3-065-905 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

New hydrostatic van for street-watering, designed and patented by Mr. E. H. Bayley, of the Steam Wheelworks,1874. 'The watering of the streets of London is a work of greater importance than may generally be supposed...In order to lay the dust effectually, about 30,000 tons of water must be spread upon the streets every dry day...the inhaling of dust,...mixed as it is with decaying refuse of animal and vegetable matter, is most injurious to health. The foul smells of which the inhabitants of Belgravia are now complaining are proved to arise not from the sewers, as at first supposed, but from the decomposed filth on the surface of the roads...[Since the introduction of the new vans,] not only have the streets been better watered, but the cost of watering has been largely reduced, as little more than half the usual number of horses and men need be engaged...The distributing apparatus is constructed on scientific principles; the result being that the water is spread more widely, so that the van will generally do as much work in one journey as an ordinary water-cart in two...The saving to the metropolis by the substitution of Bayley's vans for the present unsightly water-carts will amount to about £30,000 per annum'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.