The earliest known records of activity concerning a public water supply in Glasgow date from 1805, when the civil engineer
Thomas Telford produced a report on schemes for supplying Glasgow and its suburbs with water. In 1806 he produced a second report and an
act of Parliament, the '''''' (
46 Geo. 3. c. cxxxvi) was obtained to create the Company of Proprietors of the Glasgow Waterworks, also known as the "Glasgow Company". They took advice from the Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer
James Watt, and plans for a water treatment works on the north bank of the
River Clyde were drawn up by Telford. The company constructed filtering beds and ponds, and bought two
Boulton and Watt steam engines, but the system did not work well, and a new works was constructed on the south bank. In order to filter water from the river, they constructed a tunnel below river level, with open joints between the bricks, which allowed water to seep through the river bank, which was formed of sand, and to be drawn off from the tunnel. Although the filtering was not particularly efficient, the system lasted for 30 years, and provided per day on average, with the amount available depending on the river level. A second company, the Company of Proprietors of the Cranston Hill Water Works, was established by the '''''' (
52 Geo. 3. c. lii). The civil engineer and statistician
James Cleland produced a report in 1813, on a scheme for raising and distributing water, and building public baths, and there was a flurry of activity in the 1830s.
James Jardine, who was engineer for much of the early work for the
Edinburgh Water Company, was consulted in 1834,
Thomas Grainger published a report on the Glasgow water supply in 1835, and
Robert Thom, the designer of the self-cleaning sand filter used in water purification, produced another report in 1837. The Glasgow Company took over the other company in 1838, but the quality of the water they supplied was poor, and there was general dissatisfaction with their performance. This resulted in a number of alternative schemes being considered. The first was a scheme to exploit the waters of
Loch Lubnaig, in the River Callender catchment, some to the north of Glasgow. This was abandoned when it was discovered that more compensation water would be required than the loch could hold. The neighbouring
Loch Katrine was also considered, but was not pursued at that time. The engineer
Nathaniel Beardmore moved to London in 1843, where he collaborated with
James Meadows Rendel on a project for the Glasgow Gravitation Water Company. The scheme was for a reservoir at Gilmerston, in the valley of the
River Avon, and a aqueduct to transport the water to Glasgow. Some work was carried out in 1844, but the project was abandoned in early 1845. One successful scheme was the Gorbals Gravitation Water Company, which obtained the '''''' (
9 & 10 Vict. c. cccxlvii), allowing them to supply water to the population living to the south of the Clyde, obtained from a catchment of to the south-west of Glasgow. The engineer for the scheme was William Gale, who supervised the construction of the works and two earth dams to impound the water, at Waulkmill Glen and Ryat Linn. The initial phase was completed in 1848, and a second phase, which included the construction of a third reservoir at Balgray, was finished in 1854. The reservoir outlets were arranged so that water could be drawn off at several different levels, and the scheme produced about per day, of which were required for compensation water, to maintain flows in the river system, and the rest was available to the people of Glasgow. Some 75,000 benefitted from a constant supply of good quality filtered water, as Gale strongly advocated that water should be available all the time. Residents in other parts of the city were not so fortunate, as the insanitary conditions led to an outbreak of
cholera in 1848/1849, in which around 4,000 people died. In 1852 there was an attempt to revive the Loch Lubnaig scheme, but this was opposed in Parliament by Glasgow Council, and in this they were assisted by the civil engineer
John Frederick Bateman. Having defeated the bill, they asked Bateman for advice on a suitable water supply, and he favoured the Loch Katrine scheme. The council then sought advice from other engineers on that and other schemes, but both Stephenson and Brunel supported Bateman's proposal. The council therefore sought authorisation for it, and the '''''' (
18 & 19 Vict. c. cxviii) was obtained on 12 July 1855. Gale chose a more direct route for the new aqueduct, which involved more tunnelling, but by this time pneumatic drills and better explosives were available, and he felt that the long bridges such as that at Duchray were the least satisfactory element of the original design. Friction in the tunnels of the first route had reduced the throughput below what had been expected, and the new tunnels were lined with concrete to improve flows. The revised route for the second aqueduct was shorter, and the possible throughput with both aqueducts in use increased to per day. In the 1890s when the pipeline was doubled, Craigmaddie reservoir was built to act as a second holding reservoir. Work started on 1 May 1896 and it was completed on 11 June 1896, but there were problems with leakage, and a deep trench was cut to resolve the issue, so it was not operational until 1 January 1897. A causeway and dam, which is faced with rubble, separates the two reservoirs. Both reservoirs have a draw-off tower and straining well, to remove debris from the water supply. The straining wells were decommissioned in 2007 as part of the construction of a new treatment works. As regulations for water quality have become more stringent, there has been a need for more water treatment before water enters the domestic supply system. For the Loch Katrine water supply, this is handled by a works at
Balmore and a new treatment works at Milngavie, which is partly underground, cost £120 million and was completed in 2008. The construction project for the works was managed by
Black & Veatch, and the impact on the landscape was reduced by constructing part of the works below ground, and using lamella clarifiers, which take up less room than sludge cone settlement tanks. The works was formally opened by
Queen Elizabeth and won the 2007 Utility Industry Achievement Award, having been completed ahead of its time schedule and for £10 million less than its budgeted cost.
Sewerage Since the publication of
Edwin Chadwick's
Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain in 1842, there had been a growing understanding that the health of people in cities depended both on a clean water supply and an efficient method of disposal and treatment of sewage, to prevent the occurrence of waterborne diseases such as cholera. Despite such knowledge, little was done to provide sewers until there was a general outcry about the state of the
River Clyde and other watercourses. When the
Caledonian Railway wanted to construct tunnels below Glasgow's streets, a condition of their authorisation was that they had to reconstruct the sewers, such as they were, and on this they spent £200,000. The sewers became part of Glasgow Corporation's main drainage scheme, which served an area of . Glasgow was effectively divided into three, with each sector having its own sewage treatment works. Dalmarnock Works was the first to open in 1894, to be followed by Dalmuir in 1904 and Shieldhall in 1910. Dalmarnock Sewage Treatment Works was the first large-scale installation of its type in Scotland. Gustav Valentine Alsing, who was Danish and an acknowledged expert on chemical precipitation, designed the works. Construction began in 1893 and it was completed the following year. Sewage flowed into the works through three channels, were floating material was screened off and incinerated. Grit, sand and other heavy solids settled out in catch pits, and was transported away from the site by railway, as the Caledonian Railway had a siding into the works. The liquor passed into 24 settling tanks, each able to hold , was aerated, and then entered 60 coke filters, which covered an area of . Sand filters provided the final stage of treatment, before the liquid was discharged into the Clyde. The coke filters were not particularly successful, and were abandoned in favour of precipitation. Sludge from this process was mixed with lime and the water content removed in filter presses, to form sludge cakes, which were also removed from the site by rail. Production of "Globe Fertiliser" lasted until 1935.
Sludge fleet Once sewage had been processed, much of the sludge was taken by ship to be dumped at sea. Glasgow Corporation owned six ships at various times, and borrowed a seventh briefly.
Dalmuir was ordered for the opening of Dalmuir Works, and
Shieldhall was ordered for the opening of Shieldhall Works.
Dalmuir was replaced by
Dalmarnock, and the two ships shared the sludge workings.
Shieldhall was loaned to Manchester Corporation between 1941 and 1947, as their vessel which carried sludge from Davyhulme Sewage Works had been destroyed by a mine.
Dalmarnock was able to maintain the service from Glasgow, as the sludge was dumped near Loch Long, rather than near the Isle of Bute, due to the presence of a defence boom across the Firth of Clyde near Dunoon. Dumping of sludge at sea was discontinued in 1998, following the implementation of the EU
Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. Most of the ships also carried passengers on the sludge runs, a tradition the probably began during the First World War, as a way to help convalescing soldiers, although there are suggestions that some poor and elderly passengers may have been carried before that war. Subsequently, the ships carried organised groups of passengers during the summer months. After it had spent a few years working out of Southampton for the Southern Water Authority, the second
Shieldhall was bought by the Solent Steam Packet Co in 1988 for preservation, and offers trips from Southampton. ==In literature and popular culture==