Description:Staffordshire’s successful pottery industry required a continual supply of natural resources such as coal and water. In the middle of the nineteenth century the Staffordshire Potteries Water Works Company was founded and Water Works began to be established around the district during this time.
The first Pumping Station was built on George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (1786-1861), the second Duke of Sutherland’s lands in Wall Grange in the late 1840s and called Wall Grange Water Works. The station was powered by a steam pumping engine called ‘Stafford’, directly associated with the Duke and his family who had been Marquises of Stafford since 1786.
An Act of Parliament passed in July 1847 authorised the construction of the Water Works which would enable a number of springs from the River Churnet to be pumped to a reservoir at Ladderedge. Water could then be passed to a reservoir in Hanley which would supply Hanley, Stoke, Burslem, Fenton, Newcastle, Tunstall and Trentham. By 1849 the station was up and running at Wall Grange.
Information supplied by The Mill Meece Pumping Station Preservation Trust. See http://www.millmeecepumpingstation.co.uk and for more history on Wall Grange Water Works, follow the links on http://homepage.ntlworld.com/howard.v.moore/staffordshire_potteries_water_works.htm
Owing to the Sutherland family’s direct involvement in the establishment of the Staffordshire Potteries Water Works, the Sutherland Papers contain a wealth of documents relating to the waterworks, providing an insight into Staffordshire’s industrial history.
Documents relating to enquiries into establishing the waterworks, Acts of Parliament and Bills opposing the initiative feature alongside prospectuses and plans of the pumping station at Wall Grange.
Click on the images on the left to learn more about Staffordshire Potteries Waterworks in the Sutherland Papers.