Liverpool Corporation decided that such an important service should be provided by a public body, and sought to take over the water supply companies.

The latter post was filled by James Newlands, a visionary man who defined the role of the Borough Engineer, to be copied by many other towns and cities.

This issue was eventually resolved by building the Vyrnwy Reservoir in Wales and a 68-mile (109 km) aqueduct to convey the water to Liverpool.

The city of Liverpool sits on a bed of lower new red sandstone, which is covered by a layer of clay, up to 26 feet (7.9 m) thick.

Consequently, an independent water supply for fighting fires and flushing sewers was proposed by the Highways Board, for which the engineer was James Simpson.

Work on a well at Green Lane, 185 feet (56 m) deep, began in 1841, from which the water was pumped by a steam engine and stored in a reservoir at Kensington Fields holding 8 million imperial gallons (36 Ml).

The reservoir was subsequently covered, to reduce the growth of green algae, and was extended to hold 21 million imperial gallons (95 Ml).

A special committee of the Highways Board sat to consider the evidence, and concluded that such a vital resource as a clean water supply ought to be managed by a public body, rather than private companies.

However, they discovered that the contracts for the Rivington Pike Waterworks had already been awarded, and despite the legal obstacles, convened a court of enquiry to see if it was possible to reverse the decision.

The reservoir was operational by 1850, with the outlet consisting of a pipe running through the dam, and supported by two masonry piers where it ran through the central clay puddle.

The outlet valve was at the downstream end of the dam, and although this configuration is no longer thought to be good practice, there were no serious issues with the reservoir throughout its operational life.

[22] The 1860 act had also authorised the construction of Yarrow Reservoir, near the lower end of Anglezarke, which was completed in 1875, but only permitted a small increase in the volume entering supply.

However, the scheme only yielded about 16 million imperial gallons (73 Ml) per day, some 6 million imperial gallons (27 Ml) short of Hawksley's estimate, and by 1872, faced with a rapid increase in the population of Liverpool and growing demands for water, this was no longer adequate to provide a constant supply.

Hawksley supported Jackson's proposal, but Bateman felt that it was flawed in a number of areas, and suggested instead a joint scheme with Manchester to use water from Ullswater.

[26] The valley of the River Vyrnwy had been proposed as a source of water for London in 1865, but in 1877 a civil engineer from Wigan called Hugh Williams suggested that it could provide a gravity supply for Liverpool.

He expected to be involved in its development, but instead the Water Committee asked their Borough Engineer, G. F. Deacon, to produce a report, which he did on 18 December 1877.

The two worked together on promoting the bill through Parliament, and both signed some of the early drawings for the dam, but Hawksley was not prepared to allow the cooperation to continue.

It included surface water drainage, the introduction of water closets to replace cesspits and privies, a water-based sewerage system, minimum sizes for rooms in houses, provision for swimming lessons, public baths, wash houses, and also suggested that planning of new streets to reduce the costs of drainage should fall within his remit, as should the outlying villages of Everton, Kirkdale and Toxteth Park, which he thought would soon become part of a larger urban Liverpool.

[33] Construction of the first integrated sewerage system in Britain began in 1848, and was keenly observed by many who were involved in public health and civil engineering.

Edwin Chadwick had championed glazed pipe sewers for connections to houses, despite opposition from engineers, and Newlands adopted these.

As an interim measure, the sewers emptied into the Mersey, where the fast tides carried the effluent away, but Newlands was clear that what was required was a central treatment plant, but it was not until 1984 that such a plan was implemented.

Overcrowding was an issue, exacerbated by 300,000 Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine in 1846, and not helped by the council demolishing houses deemed to be unsanitary in the 1850s.

[36] Nevertheless, Newlands gained recognition for his policies, both nationally and internationally, and he was briefly seconded to the Crimea in 1855, to improve sanitation in the army camps at Sebastopol.

c. 63) was modelled on the Liverpool Sanatory Act 1846, and as a result, many towns employed a Borough Engineer, a role which Newlands had largely defined himself.

Extra capacity at Fazakerley was created in 1913 by constructing an 8-foot (2.4 m) diameter sewer, to carry effluent through a ridge to the River Mersey.

[35] The second half of the twentieth century was marked by a number of legislative attempts to address the problems of the water industry.

There was little incentive to invest in sewage treatment works, and in many areas the rapid increases in population had resulted in rivers becoming grossly polluted.

In 1971 a Steering Committee on Pollution of the Mersey Estuary was set up, to which consulting engineers reported in 1974 on possible sites for sewage treatment works.

Consideration had been given to creating a new island between Eastham and Garston, as finding land near the river front on which to build a wastewater treatment works was proving difficult, but the chosen solution was to route an outfall through Alexandra Dock.

It had the advantage that building an interceptor sewer to link the outfalls to the works would be relatively simple, the treated effluent could still be routed into the estuary, and sludge could be taken to sea for dumping.