London Sea Water Supply Co
of London
1898 Share issue. Sir Henry Edmund Knight (Chairman), Southwark and Vauxhall Water Co, Rickmansworth and Uxbridge Water Co; Arthur R. Prideaux (Director), New River Co; John Bousted (Director), Lambeth Waterworks Co; Samuel Green (Director), Southwark and Vauxhall Water Co; Percival Bosanquet (Director), Union Bank of London; Frederick Wissler (Director), Ranschoff and Wissler; Hawkshaw and Hayter (Engineers) and J. S. Macintyre. Construction of works for taking seawater from the English Channel and connecting with the homes in London.[1]
1898 'NEW ISSUES. The London Sea Water Supply Company is issuing capital to the amount of £600,000 in 60,000 shares of £10 each. It is proposed to construct works for taking an unlimited quantity of sea water from the English Channel and conveying it through mains to London, connecting the mains with the bath-rooms, etc. of private residents and of hotels, hospitals, schools and other institutions, and with public and private swimming baths, and also to provide stand-pipes from which sea water can be drawn for distribution and sale and to supply sea water for street watering and cleansing, for flushing sewers and drains and for all other purposes for which sea water is efficient. Another feature promised is the placing of hydrants at convenient points for the supply of sea water for extinguishing fires. The intake authorised by the Company's Act of Parliament is a little eastward of the village of Lancing, in Sussex, where the sea water is of unquestionable purity. Details of the scheme are furnished in the prospectus, together with estimates of revenue. The subscription list will be closed on or before Wednesday. 21st inst. ....' [2]
1900 'PRIVATE OCEANS. A SEA BATH FOR 2d. IN THE STRAND.
A hitherto undreamt of luxury will within the next two years be within the reach of every Londoner. There is a Bill now before the Houses of Parliament which is entitled “The London Sea Water Supply Bill,” and it is designed to obtain by its means sanction for a great plan which will bring fresh sea water to nearly every house in London.
The details of the scheme are shown pictorially on this page and may be summed up very briefly. A great pipe will run into the sea at Lancing, near Brighton, and water will flow through it into settling tanks upon the shore. From there it will be pumped up into a HUGE RESERVOIR on the top of an adjacent hill. Thence it will be conveyed through mains by means of gravitation to London. The great pipes will be laid along the highways and will go through the various towns shown in the illustration.
It is not easy at first to estimate the tremendous influence this new scheme will have upon the lives of dwellers in London. Here is one curious fact to begin with. A big bath full of fresh limpid ocean water will cost the consumer who enjoys it only twopence. At the seaside to bathe from a machine or pier costs anything from 6d. and 9d. to 1s. It is true that by walking a mile or more over the painful pebbles of the beach you can, in some watering places, bathe from the shore out of sight of the surging humanity on the "front.” But you pay your money in the ordinary course of events.
Thus bathing in London will before long be CHEAPER THAN THE SEASIDE, to say nothing of the cost of a railway fare! Sea-water, from which the ancients believed all things sprang, is a wonderful health-giving agency. The blessings of the cold tub in the morning will be increased a hundred-fold when each man can turn on a tap in his bath-room and have his own private ocean ready to his hand.
No information is yet to hand as to whether the sea-water is to be filtered before it is supplied to the houses. If not, the pleasures of the new arrangement will be infinite. The children will be able TO GO SHRIMPING in the bath-room, and collect shells from the taps. Sponges also will be once more in their proper element.
The gourmet will be delighted. Oysters will be able to be kept in their native water until the very moment. they are brought to table ; and this will apply to all the marine creatures that grace our tables.
The new flow of sea water will not only be laid on in private houses, but will also, in all probability, be utilised to fill some of the lakes in our London parks.
Half an hour “on the briny” in town will not be attended by any of the unpleasant stomachic disturbances, pictures of which form such an integral part of our comic papers during the holiday season.
When London thus becomes a “Salt Lake City” it is to be hoped that the peculiar doctrines of Mormonism will make no headway among us.'[3]
1901 'Some five years ago an equally ambitious tube was proposed by the London Sea Water Supply Company, which proposed to run a huge pipe from Worthing to the Metropolis for the purpose of providing Londoners with the luxury of sea-bath at home. Incidentally it was anticipated that the sparkling fluid would be used for many other purposes, such as street watering, sewer flushing, etc., for which it is wasteful to employ good drinking water. The water was to be pumped into high reservoirs, and allowed to flow thence by the force of gravitation. There were to be some half-a-dozen of these huge tanks between Worthing and London, the nearest to the Metropolis being placed high up on Epsom Downs. Had the scheme been in working order during the parching days of last summer its promoters must have reaped a golden harvest. As it is, however, Londoners who want their morning dip in the briny must still hie them to Southend or Brighton, for the Worthing Tube has not yet been made.' [4]