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The enquiry was held at the Hackney Town Hall before Colonel W. M. Ducat,
R.E., and F. W. Barry, Esq., M.D., and lasted from the first to the fifth of October.
Mr. Pember, Q.O., and Mr. Cripps, Q.C., M.P., appeared for the East London
Waterworks Company, and Mr. Balfour Brown, Q.C., Mr. T. H. Bevan, and Mr.
H. Eldridge appeared for the East London "Vestries. The London County Council,
the Corporation of West Ham, the Leyton District Council, the Corporation of the
City of London, and the Lea Conservancy Board were all represented by counsel.
On behalf of the Vestries, abundant evidence, expert and otherwise, was forthcoming
as to the scarcity of water and the insanitary conditions resulting therefrom.
Without doubt, a large amount of inconvenience and distress resulted from, and the
public health was endangered by, the cessation of the constant supply. Evidence as
to the complaints of want of water in this parish was given by Inspector Frith, whose
district is mainly supplied by the East London Waterworks Company.
The Vestries contended that the East London Company had—
(1) Failed to give a constant supply.
(2) Had not used their best means and endeavours to give a constant supply
(3) That they had unduly delayed the construction of Storage Reservoirs.
(4) That they had unduly favoured certain large customers, those paying for
water by meter receiving a constant, whilst those who paid water rates
had a restricted supply.
It was suggested that the main reason of the deficiency of water in the East
London Water Company's district was that the damage done to the mains and
service pipes during the frost of the preceding winter was to a considerable extent
unrepaired, and that a large amount of water had run to waste through leakages from
fractures due to this cause.
On behalf of the Water Company, it was urged that the cause of the scarcity was
to some extent the extra waste going on in a very dry season following the severe
frost of the preceding winter, and the want of the sufficient storage to which the
Company and its Engineer had looked forward to, which insufficiency of storage was
the result of the action of the London County Council and Parliament in 1893. The
Company contended that they had all through the time of scarcity given a sufficient
supply for domestic purposes, if the consumers had been provided with means of
storage.
In the report of Colonel Ducat and Dr. Barry which was issued in February, 1896,
the results of their consideration of the evidence laid before them at the Inquiry are
summarised thus :—
1. That the scarcity of water in the East London Water Company's area
during the summer of 1895 was due to the following causes :
(a) Exceptional waste, beyond the undue waste of ordinary years, of
water owing (1) to non.repair of fractures in the consumers' pipes
brought about during the unusually long and severe frost of the