Yorkshire Almanac The civil engineer John Smeaton advises Leeds Infirmary on the storage of water for washing and brewing

11 October 1776: The civil engineer John Smeaton advises Leeds Infirmary on the storage of water for washing and brewing

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John Smeaton. 1812. Reports of the Late John Smeaton, F.R.S., Made on Various Occasions, in the Course of His Employment as a Civil Engineer, Vol. 3/3. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown. Get it:

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

LEEDS INFIRMARY.

TO the Committee of Leeds Infirmary.

Gentlemen,

I HAVE inspected the stone cisterns made at this hospital by the late ______ Craven; I find them nearly of the capacity proposed; but as I understand they never held water from the first, nor do they seem in a capacity of doing so now, or of being made to do so, without taking them all to pieces, and putting them together with the greatest care and firmness, which would of itself be a considerable expense. Each double cistern, when full, is charged with above six tons of water, and relative to this weight they have not only been much too slightly bonded together in their joints with iron, but I apprehend the foundation upon which they have been built has settled under the weight of the whole; for the least settlement or giving in the joints must and will necessarily disunite the cement of whatever kind, and thereby render them leaky. What the nature of the agreement was you best know; if to make them complete to hold water, it was then the undertaker’s business to look to the foundation and strength of his bondages: but yet, Gentlemen, if these cisterns can be rendered useful to you, it would seem more eligible so to do, than to return the materials upon the hands of the widow, which, when taken to pieces, will be of little value. I take it for granted you wanted, and still want these cisterns; and had they not been so undertaken to be made of stone, you had ordered them of lead, in which case strong wooden frames of timber would have been wanted to have supported the leaden lining, which frames of timber, though oak, would have been liable to need rebuilding in 20 years, in which case the workmanship upon the lead would have been to renew likewise: had therefore the proposition been how to render these cisterns durable, like the rest of the buildings, and which every public building ought to be rendered as much as possible, then you could not have been better advised than to have put together a casing of large stone flags, which the country affords, in order to support the leaden lining, and in this respect these cisterns as they now stand, will completely answer that end; and though in putting them together so as to hold water without such lining, there is work upon them that would have been unnecessary; yet if a reasonable allowance be abated from the first stipulated price for this superfluous work, it will be much less loss to the widow, and much less disadvantageous to the trust than either the removal of the materials, or an attempt to render them watertight in the manner they are. According to my estimate they may be completely lined, as they now stand, with lead of 7lb. to the foot, for about or somewhat under 30l.; of which about 8l. will be workmanship, the other will be the neat value of the lead and folder.

According as it has been given in to me, Craven’s estimate was:

	£.	s.	d.
Stones	14	14	0
Cramps and cement	2	5	3
Work	13	2	6
	30	1	9

How far the stones were properly valued at 14l. 14s. (carriage, I suppose, included) I know not, having never had occasion to purchase any of that magnitude. There are in the whole 20 stones, so that they will come to 14s. 8d. nearly per stone, which on an average contains about 24 feet superficial each; but as the Committee have agreed to take them at that price, on supposition they were rendered effectual to the purpose, suppose

which deducted on account of what would have been superfluous, on supposition of the stone frame being made purposely to be lined with lead, then there will remain for cramps, mortar, and work

				7	13	10½
And there will be payable to widow Craven				22	7	10½

which, in my opinion, is a high valuation of the work for the purpose above mentioned; and there will be 7l. 13s. 10½d. retained in the hands of the Committee toward the workmanship of the lead lining, computed at 8l.; so that the trust will have very little more than the value of the lead and folder to pay for, to make the work effectual in the same manner as if originally intended for lead cisterns in stone casings, which, in my opinion, would have been the complete way of doing it; and, at the same time, the wooden covers, the conveyances for bringing in the water, and conduits for carrying it away will be preserved, which would be lost in case the work were totally demolished. That this is an equitable way of considering the matter appears hence that if the Widow Craven were to line the cistern with lead, she would then undeniably complete the work; and as she would add so much real property to the hospital as the value of the lead, for this she ought to be allowed in addition to the 30l. 1s. 9d., and she would have to pay 8l. for the work instead of allowing 7l. 13s. 9d.

I must observe, that a couple of reservoirs capable of holding between 12 and 13 tons of water, which will be filled many times in the year by rains, will not only be a safety to the hospital, but an acquisition well worth the expense. Rain water is undeniably the best for washing, and though river water is more esteemed for brewing, yet it differs from rain water only in being mixed with a small proportion of hard spring water, of which kind the infirmary having the command by their well, a proper mixture of the two will answer the same as river water for brewing, so that (in very long droughts excepted) the infirmary will always have a command of water within themselves; and, as I apprehend, what water will be wanted during such dry seasons to be brought will be reduced to so small a quantity, that the carriage had better be paid for than go to the expense of any further pump work, reservoirs, or machinery.

Austhorpe,

11th Oct. 1776.

J. SMEATON.

P.S. As I have mentioned the want of strength of bondages and foundation as the cause of the failure of the cistern’s holding water, it may perhaps be doubted whether they will be sufficiënt when lined with lead. But, I must observe, that if the amount was the thickness of a piece of post paper, by which the joint was broken, it would be sufficient to destroy the use of holding in the water; but if lined with lead, the lead will comply without breaking; so that considered merely as a casing to support they are sufficiently strong.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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23 January 1720: Mr Robertson demonstrates his ultra-compact inflatable boat on the Aire at Leeds

2 June 1867: Dr Clifford Allbutt tells the Epidemiological Society that the market will not provide decent housing for Leeds’s poorest

1 May 1878: The Mercury quotes Clifford Allbutt (Leeds Infirmary) on the commendable beastliness of northerners

3 June 1917: A mob wrecks and loots Jewish shops and houses in east-central Leeds

17 August 1778: Civil engineers John Smeaton and John Wooler explain how to use the River Hull to flush the dock which has replaced the northwest section of the city walls

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Widow Craven paid for the stones

Cement and cramps

Half of which is

Smeaton’s scheme did not prosper. John Timperley:

Various schemes had been suggested for cleansing the dock of the mud brought in by the tide; one was by making reservoirs in the fortifications or old town ditches, with the requisite sluices, by means of which the mud was to be scoured out at low water; another by cutting a canal to the Humber, from the west end of the dock, where sluices had been provided, and put down for the purpose, when it was proposed to divert the ebb tide from the river Hull along the dock, and through the sluices and canal into the Humber, and so produce a current sufficient, with a little manual assistance, to carry away the mud. Both of these schemes were however abandoned, and the plan of a horse dredging machine adopted; this work began about four years after the Old dock was completed, and continued until after the opening of the Junction dock. The machine was contained in a square and flat bottomed vessel 61 feet 6 inches long, 22 feet 6 inches wide, and drawing 4 feet water: it at first had only eleven buckets, calculated to work in 14 feet water, in which state it remained till 1814, when two buckets were added so as to work in 17 feet water, and in 1827 a further addition of four buckets was made, giving seventeen altogether, which enabled it to work in the highest spring tides. The machine was attended by three men, and worked by two horses, which did it at first with ease, but since the addition of the last four buckets, the work has been exceedingly hard.

There were generally six mud boats employed in this dock before the Humber dock was made; since which there have been only four, containing, when fully laden, about 180 tons, and usually filled in about six or seven hours; they are then taken down the old harbour and discharged in the Humber at about a hundred fathoms beyond low water mark, after which they are brought back into the dock, sometimes in three or four hours, but generally more. The mud engine has been usually employed seven or eight months in the year, commencing work in April or May.

The quantity of mud raised prior to the opening of the Junction dock, varied from 12,000 to 29,000 tons, and averaged 19,000 tons per annum; except for a few years before the rebuilding of the Old lock, when, from the bad and leaky state of the gates, a greater supply of water was required for the dock, and the average yearly quantity was about 25,000 tons. As the Junction dock, and in part also the Humber dock, are now supplied from this source, a greater quantity of water flows through the Old dock, and the mud removed has of late been about 23,000 tons a year.

It may be observed, that the greatest quantity of mud is brought into the dock during spring tides, and particularly in dry seasons, when there is not much fresh water in the Hull; in neap tides, and during freshes in the river, very little mud comes in (Timperley 1842).

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