Metropolitan Drinking Fountain & Cattle Trough Association

.]] Water provision in the nineteenth century was from nine private water companies each with a geographic monopoly, which provided inadequate quantities of water which was often contaminated, as was famously discovered by John Snow during the 1854 cholera epidemic. Population growth in London had been very rapid (more than doubling between 1800 and 1850) without an increase in infrastructure investment. Legislation in the mid nineteenth century gradually improved the situation. The Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was formed, water filtration was made compulsory, and water intakes on the Thames were forced to be moved above the sewage outlets. In this environment the public drinking…