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A Park Hill Curiosity
In case this does not reproduce well,
the picture is of an inspection cover with the words 'DOULTON
- LONDON' cast in the centre.
Most people associate the name Doulton with
collectable figurines or high quality tableware. So what is a
cast iron manhole cover saying Doulton London doing outside the
public toilets in Park Hill Park? Croydon's appalling health
record in the mid nineteenth century coincided with the son of
a London potter' s interrest in improving social conditions.
Without this, along with his business acumen in taking up the
suggestion that sewage pipes should be made of non absorbent
salt-glazed stoneware, Doultons would have gone under (like all
the other Lambeth potteries) by the end of that century. There
are obviously several strands to the story. Because of its situation
at the junction of the London Clay and the Southern Chalk Croydon
had always had a plentiful supply of pure spring or well water.
But with the population explosion of the early nineteenth century
(1801: 6000; 1841: 17000; 1820: 20000) the old practices of throwing
rubbish and sewage into the nearest watercourse had fouled all
the water supplies so that Croydon had become the unhealthiest
town in the county of Surrey (mortality of 28.16 per thousand).
Similar conditions were to be found in London
and every other growing town, and a Sanitary Reform Movement
grew up which commissioned an inquiry that culminated in Edwin
Chadwick' s famous report of 1842 "The Sanitary Condition
of the Labouring Population". He advocated purer water,
underground drainage and the prompt removal of rubbish, urging
that the responsiblily for all new public health works should
be in the hands of qualified civil engineers instead of incompetent
and apathetic ignoramuses. He was, of course, bitterly opposed,
but a Royal Commission was appointed in 1843, followed in 1848
by the Public Health Act which set up a General Board of Health.
Croydon was quick to respond and by 1849 had
created its own Local Board of Health to take over the duties
of Vestry, Board of Surveyors, Waste Land Trustees and Improvement
Commissioners, with the primary objective of providing a pure
piped water supply. Deep wells were sunk over the wells off Surrey
Street and water pumped 160 feet up to a large tiled lined reservoir
1 mile away on Park Hill. It required about 1 ton of coal to
raise a million gallons of water this height and distance. The
two engines driving the pumps were made at Hayle in Cornwall
and were housed in the resited and later embellished pump house
purchased from the failed Atmospheric Railway.
By 1881 the mortality rate was down to 16.13
per thousand. All this and the draining and culverting of the
ponds and streams of Old Town carried out in 1850 necessitated
the use of watertight pipes. London engineers had already begun
to place small trial orders with Doulton and Watts and some of
the other Lambeth potters that made salt-glazed stoneware. Larger
orders soon followed. Henry Doulton, second son of John Doulton,
founder of the Doulton pottery dynasty, had not only learnt the
pottery trade very thoroughly but had always been genuinely interested
in any reforms likely to benefit his contemporaries. He had read
Chadwick' s report and had great confidence in its proposal that
salt-glazed stoneware should be used. He personally threw some
trial pipes on the wheel, sticking on sockets afterwards and
soon realised that demand would rapidly exceed the capabilities
of any of the existing small Lambeth potteries. If pipes and
conduits were to be produced rapidly and economically new methods
had to be used. In 1846 he decided to rent a vacant factory a
few yards from his father' s pottery in Lambeth High Street.
Initially he had manufacturing difficulties but within a year
suitable machinery was installed. Worse was the resistance from
influential engineers and scepticism of his own family whose
financial backing he needed, but a partnership was soon formed
with his father and younger brother under the name of Henry Doulton
and Company and rapidly went from strength to strength.
Further pipe factories were established in
other parts of the country and later those near waterways and
ports were able to export abroad once home demand had been met.
Eventually 35 miles of pipes and accessories were being produced
every week. Doultons also manufactured every kind of stoneware
sanitary fittings including in 1859 the first ceramic kitchen
sinks.
By 1877, when running water was being installed
upstairs as well as in the kitchen the market for toilets and
bathrooms greatly expanded and Henry Doulton had increasing trouble
with the metal fittings bought in from other firms. So he set
up his own sanitary engineering works at Lambeth in order that
the pottery units could be fitted and tested with all necessary
taps, pipes and valves before dispatch. The new department was
housed on several floors of his redevelopment of the entire stretch
between Lambeth and Vauxhall with three large gothic free-style
buildings, on the floors above spacious showrooms. (One of these
buildings survives in Black Prince Road and is well worth a special
visit to see its extraordinary terracotta and glazed tile facings).
In 1888 a site at Paisley in Scotland was bought and an iron
and brass foundry built there.
This, in essence, is the story behind the
manhole cover.
Sonja Hawkins
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