One of the greatest wants
of Sydney is water. Some parts of the town are supplied
by carts from a tank in Hyde Park, brought there from
a swamp several miles distant by tunnel. This swamp,
it was expected, would afford a supply sufficient
for a population of 20,000: the population, however
now borders upon 30,000 and in many cases a lack of
that first of comforts is apparent.
(J Hood, Australia and the East, London,
1843 p.292)
Providing a good water supply was one of the early expectations
of the citizens of its new Council when it was formed in 1842.
The first pipes were laid in 1844 in a few privileged streets.
Or maybe they were unlucky streets as these first pipes were
made of lead.
But what with there being only a very rudimentary system
of sewers and a series of drought years, the citizens were
not pleased. The water supply dwindled. The Council was sacked.
The government appointees who took over for a few years did
not do much better. It took years and years to sort out how
to fund and build an adequate system and the there is much
documentation concerning the woes of the City fathers in learning
the skills of keeping a growing city well watered and sewered.
Images
Disinfecting
the city
A disgruntled citizen suggests a solution:
As the Corporate Body will soon stink in the public
nostril unless your worshipful influence save it from
putrefaction, I take the liberty to enclose a description
of a new article received from England and beg that
you will get friend Stubbs [Inspector of Nuisances]
to try its effects in keeping down certain nuisances
in the city. (A. Campbell sends
the Mayor an advertisement for Wilson’s Disinfecting,
De-odorising, and Wood-Preserving Salt for Drains etc,
4 April 1853. City of Sydney Archives, CRS 26/8 item
39).
In the first
decades when the council provided water, a petition
from residents to have it laid on could be countered
by a petition from owners not to connect it. Hence the
problem was not solved.
Mapping the drains In 1865 the City undertook a detailed trigonometrical
survey of the city, identifying buildings, roads, sewers
and drains. These are marked as blue lines. Note how few
houses are actually connected.
The
road to fame When cartoonists take up the topic of water and
sewerage for lampooning, you can be sure that it is of
general interest at the time.
In this 1868 Sydney Punch cartoon the Mayor of
Sydney, Charles Moore, fails in his attempt to reach the
high pinnacle of office, indicated by a statue commemorating
himself. He has fallen at the first step, labelled ‘supply
of water’.
Untreated
sewerage Until the new southern outfall directed untreated
sewage to the ocean in 1889, it discharged into various
spots around the city, including Woolloomooloo Bay and
the inner reaches of Darling Harbour at the foot of Liverpool
Street. This cartoon, labelled ‘Corporation Dam
between Fort Macquarie and Kirribilli Point’, shows
urchins playing with the dead cats, fish bones, sludge
and old shipwrecks that were allegedly threatening to
silt up the Harbour. (Sydney Punch,
3 July,1869)
Urban
housekeeping
Death lies beneath a drain outfall, and can only be banished
by the angel of sanitary reform. The caption to this illustration
reads ‘a new broom much wanted in Sydney’
(Illustrated Sydney News, 24 January,
1880).
After several investigations, control of the metropolitan
water supply passed to the newly formed Water Board in
1888.
Pumping
station in Crown Street
This is the first pumping station built in Crown Street
in 1876. The decorative contrasting brickwork on the sewer
vent, on the right, reflected care for aesthetic detail
which was common in this type of infrastructure built
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
(Courtesy of Sydney Water Corporation /
Sydney Catchment Authority Historical Research & Archives
Facility, image: X770518-16)
