My attention having been directed to a Report upon the Sanitary condition of
the Labouring classes, drawn up by you, presented by the Poor Law Commissioners,
and, by the Rt Hon the Secretary of State, laid before both Houses of Parliament
in July 1842. I have carefully read it and, while as a member of Society, I can
admire the able manner in which so momentous a subject has been arranged; yet,
as an individual whose professional character has, under Providence, hitherto
been his means of subsistence, I feel myself deeply injured; and injury the more
deeply, because that, unless you will devise some method of making this my
defence co-extensive with an accusation which has been spread over the whole
realm, I am left without redress.
Although I may feel that there is a tone in your remarks which none of the
circumstances justify, I yet must acquit you of any deliberate intention to
injure me personally, because that you do not know me, and because that you must
have been misled by assertions upon which you too readily relied. Still I do
feel that, as my good friend Mr. Tite, and Mr. Thomas Piper Junior did me the
honour of saying that, if you wanted any information as to the City Sewers, I
was best qualified to give it you; and telling me that I might expect to be
called upon by you; it is exceedingly unfortunate for me that you did not avail
yourself of that opportunity, which would have saved me from wanton or malignant
injury, and you from the painful sense (doubly painful to a man of station and
of honourable feeling) of having been made the instrument of wrong.
If it were a common case, I could not expect you to devote time to read this
paper: but I have been injured and by your instrumentality. That, I doubt not,
must give me a claim upon your time, your attention and your justice: and, I
trust you will not disappoint my expectation by throwing it aside for another
day.
In page 317 of the Report is this passage: "as regards the appointment of
Surveyors to the Commissioners of Sewers, I would observe that, in my opinion,
very few of them are properly qualified by education or otherwise to perform the
important duties entrusted to them, in an effective and proper manner.
In page 55 you say, Mr. Roe "is perhaps the only officer having the
experience and qualifications of a Civil Engineer."
And in page 317, this is followed up thus "but in the structural arrangement,
in only one commission do any of the works executed approach the existing state
of Science.". "In that one, the Holborn and Finsbury trust, they happened to
obtain a Surveyor, having science and practical experience as an Engineer, whose
advice was acted upon and that officer effected the only considerable
improvements of a Scientific character that have been made in the Sewerage of
the Metropolis.
As to the general defamation of the Metropolitan Surveyors of Sewers,
conveyed in your words, the names and works of such men as Joseph Swift, Edward
Plimsoll, John Newman, James Walker (I recite them alphabetically) are
sufficient to refuse this imputation sought to be cast upon them. Had they only
been Lady's maids, they must be this time, by the very nature of their land,
have perforce been converted into Civil Engineers; but they are and were
educated, and will remain well known and highly respected as Architects
and Engineers, and not one word which I could use would either add to or
diminish their repute: It is therefore sufficient that I, who am but a pigmy,
should defend myself; and in so doing justify my masters.
With respect to my qualifications: I lay claim to no higher professional
epithet than that of Surveyor.
I do not call myself an Architect, yet was I brought up in an Architect's
office. During four years I prepared most of the construction drawings of an
extensive public building. I have perpetrated a little Architecture and, if
report be true, George the Fourth said "I am much obliged to one of my subjects
for setting up so pretty an object for one to look at." In three
successive years I obtained rewards for my Architectural compositions, the last
constituting a Gold Medal, Life Student of the Royal Academy.
I do not call myself a Civil Engineer, although it so happens I have had to
amend the work of a Civil Engineer of no mean repute, whose name I will not
mention, only because that I cannot but suppose he had been egregiously deceived
by his workmen. But I will ask you, Sir, to hear what my Sewers works say for
themselves.
Immediately that there was a prospect of obtaining an outlet to the Thames at
London Bridge, my master and predecessor in office, proposed its construction.
It was carried from the then margin of the River and branched towards
Gracechurch Street and Cannon Street, with the intention of taking the then only
open road to intersect the Town ditch at Bishopsgate, which line would have
required a depth of at least fifty feet at the high level of Cornhill. Upon his
retirement in November 1832, I was unanimusly chosen to fill his place. It
became needful to carry the mouth of this Sewer out to the intended new line of
embankment, in front of the new Adelaide Hotel. I knew that I had the eyes of
Engineers upon me. I laid my plan, after my own fashion. I carried forward my
work one hundred and thirty four feet in length, into the River, and that in
deepish water, and having to cut through the Standings of old London bridge, and
to contend against the Stream through three arches, without a coffer dam, and
while the Gentlemen, in mere frolic, were running down to the shore, daily
looking for my failure; got myself out of danger and finished it. That it has
not been done very unskilfully, or very unsoundly, is somewhat attested by the
state of the buildings which have been placed upon it.
Immediately that ti was decided to form a Street up to the Mansion House, I
took my resolution to abandon my predecessor's intended main line, and to strike
at once into the hollow ground of Moorfields. Acting upon my advice the
Commissioners authorized me so to do. It was no very plain sailing, under and
through old foundations at a depth of more than forty feet, but it was done. My
next line was in Princes Street. There I encountered one of the most formidable
obstacles I ever wish to meet, in bog land to a depth of thirty two feet, full
of piling and decayed vegetable matter reduced to a state approximating to clay,
mixed with still discernible grass and roots. The drainage of this soil and its
consequent compression under the weight of the buildings, severely fractured the
Clerk's residence at Grocer's Hall, and the Company sued the Commission. After
lengthened litigation it was decided, upon argument before the Judges, in favour
of the Commissioners, because their work was necessary to be done, and they had
done it in "a skilful, proper and workmanlike manner, in all respects." This
work was executing [sic] by tunnelling but as a large portion of the Bank of
England stood upon the same kind of soil, and its planking and sleepering were
rotten, and their land full of water, the Directors under the advice of Mr.
Cockerell, and Sir Robert Smirke, and Mr. George Rennie, requested it might be
open-cut. I felt that open cutting was of the two attended with more risk: but
the Commission deferring to the desire of the Bank, directed me so to do. The
manner in which I proposed to effect this was submitted to those Gentlemen; and
in allusion to it, Sir Robert is reported to have said, "He is building a wall
of brass".
Completing this, I next ran along Moorgate Street and at its head intercepted
the County waters coming from the City road. Allowing the work to rest some
months so as to let the boggy ground under Finsbury Circus get gradually dry, I
next passed along London wall into Broad Street, there intersecting the Town
ditch. Thence I deepened the bed of the Ditch into Bishopsgate Street, and so
provided an additional discharge for the County waters from Bishopsgate without
and gave relief to the Irongate Sewer.
After a further pause for the additional drying of the bog; at the
express request of the Holborn and Finsbury Commission, and unaided by them, it
was directed to be continued to Queen Square in Elder Street at as great a depth
as possible to catch their West Long Alley Sewer. Beyond that point they asked
nothing. I, however, thought that was not the fit place to stop at, and
therefore carried it on to Wilson Street and up to the limit of the City
Commission, and there finished it at a depth of twenty feet, being eleven feet
eleven inches below the former level.
It may be said that all this exhibits no proof of Engineering ability. True
Sir. But when I tell you that my attempt to give to the land, as far as I could,
an ample equivalent for the long destroyed and forgotten streamlet named "the
Walbrook" was attended by this (to me) highly gratifying result; that my water
bed not only cut but eighteen inches above the ancient water bed of the Walbrook
where it had crossed Princes Street; but at Little Moorgate it ranged only
two inches aboev the floor of a Roman Culvert, the mouth of which I haced [?]
out and found it cut to the slope of the ditch of the massive fortification of
which it was an accessory (this ruin was probably earlier than the time of
Antoninus) and at Rose and Crown Court up to the queen Square it fell somewhat
below the shingly bed of the ancient stream, long buried in the accumulated bog
land: I cannot but fancy you will allow there must be some little engineering
qualification in a man, whose untaught judgment as to what was fittest to be
done, led him so nicely to hit the proper level for the drainage of a country as
to coincide with that of Nature.
I know that this is egotistical. My accuser forces me to be so. But the
accusation of unskillfulness comes with an ill grace frrom an Officer of that
Commission which has benefitted so largely by my work as, if common report speak
truly, to be able now to obtain a drainage twelve feet in depth for the low land
at Holloway, in preparation for which a Sewer has already been driven by them as
far as to Old Street road.
I rest my claim not to the epithet Civil Engineer; that I neither affect nor
covet; for I have always called myself by the title of my office only, and seek
no other; but I do claim to be exempted from the censure of not possessing so
much of the qualification of a Civil engineer as fits me for that office;
judgment to plan, and ability to execute what I have planned so as fully to
ensure the attachment of my masters' object: and I rest my claim upon this work
especially, because the discovery of ancient water beds indisputably prove it to
have been correctly devised
I have executed several lines of Sewage besides this. I do not however appeal
to them as proofs of my judgment because that in them there are none of the
everlasting marks of Nature to corroborate me. Let the person who seeks to
defame me put his finger of censure upon either, and I am prepared to
defend it, certain that, if I have erred, it is generally on the side of depth,
and capacity, and stability.
In page 374, Mr. Roe having said that his Commissioners "now adopt a series
of levels suited for the lowest outlets of the surrounding districts" being
asked 'Have you heard of any alterations made in the surrounding districts on
the same principle' answers "I have heard of none as adopted generally. The City
have lowered some of their outlets."
In page 309, you caustically observe that "The Surveyor of the City Sewers
speaks in a tone of grievance and oppression, that the waters of the County
would run into the municipal jurisdiction" &c
And in page 310 "It need scarcely be pointed out that this municipal division
had until they chose to drain operated as a barrier to all the water
described, which was kept back to the injury of the County" &c.
I am persuaded you could not have adopted these sarcastic expressions had you
not been quite in the dark as to the facts: and your right feeling will lead you
to regret having so done. The facts are simply these.
The City, within the ancient walls, fell from a general central ridge all
ways into its ditch and into the River Thames, and into Turnmill brook, being
only cut through by the depressed track of the Walbrook. The line of Bishopsgate
Street without falls bodily northward, so as that Spital Square is about level
with Eastcheap: while Aldgate High Street falls wholly Eastward. With such a
formation of surface it is quite clear that no portion of the land to the
Northward and Eastward would have drained naturally into the City, but the
waters must have flowed from it. Artificially they have been thrown into the
City by the Bishopsgate Street Sewer whose current is the contrary of that of
the surface; and, if justice and any body of men have any community of feeling,
Justice would have told the Commissioners of Holborn and Finsbury that too much
water ought not to have been poured into an outlet afford to them in kindness:
and I fancy you will see that it is a little unfair in you to attempt at holding
me up to ridicule as if I were to silly as to complain of water taking its
natural course, downward.
With respect to the watercourse of the Walbrook, it is very different. That
was a natural water bed. The dust of ages has long slumbered over the causes
which destroyed this once beautiful streamlet. That it was intentionally
obstructed there can be no doubt; and my strong impression is, that it was so
obstructed at a time co-eval with if not anterior to Roman conquest (for most
Roman relics lie high above its bed) for the express purpose of spreading its
water over the land, as a protection. The bog was thus formed; and because that
the whole water could not be for ever retained a trench was left to carry off
that which was superfluous. This trench became the common Sewer and was only
fourteen feet below the present surface in Princes Street, to its paved bottom,
while the water bed of the natural stream was at the same point thirty two feet
three inches below the present surface.
So far had the County been injured but unknown centuries before Commissioners
of Sewers existed. In process of time, as London increased, more waters were
thrown into these wretched Sewers than they could contain.
The Commissioners of the City knew it and were desirous of alleviating the
evil. In 1773 4&5 they carried a new line of Sewer from Dowgate dock to
Cripplegate Church, at as great as depth I doubt not as they dared to go. It was
the utmost remedy they could then apply, and, anxious as they were to effect a
perfect cure, your own knowledge of the narrow irregular streets and alleys
formerly lying between London wall and the Thames must shew you that to carry a
capacious Sewer that way was as nearly impossible as any thing of the kind could
be. In 1804 they sought for an outlet at the Old London Bridge; but could they
have passed between Saint Magnus Church and the Bridge, who would have dared to
cut a deep and wide trench in front of the Monument!
Notwithstanding this, the buildings and drainage of the County greatly
increased; and, realizing the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb, the County
Commissioners of former days vituperated those of the City for flooding them.
Immediately that the hand of improvement began to work my predecessor eagerly
seizing the first opportunity commenced an adequate Main line. I conducted it
into Moorfields. Having effected that, and obtained effectual relief there the
Commissioners acting upon my advice and without waiting to be asked, ran along
Red Cross Street, and to the City boundary in Golden lane, offering an outlet
fifteen feet nine inches in depth. Passing thence along Bridgwater Gardens and
Fan Street with one line, and along the upper end of Aldersgate Street to the
Bars with another, they not only presented the Holborn and Finsbury Commission
with two outlets each sixteen feet in depth, but allowed every one who chose it,
whether in the City or not, to have drainage into their Sewer. At Leather Lane
they opened another line up to the City boundary thirteen feet deep, and had the
County wished it they might have had eighteen feet. At Glasshouse Yard
Aldersgate Street, another branch was carried up to the boundary at Sixteen feet
in depth. Of all these the Holborn and Finsbury Commission have availed
themselves; and in return they have carried a branch from the Fleet ditch to the
City boundary in West Street.
It cannot be very indecorous to ask if it be quite fair of Mr. Roe to slur
these liberal works over in the words "the City have lowered several of their
outlets". And, had not your mind been poisoned, you never could have used the
sneering expression "until they chose to drain." In fact, they not merely "chose
to drain" they anxiously sought for and embraced the earliest time at which
improved drainage was possible, and having relieved themselves, at once tendered
a helping hand to their suffering neighbours.
Again, Sir, at the suggestion of their incompetent Surveyor, the City
Commission rebuilt the line of Sewer in Holborn, but instead of merely renewing
the "Old Bourne" some seven feet in depth, their new level was taken at a depth
of eighteen feet. The adjacent Commission when applied to at the time said they
wanted not additional depth, had they asked for thirty or forty feet, they would
have had it.
Eastward - the City Commission carried as deep at Sewer as they could to
Whitechapel bars, where it is fifteen feet ten inches deep and subsequently in
conjunction with the Tower Hamlets Commission passed through the whole length of
Petticoat Lane and Sandy's Row, thus draining a sad place, which before was
almost utterly destitute. Indeed, wherever there was a point at which their
Sewers could be made beneficial there did they work, and made a gratuitous and
unrequested and, as it now turns out, ill-requited offer of aid.
Nor have their confined their exertions to the boundaries. The Sewage line
has been made complete, including new and old Sewers from Temple bar, and along
the River to Tower Hill. Another line has been completed from Saint Paul's
Church Yard nearly to Tower Hill. Another has been finished from Holborn Bars to
Whitechapel bars. That from Aldersate Street in an irregular line to Aldgate has
been carried out. Various lines from North to South have been built; and
although one cannot yet say that not a Street, or Court, or Alley in the City is
without drainage; there is fair ground for hope that much time will not elapse
before it can be said.
Having, I trust, shewn that upon the question of the fittest level for
drainage a given tract of land, the Surveyor to the City Commission is not
grievously wanting in skill; and that as an officer, and as a Citizen (in the
largest sense of the word) he has constantly kept an open eye for any chance of
benefitting not merely the City but all the lands adjacent: I address myself to
those exclusive claims for improvements set up by Mr. Roe, the truth of which
alone could justify your observation that the Holborn and Finsbury Commission
have "effected the only considerable improvements of a scientific character,
that have been made in the Sewers of the Metropolis".
In pages 57 and 376 Mr. Roe says "The prevalent practice is to join Sewers at
angles, frequently at right angles." "The Commissioners of the Holborn and
Finsbury divisions agreed to require that the curves in Sewers passing from one
Street to another shall be formed with a radius of not less than twenty feet."
the which radius I take to be that which describes what he terms "the true
curve."
As this is question of dates, it is to be observed Mr. Roe says, page 373,
that he had acted as Surveyor of Sewers "nearly four years" but the date of his
examination is not given.
In the confined streets of the City of London there is very little
opportunity for obtaining any curve, but we can see what the Commissioners
officers, and their predecessors have done in this small way.
In 1668 the mouth of the Sewer in Fleet Street was built in a waved line: and
that of Fetter Lane started off at a very acute angle, better than any curve.
In 1692, the curve of the Sewer in King Street Cheapside at the junction with
Cateaton Street was struck by a radius of eighteen feet.
In 1769 and 1806 the communication of the Sewers of Threadneedle Street and
Cornhill with the trench line were formed the one with a curve of nineteen
feet radius, the other with a large sweep cutting in at an acute angle.
In 1774 the Sewer from Charlotte row into the Poultry was built to a radius
of nineteen feet, that from the Poulty into the Old Jewry with a radius of
fourteen feet six inches, that from the Old Jewry into Coleman Street in a waved
line formed by two radii of eighteen feet and thirty four feet and in 1775 that
from Coleman Street into Fore Street has a curve of eleven feet six inches
radius.
In 1783 the Main Sewer of Aldersate street was turned into the end of Little
Britain with a quadrant of thirteen feet radius. At the end of Long Lane in
Smithfield the Sewer sweeps to a forty two feet radius, that in Snow Hill to a
eighty feet radius, and a much older line in Snow Hill is curved to a fifty six
feet radius.
In 1794 the Sewer from South Street into South Place was turned with a
quadrant curve of twenty five feet radius, and in 1814 the connexion of the
Sewer in Elder Street with the Sewer from South Street out into it at a sharp
angle.
Nor has practice slept:
In 1831 were the branches formed at the head of the main trunk of King
William Street, in plan like the bite of a leech, the three angles being equal
and meeting in the centre.
In 1835, the head of the Sewer in Aldgate High Street was branched with two
curves of thirty feet and thirty seven feet radius, sweeping towards Petticoat
Lane and Somersett Steet.
In 1836, at the head of Red Cross Street, the branches were swept in a
similar way by radii of eighteen feet six inches and twenty eight feet towards
Beech Street and Barbican.
Indeed, Sir, I should weary you if I were to state every instance of curved
junctions. Suffice it to say that in all the line from London Bridge up to
Wilson Street Moorfields, in that throughout Cheapside into Newgate Street and
Saint Martin's-le-Grand, and in every other Sewer built by me, have the
junctions been made ni curved lines wherever it has been in any way practicable.
Mr. Roe well knows the Cutwater [?] which I formed to throw the water
in equal quantities into the double line of Sewer in Farringdon Street. Mr.
Donaldson and Mr. Angell, both architects of no mean rank, were pleased to term
it my beautiful work. I fancied it to be little more than an every day affair,
and in this and all other similar things felt but the pleasure of the eye in
contemplating a nicely flowing line, little thinking it to be an achievement in
Civil Engineering: and I dare venture to say my poor predecessors thought no
more of their great and good deeds.
Again, as to the claim to the origination of a new sectional form for Sewers:
In page 378 are given cuts of the "Westminster Sewer" and of the new, egg
shaped Sewers of the Holborn and Finsbury divisions; and in page 373 Mr. Roe
says "In the City they have built some of their Sewers in a form nearly similar
to those adopted in the Holborn and Finsbury divisions; that is, approaching to
semicircular." "Most new Sewers are making an approach to the better form by
having segments."
The inference intended to be conveyed necessarily being that the City and
other places have stolen without acknowledgement Mr. Roe's invention of form
four or five years old.
If memory serve me rightly, some French Architect or 'Ingenieur' several
years back wrote an essay recommending egg-shaped Sewers; and it also happens
that the facts and dates in respect to the City and other Sewers are sorely
against his claim.
In 1756 Mr. George Dance directed the first Sewer built by the Commissioners
for the City, in Aldermanbury Postern. This indeed was built with a flat bottom
but
In 1775 and 1778 the Sewer of Bishopsgate Street without was built with a
semicircular top and bottom and in 1795 a Mr. Stevens Totton claimed
"satisfaction to be made him as the first proposer of a plan for constructing
Sewers, barrelled at bottom in the nature of a reverse arch." because that the
City Commission had so built the sewer in this street. Upon enquriy, it was
however ascertained that Mr. George Wyatt, being appointed Surveyor, in 1768; in
1769 a drain was allowed to be made across the Minories, upon condition that it
be made with a circular bottom. Mr. Jacomb, in 1769 also had leave to build a
sewer in Dowgate, with a concave bottom, as had the Inhabitants of Snow Hill
upon like condition; and, as in 1756, Ware published his "Compleat body of
Architecture" giving sections of Sewer and drains built with inverted arches as
executed in the Horse Guards, it was presumed that George Wyatt and other
Surveyors must have been fully acquainted with the advantages of such
construction; and Mr Stevens Tottons claim was rejected.
In 1777 the Sewer on the west side of the then Quarters of Moorfields was
built under the direction of George Wyatt and in 1779 it was continued up to
Tindals burial ground (now Bunhill Fields). This Sewer has straight sides and a
semicircular top and bottom.
In 1782 the Main Sewer of Smithfield was built, in part circular in part in
Ellipsis.
In 1783, the Sewer in Aldersgate Street was built with inclined sides; that
is, it is a close approximation to the Egg shape!
The Old Town ditch Sewer under Newgate is ciruclar.
George Wyatt abnd his successor Nathaniel Wright built all their Sewers with
semicircular bottoms, many of them set in Tarras: and so did his successor
Samuel Acton, until, in the last years of his holding office, and when in
consequence of his ill health, I had more of the controul [?] in my own hands.
In 1829 the Main Sewer from London Bridge was began. This is an ellipsis ten
feet high and eight feet wide. My main reason for making it elliptical was that
it had to pass beneath the land piers of the Bridge, where the greatest strength
was required. It was a beautiful form and I continued it only varying in size up
to Londno wall, where it is eight feet three inches high, and six feet nine
inches wide.
In 1832 the Sewers of Pauls Wharf, Bennets Hill, Godliman Street, Little
Carter Lane, Old Change and Watling Street and Great Knight rider Street were
all built elliptical.
In 1833, the Sewer along Holborn was rebuilt. It is elliptical and hard by
the Sewers Office in Hatton Garden.
I should have continued to build them in that form, but I found that owing to
the very regularity of its curvature rendering it difficult for the eye readily
to detect any variation in its dimensions, while filled with workmen and
centering, my Clerks of the Works were open to deception. I reverted to the Egg
shaped with bevelled sides because that, the top and bottom being semicircular
could not be varied much, and the most careless or cunning workman could not
well leave out a whole course of bricks in the side wall, without direct
detection.
I however built the Fleet ditch Sewer in New Farringdon Street elliptical and
horizontal; but by gradually flattening the invert as I approached the County
acquired my Current.
But my predecessors and myself have no exclusive credit in all this. An
unfortunate Surveyor of Sewers, but nevertheless, one before whose talents and
gentlemanly principle Ditraction [sic] herself would stand dumb; in 1849 built
many hundred yarsd of elliptical Sewers, five feet three inches high and four
feet six inches wide, in the Surrey division; from the River Thames near to
Battle Bridge Stairs through the Maze, Western Street, and Snows fields to the
Borough High Street, and thence to Stone's end, under circumstances of such
trying difficulty that he was obliged to form a large portion of the invert in
Cast Iron; and I shrewdly suspect that every new Sewer in that whole division
has a semicircular invert.
In the teeth of all this, Mr. Roe says, page 373, " as far as I am informed
they are built with upright walls. I know none but the New Sewers in Holborn and
Finsbury divisions that are built with curved sides."
In page 376 Mr. Roe says "Under the prevalent system the gullies and shoots
are formed so as to retain deposit, on the principle that it is cheaper to get
the deposit out of those than out of the Sewers." but that the Holborn and
Finsbury Commissioners "have also adopted a new description of Gulley and Shoot
which I proposed to them, for the purpose of conveying the whole of the deposit
into the sewers".
In the whole City there is but one Gulley the refuse from which is prevented
getting at once into the Sewer. That is in Rose Street Newgate Market. There
were two others in Gracechurch Street which had cesspools and vertical gratings,
to intercept the broken hay upon the Coach stand, and one in Aldgate High
Street. But these were so repeatedly choake that they have been destroyed.
I, following with some amendment, as I conceive, the example of my
predecessors, ever have formed the gullies and shoots so as at once to discharge
the water from the Streets into the Sewers. There is not, nor ever has been the
slightest intentional obstacles in the way. But it is really somewhat amusing as
regards Mr. Roe's claim to great credit for this one of "the only considerable
improvements of a scientific character" that the City Commissioners and their
stolid Surveyor were most loudly and indecently reprobated by Doctor Birkbeck,
for their dogged obstinacy in not forming cesspools, at the head of every gulley
shoot.
I have placed his flaps in more than a thousand gullies to keep the stench
away from the houses, and ventilating grates in the manholes to allow the escape
of inflammable gas from the Sewers.
Whenever an old carriageway has to be repaved, the Commissioners insert new
gullies wherever they may be needed and in layign down a new Sewer, the gullies
are generally placed in pairs at every hundred or hundred and fifty feet in
length, and my Masters do this, because they are Commissioners of Pavements, as
well as Commissioners of Sewers. I feel very doubtful if so much can be said of
even the Holborn and Finsbury divisions in respect to their systematic provision
for surface drainage.
Having so far set square these claims to credit for structural improvements
and "put the saddle upon the right horse" I may almost strive to felicitate
myself with the hope that as those are termed "considerable improvements" and
"of a scientific character" and that as they are clearly shewn, if not assuredly
to have originated in, to have been so fostered for very many years by the City
Commission, as to have become their own, by adoption, some little ray of the
scientific halo may be accorded them; or that, at the least, they may be
exempted from the reproach of supineness.
Mr. Roe makes however one true claim and that is to systematically cleansing
Sewers by them with water. Not that it is altogether new. It had, before his
time, been done surreptitiously by Contractors for cleansing the Sewers; who,
having had their easing measured to them as it lay in the Sewer, were interested
to escape the cost of the hoisting and cartage and cared little where the soil
went to, if they could get rid of it. In this way, some thirty or forty loads of
soil were flushed into the Sewer of Bishopsgate Street from Norton Folgate,
directly after it had been cleansed: and after strikin the dams of the East and
West Long Alley Sewers, when the new line in Moorfields was built; the whole
line of Eldon Street had swept into it broken pottery, stones and other refuse,
to nearly eighteen inches in depth, which had to be cleared out at the cost of
the City.
All the mechanism and the adoption of that openly, and as a principle, which
was before done by stealth is I dare say his own; but as to the question of its
adoption, it may be worth consideration whether it be morally right for the
Holborn and Finsbury Commission to flood their sulliage down upon the City, and
for the City to flood down both that and their own into the Thames.
The pollution of the Thames has long been no unjust theme of reprobation, and
was the stalking horse of Mr. Martin's intended Joint Stock Company for its
prevention; and his scheme was recommended by the highest names in the land.
There is nothing unpraiseworthy in rightly seeking whatever credit a person
is rightfully entitled to; and had there not been an attempt wrongfully to
destroy the reupte of, and to hold up every other Surveyor of Sewers to
contempt, the other claims to the origination of improvements would have been
left to find their own level.
However, as among others, I have been cried down as unfit to hold my office,
I must in justice to myself, and in justification of those Gentlemen who
appointed me and have confided in me, offer some other proof that the works
entrusted to me have not been very unskilfully performed.
When, acting in the capacity of Surveyor of the Pavements (although then only
Surveyor's Clerk) I found it necessary to exert myself in remodelling the
management of that part of my duties, I first made a plan of every Street which
had to be re-paved (and there are more than fifty miles of public way within the
City). In consequence of my so doing, I was enabled quietly to correct all
irregularities of width and level which had crept in, and they were reduced to
rightliness and order.
My Master first advised the Commission to use that which has been termed
Cubed Granite. He was pleased to consult with me thereon. I carried out his
ideas adding some few of my own, and have been gratified to see this systematic
mode of procedure spread into other parts of the Metropolis.
My predecessor had deemed it impossible to ferret out and obtain accurate
plans of all the Sewers. When I became Surveyor; with the very zealous and able
assistance of my Inspector William Saulter, the elder; I after years of research
and labour conjointly with him laid before the Commission forty one sheets of
antiquarian paper covered with accurate plans of all the Sewers in the City,
together with a condensed history of each, its age, dimensions, depth, and
direction of current: and a general plan of the city with its Sewers has been
printed for each Commissioner's use.
As it does not legitimately grow out of this my defence, I will not trouble
you now with remarks upon some of the suggestions of Captain Vetch as to
pavements and subways, or Mr. Roe and Mr. Stables upon ventilation of Sewers and
other matters. When the fit time shall come, I can shew that all the subjects of
these suggestions have been tried, or considered and rejected by my Masters, as
inapplicable to the existing City; and your proposition of uniting the care of
Sewers and roads under one jurisdiction is nothing new: It has for many years
been the case in the City. Indeed, somehow or other, the experience of the City
has in more things than one, set an example to other than Citizens.
Believing that I have succeeded in shewing, That the Commissioners of Sewers
of the City of London have, through a long series of years, been alive to the
duties of their trust:
That they ever seized the earliest opportunity for effecting improvements.
That, without their Surveyors presumptuously applying to themselves the,
often impudently assumed and much prostituted title of Civil Engineer, they have
conducted their works with judgment and foresight, and success:
That they have done as much, if not more, in proportion than any other
Commission for the improvement of the health and advantages of the Metropolis:
That they have anxiously and carefully sought for, and at length happily
accomplished a complete system of deep Sewage, adapted for their own purposes
and largely contributing to the welfare of all the adjacent lands, more
especially those under the Holborn and Finsbury Commission.
That, instead of Mr. Roe having originated three of "the only considerable
improvements of a scientific character that have been made in the Sewerage of
the Metropolis" that is curving Sewers at their junctions: building Sewers with
semi-circular bottoms and making egg-shaped sewers: and forming gullies and
shoots so as not to retain deposit: all these had been in use, in the City, some
long before he was born and others long before he became a Surveyor of Sewers.
I now ask you, with some confidence, to accord me the common justice between
man and man of doing your utmost to remove the slanderous imputations cast upon
me and my employees. I ask it because you have traduced my character: I ask it
because you have striven to deprive me of my daily bread.
It is quite true that, while you seek to get all power into one iron gripe
[sic]; you say that the present Surveyors should retain all thei emoluments. But
is it nothing, Sir, to blast a man's repute; to stigmatise him with incompetency;
by the very act of a putting 'a Nurse' in to keep him from mischief-doing; and
after having crushed and degraded and insulted him, to render the insult still
more bitter by saying "There, dog! each your undeserved crust, and be thankful!"
I trust, Sir, you will not do so. You will do justice for the wrong of which
you have unwillingly been made the instrument; and you will duly value the man
who has sought to aggrandize himself y the destruction of others.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your very obedient Servant,
Richard Kelsey
Surveyor to the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London and Liberties
Thereof
73 Chiswell Street
September 5th 1842
