Agricultural History Review, Volume 62 Part 2 (2014), p. 370

Pumps, pipes and purity is the conflict-filled story of the development of mains water in a rural Yorkshire district. From the moment the Thirsk Water Company was created in 1878, the water question spiralled into a series of battles between commercial interests, landowners, public authorities, sanitary officials and ratepayers. This account follows the water company and neighbouring local authority suppliers through the years up to their absorption into the Ryedale Water Board in the 1960s. It is a detailed and well-researched work, published by the author. Focused on local archival sources, it also draws on histories of public health and water politics in Britain and addresses a significant rural gap in this literature.

Thirsk had much in common with other rural and semi-urban areas during this period. Eccleston sets his study in the context of national policy, assessing the local implications of key government measures in water and sewerage. He highlights tensions between central and local government, exacerbated by permissive regulations, and between local government tiers. Fragmentation remained a key feature of the water industry until amalgamation policies took a firm hold in the 1960s and ’70s. The long-term significance of the ‘beneficiary principle’, enshrined in 1870s public health legislation, is evident here. Placing the financial burden for local services on the parishes that benefited from them ensured highly localized water infrastructures and discouraged cooperation across governance boundaries until after the Second World War. The vagaries of local government obligations could be exploited. The ‘quasiurban’ district of Thirsk itself – part of a Rural District Council – resisted pressures to adopt ‘urban’ sanitary powers for as long as possible.

This account demonstrates vividly that pollution was not just an urban problem. Eccleston examines the politics around recurring outbreaks of disease caused by unreliable water sources, inadequate sewerage and ineffective water treatment. Northallerton had the worst typhoid mortality rates in the country in the early 1890s. The villages of Boltby and Thirlby, threatened by B. coli, boiled their water for a whole year, as late as 1963. Informed by the work of Chris Hamlin and others, Eccleston suggests that sometimes the best course of action was unclear to authorities; at other times, cost-cutting was the main priority. He shows that ideological debate over public and private ownership of water supply was only one element in a complex arena, where powerful individuals – local officials, engineers and landowners – could influence events over several decades.

Despite the difficulties, this is also a story of rising domestic and agricultural demand in these areas during the twentieth century. New housing from the 1940s, with water closets, fixed baths and water heaters, introduced changes in demand that were only dimly anticipated by water providers. In agriculture, mains water brought new dependencies, with farmers fashioning ad hoc piped connections. Cattle and dairy farmers, once connected for ‘occasional use … in dry seasons’, became increasingly reliant on constant supply from the 1930s for water troughs and dairies, and, later, for irrigation. Eccleston shows the kinds of challenges the Ministry of Agriculture and farmers faced in trying to increase production at a time of public expenditure curbs. The post-war picture was one of repeated disruptions to supply, with more than one family forced out of dairying when lack of water for cooling and hygiene prevented them from meeting Milk Marketing Board standards.

But this was not a simple question of rising demand. Significant pockets of resistance to mains water (and its related costs), from public authorities and landlords, were part of the problem for those promoting new water schemes. Diverse modes of provision continued into the 1950s and beyond, even within individual villages, with continued use of private rams, village pumps and wells, standpipes and water carts, alongside water mains. Sewerage was even slower to develop. Eccleston highlights the work of Women’s Institutes nationally in campaigning for better rural sanitation in the 1940s, protesting at earth closets, bucket lavatories and shared facilities. Drawing on census records, he estimates that two thirds of rural Thirsk households still used outside privies in 1951. Further localized research into the politics of household amenities and everyday life would enrich this picture.

The book is readable in style. Each chapter ends with a useful summary of sources and suggestions for further research. It contains photographs, maps, tables and an index. An epilogue considers the (public) regional water authorities in the 1970s and Yorkshire Water (privatized in 1989) during its controversial first decade. It is not a light read. Its length and in-depth coverage of conflicts that were repeated over time and across different parts of the district make for some repetitiveness, and can obscure the main developments. It provides, however, a multitude of fascinating insights into the transformation of an agricultural district, which will be valuable for future studies of rural provision and daily life.