The Mercenary River
Private Greed, Public Good: A History of London's Water
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The Mercenary River
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Narrated by:
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Nick Higham
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By:
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Nick Higham
About this listen
No city can survive without water, and lots of it. Today we take the stuff for granted: turn a tap and it gushes out. But it wasn't always so. For centuries London, one of the largest and richest cities in the world, struggled to supply its citizens with reliable, clean water. The Mercenary River tells the story of that struggle from the Middle Ages to the present day.
Based on new research, it tells a tale of remarkable technological, scientific and organisational breakthroughs, but also a story of greed and complacency, high finance and low politics. Among the breakthroughs was the picturesque New River, neither new nor a river but a state of the art aqueduct completed in 1613 and still part of London's water supply: the company that built it was one of the very first modern business corporations, and also one of the most profitable. London water companies were early adopters of steam power for their pumps. And Chelsea Waterworks was the first in the world to filter the water it supplied its customers: the same technique is still used to purify two-thirds of London's drinking water. But for much of London's history water had to be rationed, and the book also chronicles our changing relationship with water and the way we use it.
Amongst many stories, Nick Higham's compelling narrative uncovers the murky tale of how the most powerful steam engine in the world was first brought to London; the extraordinary story of how one Victorian London water company deliberately cut off 2,000 households, even though it knew they had no alternative source of supply; the details of a financial scandal which brought two of the water companies close to collapse in the 1870s and finally asks whether today's 21st-century water companies are an improvement on their Victorian predecessors.
©2022 Nick Higham (P)2022 Headline Publishing Group LtdListeners also enjoyed...
Fascinating and well paced
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As Nick Higham says in his introduction, he is writing not as a specialist historian but for the general reader, and what he has produced (and narrated himself) is a meticulously researched rollicking good ride through the vast history of the provision of London’s water over 400 years. Starting in 1613 with he astonishing feat of Sir Hugh Myddelton’s New River, the canal carrying spring water from Amwell in Hertfordshire to the reservoir in Islington, Higham’s detailed account of the efforts of a clutch of vying Water Companies to distribute water throughout an ever-expanding London continues through the centuries right up to 2019. It’s chastening to hear that some of the financial practices of 21st century water providers are not unlike those of the 19th!
The Mercenary River is crammed with a whole host of interlocking topics from steam engines to fire fighting fleshed out with absorbing and entertaining detail. His accounts are graphic , such as those of the exhausting 2-day laundry epics in London households which involved women starting work at 2am and ending with bleeding hands; of the inadequate sewers producing sickening rivers of cesspit overflow contaminating wells and the all-important Thames; of the arguments over the causes of cholera; and of the overpowering stench which culminated in the devastating Great Stink of 1858.
The history in The Mercenary River is serious but lightened by being told at a fast pace and with a smattering of humour in asides and colloquialisms – when expensive to install flush toilets were first introduced you had to be, Higham writes with a characteristic flourish, ‘flush to flush’ . He obviously knows his London and locates remnants of this great industry currently in museums, on streets and on the ground - ‘Yes,’ he says ‘I am that man who stops to take a photo of a drain cover’! l enjoyed his explanations of contemporary language use, his descriptions of illustrative paintings and political lampoons, and particularly his wealth of literary references: Dickens is a favourite of his whilst John Scott of Amwell’s 1776 poem The Mercenary Stream is a gem.
The serious core of the work is his examination of the workings of the 19th century London Water Companies which remained separate and distinct until their amalgamation in 1904. But I feel the accusation of ‘ private greed’ emblazoned as a subtitle on the book’s cover, and highlighted throughout, is unfair. Their water for decades was undoubtedly often very bad but the Companies have to be seen in the context of their times. They were private enterprises whose duties were to their shareholders, not philanthropic concerns set up for the benefit of the consumers. As such their function was to make money in order to pay dividends to shareholders. It seems obvious now that they should have been bought out and amalgamated with a primary purpose of providing clean water, but to have done so would have been contrary to Victorian business thinking. In fact a proposal for just such an amalgamation under one authority was made by the Chairman of two of the leading water companies, Sir William Clay, in 1849 and the Government introduced a Bill to Parliament in 1851 incorporating many of his ideas, but was forced to withdraw it for lack of support. Certainly the Companies were not ready to relinquish their private enterprises - but was this really ‘greed’ or just Victorian common business sense?
The Mercenary River tells a splendid story but I have given it only 4 for performance because although Higham reads with great infectious gusto, his editors should have edited out his sudden intrusive intakes of breath throughout his otherwise faultless narration.
"Covetous mercenary men"?
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Superbly read by the author
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Water should not be taken for granted
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