As the population of the Black Country mushroomed in the 19th century the region’s limited water supplies soon became heavily polluted and cholera epidemics swept through the dense and predominantly poor population of towns like Bilston, Dudley, Tipton, Rowley Regis and Netherton.
The tragedy in Bilston, where cholera killed about 20% of the population in about six weeks, was described in September 1832 by the Reverend William Leigh:
'...the condition of Bilston had become frightful; the pestilence was literally sweeping everything before it; neither age nor sex nor station escaping. To describe the consternation of the people is impossible. Manufacturing was closed and business completely at a stand...'
The source of these epidemics in the Black Country, London and other industrial centres was clearly identified - polluted water.
The problem was critical in the Black Country where an inspector from the Central Board of Health visited Wednesbury and reported:
'The natural sources of water have mostly failed and been diminished by reason of the mining operations carried on in the parish and neighbourhood. Consequently the inhabitants suffer a want almost amounting to destitution in regard to this important element, having to send, in many instances, a great distance to procure it and at a very considerable expense. The poorer people are generally obliged to use water lying in stagnant pools, filthy and unwholesome in the extreme...endemic and contagioius diseases prevail at all times in Wednesbury.'
Bringing clean water from Lichfield
The answer lay in Lichfield which had a plentiful and steady supply of clean water. The scene was set for one of the most important - but often forgotten - engineering feats of the Victorian West Midlands. The South Staffordshire Waterworks Company and its consulting engineer, Julius McClean, created a scheme which would bring clean water to the people of the Black Country.
In this programme broadcaster, Graham Fisher visits the Sandfields Pumping Station at the heart of this scheme which saved untold lives and made cholera history in the Black Country. He explores the story with David Moore, Chairman of the Lichfield Waterworks Trust
Watch the video
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