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© Lincolnshire Echo |
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An Englishman's house is his… water tower? |
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In the centre of Lincoln stands a magnificent castle tower. Or does there? Tourists may be confused by the 'castle', but locals know it well as the Westgate Water Tower.
It was commissioned by the Lincoln Corporation, the town's water supplier, in direct response to a major Typhoid epidemic in the city. Between November 1904 and April 1905, 1006 people had contracted the disease, resulting in 113 fatalities. Despite previous typhoid outbreaks, this was the first serious one, resulting in one of Lincoln's biggest peacetime tragedies.
The 1904 outbreak was caused by a polluted supply of drinking water, which by this time came from a reservoir at Hartsholme Lake and the River Witham. Many of the concerned residents stopped using the existing supply of tap water, which by this time was heavily chlorinated. They preferred to go back to the wells used 50 years earlier.
© Lincolnshire County Council
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Faced with a crisis situation, city officials and the Water Board realised that the provision of clean water and proper sanitation would be the only way to curb the disease and restore the residents' faith in the public supplies of water.
In 1905, Neil McKechnie Barron was appointed as the Corporation's new engineer and had the unenviable task of devising a system by which the safe provision of water could be guaranteed. He finally recommended a system that was to be known as the Elkesley Scheme, for which an Act of Parliament received Royal Assent in 1908.
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