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We must now trace out some of the fruits of this parochialism and
unravel the tangled skein of muddle and misfortune which brought the parish
to its lowest ebb and to the point in its history where the authors
of the present limited study must for the time being leave it.
A principal factor in the extra pressure of business which, as already
mentioned, fell suddenly on the Board in 1864 was another breakdown
in the water supply. On this occasion it marked the end of the "inexhaustable
constant supply" of which the Board has so often boasted in
recent years. Slight shortages had sometimes occurred in dry weather
following the temporary recession of the marsh water part of the supply.
It took the Board many months to abandon the hope that this was again the
explanation and to begin seeking a remedy. Nor did it ever face up to
the fact that the reputedly limitless underground water, the real backbone
of its supply, was shrinking and that Tottenham had been dissipating
its natural inheritance of water at too great a rate. A deeper bore
hole was simply added to the older ones and more powerful pumps provided.
By these measures the constant supply was restored for a few months; but
from 1867 onwards it was never again within the Board's power to provide
anything approaching a regular 24 hour service. The Board's position
was the more embarrassing because it had so consistently advertised all
the virtues of a constant supply and because it stubbornly maintained
that some way of boosting the supply would be discovered without having
recourse to any of the London Water Companies. When the Privy Council,
in response to a memorial from the inhabitants of Page Green, sent an
inspector to report on the water situation in 1866 the Board's observation
on his criticism was "that it was proposed to try again to improve
the regularity of the supply." In 1872 when, under similar pressure an
inspector from the Local Government Board made his report the Tottenham
Board's reply was in almost identical terms though in the interval nothing
had been done. The Board's position in this connection both legally
and by virtue of the capital the parish had already sunk in the water
works was unassailable. It could insist on all houses in the parish
being connected with its supply and the proposal, diffidently canvassed
by the press in 1868, "that the parish's water should come from the New
River Company," - which was already supplying a few houses in the part of
Wood Green lying above the Board's service reservoir, - implied too great
a blow to local pride; and not even the ratepayers were willing to consider
it at that date, much less the Board. Though a few years later,
when bitter experience had lowered local pride, the Board wisely ignored
the attack on its rights when the New River Company unofficially began
to infiltrate its territory.
The outcome of the Board's mismanagement of the water question may
be gauged from a leader in the Advertiser of 1875. "We are tired of the
repeated promises of the Board": it declared, "the opulent are either
having, regardless of the cost, wells of their own sunk or are applying
to the great Water Companies for a supply. The poor are still constrained
to put up with no supply or with such a poor one that it is but mockery