Water Resources Board
1927 The Water Pollution Research Board was set up, mainly as a result of representations by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, which were becoming increasingly concerned with the problems of river pollution and its adverse effect on the supply of pure water for a growing population and industry.
Initially, the board sponsored research in the Universities. Committees were also set up by the Board to survey the pollution in certain English rivers and to make arrangements for the necessary research to be put in hand. A Water Pollution Research Board was established to submit schemes for research on the prevention of pollution, by individual effluents and sewage, of rivers and other sources of water supply, and to supervise the execution of approved investigations. Accordingly the board sponsored research in universities and set up committees to survey pollution in certain English rivers and make arrangements for the necessary research to be put in hand. Initially the organisation had no laboratories of its own and farmed out its work or, as in surveys of the Tees and Mersey, maintained small teams of workers in temporary accommodation to deal with special local problems.
1938 The board recommended the creation of a central station adequately equipped to investigate the problems of water pollution. Plans for a new laboratory at Garston alongside the Building Research Station were approved in 1939 but abandoned on the outbreak of war. Instead temporary premises were found at a house in Watford and huts at the Building Research Station; other sections worked at Birmingham from 1938 and Coventry from 1947.
1954 These various elements were replaced by a new central Water Pollution Research Laboratory at Stevenage in 1954. A Scottish branch was opened at East Kilbride in 1961.
In 1965 the laboratory passed to the Ministry of Technology, and the research board was replaced by a Water Pollution Research Laboratory Steering Committee. In 1970 it was transferred to the Department of Trade and Industry, and in January 1971 to the Department of the Environment.
1974 Following the reorganisation of the UK water supply industry both the Water Pollution Research Laboratory and the Water Resources Board were transferred from the Civil Service and merged with the Water Research Association to form a quango, the Water Research Centre, controlled by the publicly-owned regional water authorities.