Ilkeston Town Water Supply
Water supply - Ilkeston Public Health 1874
From Dave Johnson on Ilkeston and District Local History Society

There were two Government reports on the state of the town's health --- the Buchanan Report of 1870 and the Blaxall Report of 1881, both of which exposed severe deficiencies in the provision of clean water, privies and sewers.

In 1874 the Local Board of Ilkeston announced the 'discontinuation of the free removal of night soil’. It would no longer organize the free emptying of privies, privy cisterns, ashes' pits, etc. Householders could now do this independently or apply to the Inspector of Nuisances who would organize removal for a fee. You can guess the result.
In June 1879 there was another outbreak of enteric fever (typhoid) in Ilkeston, followed by one throughout 1880, with a total in that year of 191 cases and 17 deaths.

The 1881 Blaxall report was particularly critical of one part of Ilkeston's water supply -- those houses that were dependent for their water on private wells and rain-water tanks.
“The wells are sunk in a soil befouled of filth from privy pits, refuse heaps, and other contaminating conditions…. owing to a faulty arrangement connecting the (water) tanks with the sewers by means of overflow pipes, the water is exposed to dangerous contamination by sewer air. … while in one instance a black line indicated that sewage had found its way into the tank by means of the overflow pipe. The tank water is complained of as being very black, the people stating they can write their names with it”.
A total of 1340 houses relied on these private sources of drinking water and here there were 74 infected families, 46 dependent on wells and 28 on tanks. All the wells were exposed to pollution.