Newcastle and Gateshead were relatively small places despite being important for the export of coal, and it was not until the arrival of the railways in the second quarter of the nineteenth century that the population began to increase significantly.

They sunk a shaft at Coxlodge, to tap into flooded coal workings, and the water fed a new reservoir on Town Moor through a 10-inch (250 mm) diameter pipe.

While the prospectus for the new company made much of service to the townspeople, the aims were clearly to break the monopoly of the Newcastle Fire Office and to make money for investors.

[8] The Fire Office sought tenders for new cast-iron pipes, to replace wooden ones, and the enlargement of Swan Pond to form Carr Hill reservoir.

was obtained on 19 June 1840, to allow extraction of water from the River Pont and from the drainage of Prestwick Carr, but no further progress was made.

[16] The 1840s saw Edwin Chadwick championing sanitation for the poor, with the publication of his Report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain in 1842 summing up three years of research.

[18] Dr Robert Reid, who visited Newcastle in December 1843 and January 1844 for the commission, found the poor living in overcrowded conditions.

The men behind the scheme were Richard Grainger, an eminent builder, Thomas Sopwith, a consulting engineer, and the industrialist William George Armstrong.

[23] A bill was presented to Parliament on 28 February 1845, and after Sopwith, Armstrong, Grainger and the engineer James Simpson gave evidence, the Whittle Dean Waterworks Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict.

[27] At the first annual general meeting held on 30 January 1846, the company pledged to provide a constant supply of water to all properties.

[29] Robert Nicholson oversaw the construction of five reservoirs at Whittle Dean, on which around 200 men were employed, and tenders were invited for 12 miles (19 km) of 24-inch (610 mm) diameter pipeline.

[32] The benefit of the new scheme was soon seen, as there was a national outbreak of cholera in December 1848, but "Newcastle escaped almost unscathed", which was attributed to the unpolluted water supply.

Another small reservoir was built at Whittle Dean in 1850, but with rainfall in 1850 being the lowest for many years, water was also obtained from the Town Moor, the Coxlodge shaft and pumping from the Tyne restarted.

Land surrounding the Whittle Dean reservoirs was drained to augment the supply, and negotiations to use the River Pont were started.

The company opposed parts of Newcastle's Town Improvements Bill, as it would make digging up streets to lay pipes more difficult, and also promoted their own bill to include more parishes in their area of supply, to increase their working capital, and to regularise the construction of the Great Northern reservoir at Whittle Dean, which had already been built.

[37] Simpson, working with the Whittle Dean engineer John Nicholson, produced a report on 24 October 1853,[38] and a bill was submitted to Parliament.

Negotiations with mill owners on the River Pont meant that they withdrew their objections, and the bill became the Whittle Dean Waterworks Act 1854 (17 & 18 Vict.

It would allow water to be taken from the River Pont, and conveyed to Whittle Dean by an aqueduct, where the Great Southern reservoir would be built.

The act included clauses, inserted by the town council, allowing them to buy the new works within ten years, and ensuring that water could only be pumped from the Tyne if they gave their consent.

[40] A new pumping station was built at Newburn, which reused the engine from Elswick, and obtained water from the river after it had passed through 33 feet (10 m) of gravel.

[43] The company experienced some difficulties, with equipment breaking down, pipes bursting, reservoirs leaking and further dry years in 1858 and 1859, but by 1861, they were supplying 26,065 tenants, with consumption having risen seven-fold since 1845, to 5 million imperial gallons (23 Ml) per day.

The company then proposed a separate supply for manufacturers, pumped from the river, which would increase the amount of water available for domestic users.

While the bill was in Parliament, two of the directors, Sanderson and Tone, looked at whether pumping water from the North Tyne was an alternative to the Hallington reservoir, and found that costs would be similar.

c. xlix), was obtained in 1866, extending the time allowed to build it, and authorising a new aqueduct from Whittle Dean to Benwell via Throckley.

[54] The pumping station in Gateshead was moved to a new site at Rabbit Banks on Askew Road, nearer to the new river crossing, and a second-hand 60-inch (150 cm) beam engine was bought from the Manchester and Salford Water Company.

Robert Sterling Newall propounded a scheme to bring water 78 miles (126 km) from Ullswater in the Lake District to Whittle Dean by gravity.

[58] The discussions subsided a little with the coming of rain at the end of the year, although Newcastle Council passed a motion to take over the company in February 1875.

[53] There were problems with leakage, but the company ignored Bateman's proposal to concrete over fissures in the Dry Burn, and used direct labour to make the repairs.

Direct labour was again used to fix the faults, and when West Hallington reservoir was built, this principle was extended, with Forster, the company's Resident Engineer, overseeing the work.

There were delays, caused by slippage of the dams, bad weather in the winters of 1886 and 1887, and a spring beneath an embankment, but by May 1889 work was sufficiently complete that the reservoir started to fill.