City of Exeter Sewage, Manure, Irrigation and Farming Co
of Exeter
1871 Incorporated. Directors - Colonel Brent, Woodbury, Devon, Chairman; John Spettigue, Esq., Exmouth; John Drew, Esq., Powderham; Henry Thomas Hartnoll, Esq., Exeter; John Way, Esq., Exeter. 'This Company has been formed for the purpose of utilizing the Sewage the City of Exeter. A concession of a lease from the Mayor and Town Council of Exeter as the Local Board, for the Sewage of the City for a term of years, has been conditionally arranged for. The population Exeter is about 40,000. The City is well supplied with water, and almost entirely with water-closets. The flow of Sewage exceeds 1,000,000 gallons daily, and before its entrance into the tanks it is to thoroughly deodorized by a purifying chemical process; then the solid matter is extracted from the Sewage by nitration, dried, pulverised, and mixed proper proportions with charcoal, sulphate of lime, phosphates alumina, etc, and becomes a strong portable manure. We next dispose of the supernatant water, which passes into a pumping well, from which it conveyed in conduits over land of a sufficiently low level, or is pumped over lands of higher levels, as irrigation. It will be one of the objects the Company to fully utilize and in utilizing purify this liquid sewage, and thus to grow all kinds of market garden and farming produce on the land, and to keep dairy stock in the farm buildings. A provisional agreement has been made with the landed proprietor in the neighbourhood for, in the first instance, about 500 acres of land, well suited for irrigation purposes, for a term of years, as a reserve farm to remain in the Company's own hands...'[1]
1872 City of Exeter Sewage and Manure Irrigation Co Office, 37 Gandy Street, Exeter.[2]