowed “under instead of on Maiden-row and part of East gate”, the clearance of the market place by the removal of the old town hall and improvement of the west end of Gospelgate, where formerly “the road suddenly dipped to the depth of three feet below the present surface”. These encouraged him to expect future improvements; but these seem only to have taken the form of demolitions, principally the clearance of some dilapidated cottages to provide a small open space next to St James’ Church.

More importantly, in an addendum to the pamphlet Wallis referred to the Public Health Act 1872 (later consolidated with other legislation in the Public Health Act 1875). Louth Borough Council initially responded to the act by requesting a visit from a government inspector, whose report on the town’s sewerage was (inevitably) highly unfavourable. Wallis seems to have thought that the council genuinely intended action and he outlined a scheme for improved sewers that would lead to a sewage treatment works to the east of the town. His subsequent experience was that the council’s willingness to call for reports was not matched by a willingness to spend money on implementing the reports. (Autobiography pp 223-4) When he died in 1903 there had been minor alterations but untreated sewage was still pouring into the Lud.

In 1907 the borough council considered a report on a site for a proposed treatment works but found an excuse for delay. Lindsey County Council had certain default powers and in 1909 the chairman of the county council’s sanitary committee complained that “Louth’s sewage works scheme seemed to be hung up”; he was assured by the Louth members that a scheme estimated to cost £18,000 was under active discussion. In 1910 the county council’s medical officer reported as follows.

The new sewage scheme for the Borough is at present before the Local Government Board for approval. Improvements have been made to existing drains in the Market Place, Mercer Row, Brackenborough Road and Little South Street. The River Lud and the Eel Mires Drain have been cleaned out and enormous deposits removed. [Emphasis added.]

In 1911 work on the scheme started but there were problems with the contractor and the contract appears not to have been completed in that year.¹³ Completion of the sewerage scheme may have accelerated the connection of houses to sewers; but as late as 1935 the borough council contracted with a Leicester firm for the conversion to WCs of 126 pail closets and 221 privy closets.¹⁴