Joseph Garfield
Joseph Garfield (c1872-1925), the sewage engineer of Bradford.
1925 Obituary
"Bradford has suffered a severe loss by the death, on the 27th, of Mr Joseph Garfield, its sewage engineer. Mr. Bradford, who was only in his fifty-fourth year, was born in Wolverhampton, and received his training at Masons College, Birmingham, afterwards being articled to a local firm of engineers. His first direct association with the subject to which he devoted his life was as resident engineer at the Sewage Disposal Works of the Wolverhampton Corporation. He was also connected for some time with the sewage works at Lichfield. The important work of his career, however was done at Bradford, of which he was sewage engineer from 1899 till the time of his death. He it was who planned the large Esholt Estate disposal scheme, work on which was begun nearly twenty years ago and will still, it is estimated, require another two years to complete. This undertaking involved the driving of a tunnel 2.75 miles long for the conveyance of the sewage to the Esholt Estate, a property which is over 1850 acres in extent, and which was acquired by the Corporation in 1906.
Mr. Garfield's name will always be connected with, in addition to the Esholt scheme, the use of coal as a filling material for sewage filter beds, and with the extraction of grease from sewage. The sewage of Bradford, owing to the enormous quantities of wool which are washed and treated in that city, contains a very considerable percentage of grease, which unless it is removed, renders treatment of the sewage exceedingly difficult. Mr Garfield succeeded, not only in extracting the grease, but in so purifying it, that it became a valuable and marketable commodity., It is dated that in all the Corporation has received no less than £1,000,000 from the sake of the grease and other products of its sewage disposal works. Mr Garfield was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and was a past-president of the Association of Managers of Sewage Disposal Works.