Chelsea Waterworks Company

[1] The company was established "for the better supplying the City and Liberties of Westminster and parts adjacent with water" [1] and received a royal charter on 8 March 1723.

[2] The company created extensive ponds in the area bordering Chelsea and Pimlico using water from the tidal Thames.

By the 19th century there were complaints about the quality of the water they were drawing from the River Thames, and in 1829, under engineer James Simpson the company became the first in the country to install a slow sand filtration system to purify the water.

c. 84) prohibited the extraction of water for household purposes from the River Thames below Teddington Lock.

[3] The site was adjacent to the Lambeth Waterworks Company, who had already moved there and who also employed Simpson.