Museum of Science and Industry

In the 1830s, Manchester faced a crisis. The health of its inhabitants was at risk owing to the lack of clean water and adequate sanitation. This fostered the spread of epidemic diseases such as cholera. At the same time, factories consumed ever-increasing amounts of water.

The solution to Manchester's water supply problem came with two remarkable feats of Victorian engineering. John Frederic La Trobe Bateman, Manchester Corporation's water engineer, supervised the construction of a vast series of reservoirs in the nearby Longdendale valley. By 1851, a pure supply of water arrived in Manchester. The second project was even grander in scale. In 1891, the Thirlmere scheme brought clean water via a 96-mile (154-kilometre) aqueduct from the Lake District.

To solve the problem of what to do with the city's waste water, two giant intercepting sewers were built in 1889 and 1911. These diverted sewage away from the rivers to be treated at the innovative Davyhulme sewage works.