Drought is normal: the socio-technical evolution of drought and water demand in England and Wales,...

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Journal of Historical Geography 35 (2009) 568–591

Drought is normal: the socio-technical evolution of droughtand water demand in England and Wales, 1893–2006

Vanessa Taylor a,*, Heather Chappells b, Will Medd b and Frank Trentmann a

a School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, Malet Street,

University of London, London WC1E 7HX, UKb Geography Department, Lancaster University, Farrer Avenue, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK

Abstract

Water stress is becoming a permanent feature of life in Britain and other developed societies, and at-tempts to change ‘consumer behaviour’ are at the forefront of strategies for sustainability. This paper com-bines historical, geographical and sociological perspectives on the evolution of drought and water demandin modern England and Wales. Droughts have natural properties but their course, size and distribution isalso the result of an interplay between governance, social norms and everyday practices. Focusing on sevensignificant droughts between 1893 and 2006, this article traces changing understandings of ‘normal’ waterconsumption and ‘rational’ demand and relates them to the evolving socio-technical management of waterand identities of ‘the consumer’. We challenge the idea of a watershed between private supply (associatedwith passive ‘customers’) and public ownership (associated with active ‘citizens’). While private systems fa-cilitated self-organised civic action more easily than public supply, the ideal of a citizen-contract blindedsystems of public provision to the problem of expanding water use. An interdisciplinary analysis ofdroughts in the past offers lessons for the debate about sustainable consumption today.� 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: drought; demand; consumers; water provision; consumption; sustainability; life-style change; socio-technical systems

* Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected] (V. Taylor).

0305-7488/$ - see front matter � 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2008.09.004

mailto:[email protected]

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569V. Taylor et al. / Journal of Historical Geography 35 (2009) 568–591

Introduction

Water stress is set tobecomeapermanent feature ofBritish life. In 2006, parts of south-eastEnglandexperienced one of the most serious droughts of the past century.1 Eight water companies introducedhosepipe bans affecting 15.6 million people, amidst concerns for the security of public water supply inthe event of a third dry winter.2 The 2006 drought placed water consumers under intense scrutiny. Af-ter 200 years of rising demand and expanding perceptions of entitlement, the British government’s re-cent commitment to sustainable development in thewater sector includes the promotionof ‘behaviourchange’.3 Routine practices and popular notions of a right to water are complex and deep-seated. Toconfront themadequately today, we need to understand their historical evolution. The handling of the2006 drought attracted public criticism that carried echoes of charges of mismanagement broughtagainst commercial water providers in droughts in the Victorian era.

Droughts have not featured prominently in the history of water and public life in modern Brit-ain.4 The scholarly focus has been firmly on supply, from studies of urban utilities and develop-ments in public health to recent approaches to the role of urban networks as tools of‘governmentality’.5 Thanks to these studies, we have a richer understanding of the fracturedand ambivalent course of municipal and public health reforms. In this paper, we complementthese perspectives with a focus on the relationships between governance, institutions, technolo-gies, consumers and nature across spatial scales.6 Droughts are not just a ‘natural’ but a ‘producedscarcity’,7 in part shaped – even created – by institutional frameworks of water management. Thehistorical, socio-technical production of drought is evident when we consider how in the UK

1 Environment Agency [EA], Drought Prospects 2006–August Update, Bristol, 2006.2 EA, Early Drought Prospects for 2007, Bristol, 2006; Waterwise, Lifting Hosepipe Bans - Waterwise Urges Con-

sumers to Continue to be Water Efficient, 18 Jan. 2007: http://www.waterwise.org.uk/reducing_water_wastage_in_

the_uk/press_releases/hosepipe_ban_lifting.html (accessed 4 Aug. 2008).3 Prime Minister Strategy Unit, Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour: the State of Knowledge and Its Im-

plications for Public Policy, Feb. 2004: http://www.number10.gov.uk/files/pdf/pr.pdf (accessed: 25 Oct. 2007).4 For international studies see e.g. L. Mehta, The Politics and Poetics of Water: Naturalizing Scarcity in Western

India, Delhi, 2005; J. Selby, Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East: the Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, NewYork, 2003; P. Troy (Ed.), Troubled Waters: Confronting the Water Crisis in Australia’s Cities, Canberra, 2008.

5 W.J. Luckin, Pollution and Control: a Social History of the Thames in the Nineteenth Century, Bristol, 1986; C.Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice in the Age of Chadwick, Cambridge, 1998; C. Hamlin, Science of Impurity:Water Analysis in 19th Century Britain, Bristol, 1990; J. Hassan. A History of Water in Modern England and Wales,Manchester, 1998; S. Szreter, The importance of social intervention in Britain’s mortality decline c.1850–1914: a re-

interpretation of the role of public health, Social History of Medicine 1 (1988), 1–38; R. Millward, The political econ-omy of urban utilities, in: M. Daunton (Ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain: Vol. III, 1840–1950, Cambridge,2000, 315–349; T. Osborne, Security and vitality: drains, liberalism and power in the nineteenth century, in: A. Barry, T.

Osborne, N. Rose (Eds), Foucault and Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Rationalities of Government,Chicago, 1996, 99–121; P. Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City, London, 2003.

6 K. Bakker, An Uncooperative Commodity: Privatizing Water in England and Wales, Oxford, 2003; M. Kaika, Con-

structing scarcity and sensationalising water politics: 170 days that shook Athens, Antipode 35 (2003) 919–954; S. Os-born and S. Marvin, Restabilising a heterogeneous network: the Yorkshire Drought 1995–1996, in: S. Guy, S. Marvin,T. Moss (Eds), Urban Infrastructure in Transition: Networks, Buildings, Plans, London, 2001; E. Swyngedouw, M.

Kaika and E. Castro, Urban water: a political-ecology perspective, Built Environment 28 (2002) 124–137.7 E. Swyngedouw, Social Power and the Urbanization of Water: Flows of Power, Oxford, 2004.

http://www.waterwise.org.uk/reducing_water_wastage_in_the_uk/press_releases/hosepipe_ban_lifting.html

http://www.waterwise.org.uk/reducing_water_wastage_in_the_uk/press_releases/hosepipe_ban_lifting.html

http://www.number10.gov.uk/files/pdf/pr.pdf

570 V. Taylor et al. / Journal of Historical Geography 35 (2009) 568–591

‘centralized institutions of water supply and allocation have rendered all areas, rural as well asurban, dependent on central priorities in distribution’.8 As Cole and Marsh suggest, ‘contrastinghydrological characteristics, water resource management options and patterns of water usage canproduce substantially different vulnerabilities for any given region’.9

This paper brings together historical, geographical and sociological analyses of seven signifi-cant droughts in the United Kingdom between 1893 and 2006.10 We develop a comparative, in-terdisciplinary approach to the socio-technical evolution of droughts, tracing changing notions of‘normal’ water consumption and their relation to modes of service provision. After a brief over-view of the droughts, we discuss, first, the institutional contexts that have shaped drought. Here,we emphasize that tensions were not just over ownership (private versus public), but also overscale (local, regional and national). Second, we illuminate the ways in which the evolution of in-stitutional frameworks is paralleled by shifting conceptions of the ‘water consumer’. Thesedroughts reveal the critical role of consumers in shaping complex systems of provision, both di-rectly, as mobilised social groups, and indirectly, through the construction of notions of consumerrights and responsibilities. Third, we examine changing assumptions about normal and rationalwater consumption, and ‘waste’. In conclusion, we suggest continuities that cut across the shiftfrom commercial to public and back to private forms of ownership.

Droughts in perspective

Commercial piped water networks emerged in early nineteenth-century Britain to supply man-ufacturers, fire protection systems, and rapidly growing urban populations. Supplies were fora limited time each day, generally excluding Sundays. Early on, there was commercial and populardissatisfaction with the price, quality and quantity of water. The 1840s and ’50s brought increas-ing statutory regulation of water supply, and the arrival of the first constant commercial and do-mestic supplies.11 This period began a slow, uneven shift towards municipal ownership, thereplacement of local sources with distant, gravity-fed water sources, and high-pressure constantsupplies, especially in the large towns of northern England.12 Here, the needs of textile and othermanufacturers for plentiful, soft water, were reinforced by public health concerns over links

8 G. Morren, The rural ecology of the British drought of 1975–1976, Human Ecology 8 (1980) 34.9 G. A. Cole and T. J. Marsh, The Impact of Climate Change on Severe Droughts: Major Droughts in England and

Wales from 1800 and Evidence of Impact, Bristol, 2006, 7.10 This paper draws especially on public fora (newspapers and parliamentary debates), to illuminate the history of de-

bates over consumer rights and responsibilities during drought. For research into water and policy-making in the twen-tieth century, see the work of J. Hassan and J. Sheail referred to here. For late nineteenth-century London, see F.Trentmann and V. Taylor, ‘From users to consumers: water politics in nineteenth-century London’, in: F. Trentmann

(Ed.), The Making of the Consumer: Knowledge, Power and Identity in the Modern World, Oxford, 2006, 53–79. There ismuch untapped research potential at local level and in the National Archives, especially as records are now becomingavailable for the 1970s.11 e.g. Waterworks Clauses Acts 1847 (10 &11 Vict. c. 17) and 1863 (26 & 27 Vict. c. 93); Metropolis Water Act 1852

(15 & 16 Vict. c. 84). The 1847 Act obliged companies to provide constant domestic supply where demanded by house-holders (and introduced a statutory duty to install fire hydrants).12 E. Porter, Water Management in England and Wales, Cambridge, 1978; J. Sheail, An Environmental History of

Twentieth Century Britain, New York, 2002.


between water supply and epidemic disease. For many urban water users, constant supply onlycame later.13 In London, following legislation in 1871, it spread gradually across the districtsserved by eight separate private monopoly suppliers.14 In most cities, water pricing and qualityremained the two most contentious issues for domestic water users into the 1880s.15

Throughout the nineteenth century, localised shortages in urban areas and intermittent servicehad been a frequent source of controversy. Major droughts in this period included those of 1826,1854, 1865, 1887, and the ‘Long Drought’ of 1890–1909. In Liverpool, the 1865 drought initiateda decade-long return to intermittent service: constant supply was re-introduced only alongsidenew technology for controlling consumer waste.16 A severe short duration drought in 1887 badlyaffected agriculture and manufacturing in many parts of the British Isles.17 It was the scarcities of1890s London, however, that expanded the grounds of consumer mobilisation.

The droughts of 1893–98 were the first to affect a major urban area – London, and the EastEnd, in particular – in the new technological and political contexts of constant supply, organisedconsumer mobilisation, and pressure for municipal take-over. Consumers’ right to constant sup-ply was set against suppliers’ complaints of consumer waste. Providing a focus for the long-stand-ing campaign for public ownership, the provision of uninterrupted domestic supply became linkedto questions of universal material entitlement and political citizenship. In these droughts, andthose that followed, infrastructure played a crucial role in shaping the relationship between con-sumers and (private and public) water providers.

By the 1890s, the main urban centres in England and Wales were connected to a constant sup-ply network. In rural regions, however, the sight of people carrying water from wells, ponds andstreams remained familiar. Here, connection to modern infrastructure networks was completedonly after the Second World War. Internal baths and toilets found their way into many urbanmiddle-class homes in the late nineteenth century, but would not become a common feature inpoorer homes until the 1950s and ’60s. For the working class, constant supply frequently meanta tap in the yard and outside toilets. After the Second World War, the arrival of new domestictechnologies, especially the washing machine, brought new consumption routines and expecta-tions. Domestic technologies and practices have continued to evolve, most recently with the ap-pearance of en-suite bathrooms, power showers and pressure washers.

13 S. Sheard, Water and health: the formation and exploitation of the relationship in Liverpool, 1847–1900, Transac-tions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 143 (1993) 152; J.A. Hassan, The impact and development of thewater supply in Manchester, 1568-1882, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 133 (1983–84)25–45; C. Hamlin, Muddling in Bumbledom: on the enormity of large sanitary improvements in four British towns,

1855–1885, Victorian Studies 32 (1988) 72–74.14 Metropolitan providers were obliged to provide constant supply under the Metropolis Water Act 1871, 34 & 35

Vict., s. 15.15 Sheffield Archives: CA 135/2: Sheffield Town Council: Water Committee, 15 May 1882; Trentmann and Taylor,

From users (note 10).16 Liverpool Record Office [LRO]: H352 COU Council Proceedings: 1873/74, 627–644: Borough of Liverpool, Report

of the Borough and Water Engineer on Liverpool Water Supply, the Prevention of Waste, and the Advantages of Constantover Intermittent Supply (23 March 1874); H352 COU Council Proceedings: 1873/74, 693–703: Borough of Liverpool,Waste Water Meter: Report of Mr. F.J. Bramwell (20 June 1874); Sheard, Water and health (note 13), 157.17 T. Marsh, G. Cole and R. Wilby, Major droughts in England and Wales, 1800–2006, Weather 62 (2007) 89; The

Leeds Mercury, 29 June 1887, 5; Western Mail, 5 July 1887, 3.


The period 1890–2006 also saw a major transformation of water governance. In 1914 there werearound 2,100 water undertakings, including 820 in public hands and 200 statutory private compa-nies. By 1934, 2,011 undertakings remained, with 838 in public hands and 173 statutory companies(the remainder being small, non-statutory companies).18 Still in the 1950s, many regions had diverseproviders, operated by county and borough councils, joint committees, or private undertakings.De-spite pressure for central planning and regulation in the inter-war and immediate post-war periods,the regulatory framework remained a patchwork of voluntary regional advisory committees along-side direct Ministerial control.19 In 1973, the formation of ten regional water authorities markeda decisive move towards national co-ordination. It established the basis for integrated water re-sources planning, based on catchment areas rather than administrative boundaries. In 1989, theseregional water authorities were privatised, with new regulatory institutions.

We have selected the following seven droughts for comparative analysis: 1893–1898, 1921,1934, 1959, 1976, 1995 and 2006. No drought is alike. All these droughts have distinctive ‘natural’features that deserve attention. But they also have distinct socio-technical and political character-istics that shape how water scarcity is perceived and managed. For example, all these droughtsmay be regarded as ‘severe’ in biophysical terms, but 1976 represents a particular moment inthe centralisation and citizenship debate, and reveals tensions between local and national scales.The 1934 drought, by contrast, highlights the variable meanings of water supply for rural and ur-ban consumers. Our criteria for selection have, therefore, been the significant cultural and insti-tutional dynamics these droughts reveal rather than their hydrological characteristics. Table 1identifies their distinct climatic, spatial, social, political and technological characteristics.

Institutional and socio-technical dynamics of drought

Since the nineteenth century, the urban hydro-social cycle has been characterised by shifting config-urations of public-private partnership and the co-existence of different forms of governance.20 Since1989, new privatised forms of governance have undoubtedly seen natural and social processes becom-ing increasingly articulated within the market, but associated modes of economic and environmentalregulation mean it would be premature to announce the death of state control.21 Furthermore, geo-graphical scales or levels of governance are significant in defining consumer participation, and these,

18 J. Hassan, The water industry 1900–1951: a failure of public policy?, in: R. Millward, J. Singleton (Eds), ThePolitical Economy of Nationalisation in Britain: 1920–1950, Cambridge, 1995, Table 9.1.19 See Hassan, Water industry (note 18). The Ministries were: Local Government Board (1871–1919), Ministry of

Health (1919–51), Ministry of Housing and Local Government (1951–70), Department of the Environment (1970–1997).20 E. Swyngedouw, B. Page and M. Kaika, ‘Governance, water and globalisation: a political-ecological perspective’,

First PRINWASS International Conference: ‘Meaningful Interdisciplinarity: Challenges and opportunities for waterresearch’, Oxford, 24-25 April 2002: http://prinwass.ncl.ac.uk/PDFs/Swyngedouw.PDF.21 K. Bakker, From public to private to. mutual? Restructuring water supply governance in England and Wales,

Geoforum 34 (2003) 359–374; K. Bakker, Neoliberalizing nature? Market environmentalism in water supply in Englandand Wales, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95 (2005) 542–565; K. Bakker, Deconstructing discourses

of drought, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24 (1999) 367–372; Swyngedouw, Page and Kaika, Gov-ernance, water and globalisation (note 20).

http://prinwass.ncl.ac.uk/PDFs/Swyngedouw.PDF

Table 1Socio-technical features of key droughts: 1893–2006

Drought year Spatial & temporal features Institutional frameworks &

responses

Consumer organisations &

norms

Political debates

1890s Localised ‘famines’:

London East End

London: private monopoly

suppliers, Government

regulation [LGB]

Collective consumer

protest: Water Consumer

Defence Leagues (London)

Municipalisation vs. private

provision

Part of ‘long drought’

1890e1909 (esp. English

lowlands)

Nationally: local private &

public suppliers

Differentiated service

standards

Legal challenges to

intermittent supply

Dry winter, low

groundwater

Local transfers Progress, rising standards of

living and ‘waste’

‘Imaginary’ drought vs.

consumer ‘waste’

Intermittent supply,

hosepipe bans, prosecutions

1921 UK wide Local private & public

suppliers

Local authority nominal

consumer representation

Calls for national co-

ordination, amalgamation,

& increased supply capacity

Prolonged drought,

followed dry winter

London post-

municipalisation

Decline of organised,

collective protest

Public health concerns vs.

restraint

Surface water then

groundwater affected

Pressure reductions, ad-hoc

bulk transfers

Civilising contract,

voluntary restraint

Some rationing, calls for

water economy from

citizens

Expanding legitimate use

1933-34 Esp. Southern & NW

Britain

Local private & public

suppliers

Highlighted divisions

between urban and rural

users

Drought as product of

inefficient units

Severe long duration

drought

Rural and smaller water

authorities most affected

Some rural resistance to

piped water

Calls for national policy to

eradicate inequality

Surface then groundwater

affected

Bulk transfers, hosepipe

bans, voluntary restraint,

rural improvement schemes

Piped water necessary for

public health

1959 UK wide, esp. Yorkshire,

Lancashire, SW & Wales

County and borough

councils, joint committees,

private suppliers

Localised criticisms of

suppliers

Water & public health,

living standards, infinite

demand, wasteful

civilisation

Severe short duration

drought, dry summer

Reuse of old sources, bulk

transfers, tankers

Urban and rural water

problems

Domestic metering

Voluntary amalgamation

vs. compulsory

Surface water most affected Restrictions, 50þ drought

orders

Nationalisation

Calls for increased supply

capacity & investment

1976 UK wide problem Nationalised industry,

Regional Water Authorities

Consumer representation

through National

Consumer Council

Calls for integrated &

expanded supply network

Severe long duration, dry

winter and spring, hot, dry

summer

National drought

committee & minister

Restrictions target domestic

over industrial consumers

Increased national

co-ordination vs. locally

adaptive response

Ground and surface water

affected

Supply emphasis: ‘flogging’

resources

Responsive citizens,

national crisis

Restrictions, 100þ drought

orders, extensive hosepipe

bans, rationing, standpipes

(continued on next page)


Table 1 (continued)

Drought year Spatial & temporal features Institutional frameworks &

responses

Consumer organisations &

norms

Political debates

1995 UK wide, esp. Yorkshire &

NW England

10 newly formed private

water/sewerage companies,

& ‘water only’ companies

Regulatory representation

(OFWAT / WaterVoice), &

local consumer groups

Needs of shareholders vs.

public

Developed fast: wet winter,

summer hot & dry,

extended into 1996

Bulk transfers, tankers Consumer resistance to

profit-making private

companies

Company failure vs.

consumer profligacy

Surface water drought Hosepipe bans, some rota

cuts, 20 drought orders

(Yorkshire)

Unequal regional impacts

reflecting investment

strategies

Inadequacy of regulation

(e.g. leakage)

2006 SE England Water/sewerage & ‘water

only’ companies

Consumer Council for

Water (independent within

regulatory framework)

Underinvestment (leakage)

Long duration, low rainfall

from 2004, consecutive dry

winters

Precautionary

environmental regulation

Consumers as co-partners Regional cohesion vs. local

sensitivity

Groundwater affected Customer service based

industry

Participatory planning Calls for compulsory

metering

Hosepipe bans, 4

applications for drought

orders, Beat the Drought

campaign

Restrictions on non-

essential use

Re-definition of ‘non-

essential’ use


too, have been subject to rapid change.22 Our selected droughts, therefore, cover a period in which theinstitutional and regulatory environment has changed significantly, but not in a single direction.

Historically, droughts have acted as a catalyst for debates about appropriate scales of watermanagement, revealing both tension between local, regional and national levels of governance,and disparities between meanings of service in rural and urban areas. Our first drought in thelate nineteenth century was, strictly speaking, a series of water shortages from 1893–98, that es-pecially affected the East End of London. These were part of the ‘Long Drought’ of 1890–1909,initiated by a sequence of dry winters that had a sustained impact on groundwater levels in theEnglish Lowlands.23 In London, inhabitants had become connected to constant supply overthe previous two decades. The ‘water famines’ resulted in intermittent, rota supply in several dis-tricts served by the East LondonWaterworks Company: for 10 weeks in the summer of 1895, for 8weeks in 1896, and again in 1898, over a 16 week period.24 These shortages reinvigorated popularconsumer politics, and contributed to the pressure for municipalisation (introduced in 1902).25

22 E. Swyngedouw, Authoritarian governance, power and the politics of rescaling, Environment and Planning D:Society and Space 18 (2000) 63–76.23 Marsh, Cole and Wilby, Major droughts, 87–93 (note 17); BHS chronology of British hydrological events: http://

www.dundee.ac.uk/geography/cbhe.24 Hackney Archives: J. King Warry, Parish of Hackney: Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Hackney District for

the Year 1898, London, 1899.25 Trentmann and Taylor, From users (note 10), 66–67.

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/geography/cbhe



The 1921 drought was severe across much of England and Wales, following an exceptionallydry winter.26 In political terms, it was most notable for the perceived failure of water districtsto share resources. This was used to promote the case for a national co-ordinating body for publicwater supply.27

The 1934 drought, particularly severe in southern and north-western parts of Britain, af-fected first surface and later groundwater levels.28 Many smaller local authorities struggled un-der the geological, financial and administrative burdens of exploiting new resources, fuellingdemands for larger, catchment-area water authorities.29 In April 1934, Labour MP (and for-mer Minister of Health) Arthur Greenwood claimed that ‘an emergency that has lasted ninemonths ceases to be an emergency’, suggesting that the drought was itself a product of badpolicy.30

Discussions about how water governance might perpetuate drought reappeared during the 1959drought. Most parts of Britain experienced an exceptionally dry summer, with surface water de-ficiencies in eastern, central and north-eastern England contributing to widespread water short-ages between May and October.31 Many urban areas faced unprecedented restrictions. Thedrought reignited debate between supporters of nationalisation (the Labour party) and supportersof amalgamation within a mixed (public-private) economy.32 Representatives of the water indus-try, meanwhile, advocated gradual voluntary amalgamation, allowing for local knowledge of thespecificities of resources and demand.33 In contrast to earlier debates about the relative benefits ofprivate and municipal provision, the emphasis here was on spatial scale, between localised andcentralised control.

The 1976 drought followed a period of unusually low rainfall and had a severe impact on sur-face water and groundwater resources across England and Wales. By this time, water manage-ment was much more highly coordinated, with regional water authorities organised onprinciples of integrated river basin management, within a nationalised industry. A Minister forDrought (Dennis Howell), established in August 1976, was responsible for national strategy, in-cluding the definition of supply priorities and conservation measures. Early in 1977, Howell pre-sented a White Paper proposing further centralisation and the establishment of a National WaterAuthority. Most of these proposals were rejected by the National Water Council [NWC] on thebasis that ‘the handling of the drought has been shown to require a flexible and adaptable re-sponse to a gradually emerging situation’.34 In June 1976, regional authorities had complainedthat drought measures (including non-essential use bans) were inflexible, applying to entire re-gions rather than to selected areas or users.35

26 Marsh, Cole and Wilby, Major droughts (note 23).27 The Times, 10 June 1922, 5.28 Marsh, Cole and Wilby, Major droughts (note 17).29 Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 295, cc. 581–82, 26 Nov. 1934.30 Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 288, cc. 516–17, 12 April 1934.31 Marsh, Cole and Wilby, Major droughts (note 17).32 F.W.S. Craig (Ed), British General Election Manifestos: 1900–1974, London, 2nd Edition, 1975, 157.33 Letter from H. Ashton [President, Water Companies Association], The Times, 8 March 1958, 7.34 Morren, Rural ecology (note 8), 53.35 Morren, Rural ecology (note 8), 46.


Privatisation in 1989 separated water management from regulation. Companies now operatedas profit-making private monopolies, but remained subject to national regulation. The 1995drought saw the first challenge of this new resource management, based on economic efficiency,environmental regulation and security of supply.36 The drought developed over a remarkablyshort period – reservoirs were at capacity and groundwater levels were close to seasonal maxima,following prolonged wet weather, but the summer was exceptionally dry. The regional impact wasuneven: Yorkshire and the north west of England were most affected, revealing disparities in levelsof service. These were associated with different company investment strategies, and suggested con-tradictions between the provision of a public good and the maximisation of profits.37 Notably, theregions most affected were those with the highest leakage rates. In the worst areas, close to 40% ofavailable water failed to reach consumers.38 It was argued that companies in drought-strickenareas had little incentive to fix leaks because supplying water was relatively cheap. This intensifiedcalls for regulation of individual company performance. Mandatory leakage targets were intro-duced, and agreed service levels for consumers, to be monitored by the regulator Ofwat.39

The 2006 drought offered the opportunity to test these more stringent regulations, and to eval-uate whether the private water sector had matured into a more effective provider. Drought sever-ity was greatest in the English Lowlands, especially the south-east, where groundwater levels werelow.40 Most south-eastern companies continued to meet agreed levels of service, but Thames Wa-ter fell short of leakage targets and was obliged by Ofwat to accelerate its mains replacementprogramme and increase spending by an estimated £150 million.41 Again, public debate focusedon network mismanagement and the prioritisation of commercial over public interests.42 2006 alsosaw increased regional co-ordination of drought management, with government agencies, regula-tors and water companies working together to promote a consistent message on drought.43 Thisincluded the ‘Beat the Drought’ campaign, jointly initiated by eight water companies in the south-east and the Environment Agency. Some companies, however, questioned whether a regionalapproach was sensitive enough to localised resource pressures, and whether consumers shouldbe subject to restrictions in areas of adequate resources. In May 2006, the Eastern ConsumerCouncil for Water challenged the Environment Agency’s calls for a hosepipe ban across the east-ern region; Essex and Suffolk Water said their reservoirs were virtually full.44 This debate echoed

36 Bakker, Uncooperative Commodity (note 6).37 Bakker, Uncooperative Commodity (note 6).38 Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology [POST], The 1995 Drought, POST Technical Report 71, London,

Dec. 1995.39 Bakker, Uncooperative Commodity (note 6); POST, The 1995 Drought (note 38).40 Marsh, Cole and Wilby, Major droughts in England and Wales (note 17).41 Ofwat, ‘Thames Water pays the price for its leakage failures’, PN 19/06, 4 July, 2006: <http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/

aptrix/ofwat/publish.nsf/Content/pn1906>; National Audit Office [NAO], Ofwat – Meeting the Demand for Water,Report by the Controller and Auditor General, HC 150 Session 2006–2007, London, Jan. 2007, 21.42 BBC News, ‘Thames misses leakage target’, 22 June 2006: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5101434.stm>

(accessed 4 Aug. 2008).43 Defra, ‘Water supply in the long term – Water Saving Group outlines progress on action plan’, Defra News

Release, 20 June 2006: <http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2006/060620c.htm>.44 BBC News, ‘Call for hosepipe ban challenged’, 23 May 2006: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5008782.stm>

(accessed 4 Aug. 2008).

http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/aptrix/ofwat/publish.nsf/Content/pn1906

http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/aptrix/ofwat/publish.nsf/Content/pn1906

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5101434.stm

http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2006/060620c.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5008782.stm


earlier tensions between national co-ordination and locally sensitive planning, but here public per-ception was crucial: how would customers respond to restrictions where supply was not immedi-ately threatened?45

The constitution of drought relates to historically specific modes of provision and to theirassociated logics of scale in terms of management and governance. While the spatial co-ordinatesof drought have shifted, there is a constantly re-emerging tension between the need for localsensitivity, regional cohesion or national co-ordination. In later droughts, it might be argued,local specificity has been marginalized by integrated regional, ‘catchment unit’ planning, designedto iron out spatial and temporal irregularities in provision and provide a more universal standardof service. Yet, droughts persist in spite of increased institutional co-ordination, suggesting thatwater scarcity cannot be eradicated by any specific mode or scale of provision.

The configuration of urban infrastructure, too, has shaped the spatial dimensions of droughtvulnerability. The late nineteenth century saw prolific infrastructure development; numerous res-ervoir and aqueduct schemes were initiated in this period, as municipalities and water companiessought water resources to meet the needs of their urban and industrial consumers.46 Though thisclearly provided a level of security during drought, such developments were not without contro-versy. Manchester Corporation’s Thirlmere reservoir and aqueduct scheme, proposed in 1876,faced objections from preservationists, local residents and landowners.47 Whilst the dam and res-ervoir gained parliamentary approval, local interests achieved changes to the proposed 100 mile-long aqueduct: in 1879, towns and rural districts along the route successfully appealed for supplyfrom Thirlmere.48

The supply decisions made in this era have continued to define the spatial co-ordinates ofdrought. During the severe drought of 1959, Manchester and its aqueduct-linked communitieswere well supplied, while other towns in the region were rationed to emergency levels.49 Central-ised infrastructures of water supply and distribution provide a level of supply security duringdrought, but they may also enlarge the spatial scale of drought by connecting distant placesand consumers once dependent on more localised resources – as happened in 1976.50 Reservoirsand their associated pipework play a dynamic role in consolidating regional distribution and sup-ply systems, and defining the scale of drought and consumer rights and access. Yet, infrastructuresremain open to reinterpretation, by different users and in response to new regulations, such as thenew ‘headroom’ guidelines following the 1995 drought.51

45 W. Medd and H. Chappells, ‘Drought and demand in 2006: consumers, water companies and regulators’, Final

Report to UKWIR (April 2008): <http://www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/cswm/Drought_Demand.php>.46 Porter, Water Management (note 12); C. Kirby, Water Management in Great Britain, Harmondsworth, 1979.47 J. Harwood, History and Description of the Thirlmere Water Scheme, Manchester, 1869; Porter, Water Management

(note 12); H. Ritvo, Fighting for Thirlmere – the roots of environmentalism, Science Magazine 300 (2003) 1510–1511.48 The 1869 Royal Commission on Water Supply had established the principle that when a town supplies itself from

a distant source, provision should be made for supply of places along the pipeline route: Porter, Water Management

(note 12).49 Porter, Water Management (note 12), 39.50 Morren, Rural ecology (note 8).51 EA, Water Resources Planning Guideline, Bristol, 1998. Headroom is the margin between supply and demand, and

defines the water available for use at any given time.

http://www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/cswm/Drought_Demand.php


A recurrent feature of drought debates has been the idea of a national water grid. Engineers inthe 1934 drought called for interconnection at a national level, but this was rejected by the Min-istry of Health as ‘uneconomic’, and in the media as a ‘white elephant’ likely to bankrupt con-sumers.52 In 1959, the Conservative Minister of Housing and Local Government dismissedLabour’s support for a national grid as ‘irrelevant’, arguing that the future lay in catchment-scalemanagement.53 Proposals for the national scale transfer of water were revisited in 2006. Again,calls from the Institute for Civil Engineers for national integration of infrastructures were rejectedby regulators and companies as unjustifiable in economic and environmental terms; leakage con-trol and demand management were favoured as more cost-effective.54

Questions of interconnectivity, as a means of providing resilience across areas, transcend de-bates about national grids. The droughts of the 1890s revealed the flexibility afforded by interde-pendency between different supply sources at a relatively local level. By August 1898, theWalthamstow reservoirs of the East London Company, full in June with 1,200 million gallons,had fallen to 308 million. The restoration of constant service (completed by December) wasmade possible by supplies from other metropolitan companies, following the intervention ofthe Local Government Board [LGB].55 The inability of companies to alleviate drought on theirown prompted debate about greater interconnectivity. In 1899, the LGB-sponsored MetropolisWater Act required metropolitan companies to improve inter-communication and provide bulktransfers during emergencies.56

In the inter-war years a clearer role emerged for national government in organising supplies. Inplace of central co-ordination, the government urged voluntary cooperation, but it also intro-duced the Supply of Water in Bulk Act (February 1934), which enabled bulk water transfers be-tween statutory companies in England and Wales as well as between local authority undertakings.This was seen as a move in the direction of regional co-ordination and provided an opportunityfor further amalgamation of supplies; the Ministry’s White Paper recommended the extension ofministerial powers to establish joint boards.57

The rearrangement of water networks to alleviate drought continued in the decades after theSecond World War. By the 1976 drought, however, connectivity was framed primarily in regionaland national terms. Throughout the hot dry summer, water authorities took extraordinary mea-sures to shift supplies.58 As the drought became defined as a national problem, the NWC

52 Shakespeare, Hansard, Fifth Series, Vol. 291, cc. 1811–14, 3 July 1934; Leader, The Times, 23 Feb. 1934, 15. SeeA.E. Chorlton [President, Institution of Mechanical Engineers]. The Pooling of Water Supplies. Journal of the RoyalSociety of Arts, 82 (23 Feb. 1934) 401–421.53 H. Brooke, The Times, 1 Oct. 1959, 14. See also Central Advisory Water Committee [CAWC], The Growing Demand

for Water: Final Report, London, 1962, 12–13.54 House of Lords, Water Management, Vol. I: Report, House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, 8th

Report of the Session 2005–6, London, 2006; EA, Do We Need Large-Scale Water Transfers for South-East England?,Bristol, 2006.55 Royal Commission on Water Supply within the Limits of the Metropolitan Water Companies, PP 1899, 41 [Cd.

9122], First Report, Paras. 19–20.56 62 & 63 Vict. c. 7.57 Hilton Young on Water Supplies (Exceptional Shortage) Orders Bill: Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 291, c. 398, 20 June

1934; Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 288, cc. 500-01, 12 April 1934; Hassan, Water industry (note 18), 194–195.58 Morren, Rural ecology (note 8), 47.


Chairman commented that the aim was ‘to find new water to replace the sources that were dryingup; to make links between networks so that surplus water could get to areas of shortage; to dis-courage the unnecessary use of water; and generally to squeeze the last drop out of the system forthe 50 million people in homes, farms and factories who needed it’.59

In 1995 it was suggested that the regional company, Yorkshire Water, might have avoided rotacuts if it had planned for greater grid connectivity and flexibility.60 In response to shortages and toensure future security of supply, the company developed a £50 million water transfer scheme fromthe River Tees to the River Ouse.61 Improving connectivity between resource zones remaineda top priority in 2006, representing both a commercial opportunity and way of building regionalresilience against future scarcities.62 Options for regional water sharing have been pursuedthrough the Water Resources in the South-East Group which has implemented four new bulksupply agreements since its inception in 1997.63 A basis for wider connectivity at the scale of a na-tional or regional water grid remains elusive, however: problems of cost, environmental qualityand equitability in resource distribution remain.64

The challenge of managing drought has consistently led to calls for improved interconnectivityand institutional cooperation, but this has not always meant increased network amalgamation orcentralisation of water management. In the 1930s, some rural communities rejected a piped net-work in favour of continued provision from local wells.65 In 2006, the cost of extending some ru-ral networks was still considered unfeasible: tankers were regarded by managers as a viablesolution. If water networks have been configured to support centralised and integrated modesof provision, droughts reveal that meanings of connectivity and appropriate scale have been sub-ject to on-going re-negotiation to meet the shifting priorities of municipalities, private companies,regulators, governments and consumers.66

The shifting rationalities of ‘the consumer’

Large technical systems, such as water infrastructure, have become integral to our everydaylives: we, too, have become ‘part of these systems. [W]hen they are reshaped, parts of our livesare reshaped’.67 This inter-dependence between consumers and providers means that water scar-city cannot be understood simply as a product of network mismanagement or consumer profli-gacy. It is produced within systems of provision.68 Historically, droughts have sparked debates

59 Lord Nugent of Guildford, Foreword, in: C.D. Andrew, We Didn’t Wait for the Rain, London, 1976.60 J. Uff, Water Supply in Yorkshire: Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry, London, 1996.61 Uff, Water Supply (note 60).62 House of Lords, Water Management (note 54), 66.63 NAO, Ofwat, 16 (note 41).64 EA, Do We Need Large-Scale Water Transfers (note 54).65 e.g. Selsey village in Stroud News and Gloucester County Advertiser, 20 July 1934, 3.66 These conflicts between providers and consumers challenge the more totalising vision of governmentality histories,

e.g. Osborne, Security and vitality; Joyce, Rule of Freedom. Cf. Trentmann and Taylor, From users (note 10).67 S. Guy and S. Marvin, Urban environmental flows: towards a new way of seeing, in: Guy et al, Urban Infrastruc-

ture, 27.68 B. Van Vliet, H. Chappells and E. Shove, Infrastructures of Consumption: Environmental Innovation in the Utility

Industries, London, 2005.


about the respective roles, rights and responsibilities of consumers and providers. While droughtmanagement has generally featured a combination of both demand- and supply-side measures, thebalance between the two has shifted. These dynamics have reflected both the changing social, eco-nomic and environmental priorities of different water interests and the shifting perceptions of therelationship between consumers and providers.

In the 1890s, metropolitan consumers who took companies to court to gain redress for non-supply were repeatedly frustrated. Legislation appeared to favour suppliers. Companies had a stat-utory duty to provide constant domestic supply, but not in times of ‘unusual drought’ (or frost).69

For their part, the companies called for reduced consumption and conducted extensive anti-wastecampaigns.70 Later, during the inter-war droughts, central and local governments, and public andprivate water undertakings called for voluntary economy, offering detailed guidance on gardenwatering, the use of antiseptics in place of toilet flushing, and reductions in bath-water. By con-trast with the earlier period, however, citizen rights were now tied firmly to supplier obligations toprovide for expanding water consumption. Alongside appeals for economy, therefore, was an em-phasis on the need for extra storage capacity to meet future demand.71

The 1959 drought focused attention on providers’ responsibility to meet expanding urban de-mand. Emergency measures included bulk water transfers, the re-use of disused sources, and newborings.72 In many places emergency pipes were laid between districts. On Dartmoor, northDevon, three miles of pipeline were laid from an underground source to supply 60,000 people.73

The rationale of alleviating drought by maximising capacity featured prominently in the 1976drought. Although there were standpipes for consumers, there was also a commitment by waterauthorities and national regulators to stretch the supply system to its limits by ‘flogging the riversand reservoirs’.74

As the environmental and economic implications of expanding supply came under increasedscrutiny in the 1990s, debates about the need to balance supply measures with demand-side ap-proaches intensified. A National Rivers Authority report in 1994 estimated that 20% of the totalwater put into public supply could be saved through greater leakage control and water effi-ciency.75 While consumer-focused strategies (including hosepipe bans, rota cuts and standpipes)played a part in drought alleviation in 1995, the unresponsiveness of consumers was consideredby some water companies as evidence that restrictions had ceased to be functional in what wasnow a ‘customer service based business’ geared towards giving consumers what they need.76

It was the 1995 drought, too, that demonstrated the need to re-think accounts of the wastefulconsumer in the light of providers’ role in water mismanagement. In Yorkshire, consumers

69 10 & 11 Vict. c. 17, sections 37-43; letter from A. Dobbs, The Times, 18 March 1895, 7.70 Public Record Office, The National Archives, London [PRO]: MH 29/22: East London Water Works Co. Notice,

12 July 1895. Trentmann and Taylor, From users (note 10), 70.71 The Staines reservoir opened in 1925; debates about large-scale transfers of water from Wales resurfaced in 1934.72 The Bury Times, 19 Sept. 1959, 1.73 The Times, 21 Sept. 1959, 6.74 Andrew, We Didn’t Wait (note 59).75 National Rivers Authority, Water – Nature’s Precious Resource, London, 1994.76 D.A. Howarth, Privatisation – a help or a hindrance in managing water demand, Water Resources Update 114

(1999) 18–25.


actively resisted company requests to save water while water utilities continued to make profits.Some metered customers argued that they would use as much water as they liked, since theypaid for it. Others expressed frustration over increased water bills while the company failed tomaintain its networks.77 Customer resistance to appeals for water saving contributed to compa-nies’ prioritisation of supply-side strategies, including network reinforcements and tankering op-erations.78 Considerable controversy arose in Yorkshire, where 700 tankers delivered water nightand day for five months.79 The 1995 drought exposed tensions between environmental regulatorsand water companies over the appropriate mix of demand- and supply-side responses, and therole of leakage control and compulsory metering.80

At the Water Summit in May 1997, the new Labour government called for a precautionary ap-proach to the maintenance of supplies in the light of future uncertainty.81 Companies were nowrequired to plan their systems to sustain the worst-ever drought, and to maintain river marginswithout the use of emergency storage. These supply limitations reinforced a commitment by com-panies to undertake greater water efficiency.82 Other regulatory changes included mandatory leak-age targets for companies (attached to fines), agreed ‘levels of service’ (e.g. for frequency ofhosepipe bans) and compensation for customers.

In 2006, discourses of drought were less polarised around the politics of privatisation and moreconcerned with the environment. Recognition of the environment as an equally legitimate ‘user’ ofwater meant there would be no dramatic engineering response, as in 1976, to squeeze out everylast drop for public supply.83 Emphasis was instead on the need for strategic long-term thinkingand the shared responsibility for water stress.84 In February 2006, the Environment and ClimateChange Minister, Elliot Morley, urged a ‘joint effort’ by both consumers and companies to reducethe risk of shortages and standpipes in the coming summer.85 This approach denoted a shift awayfrom emergency responses to drought as a ‘civil contingency’ towards a more proactive, precau-tionary approach to drought management.86 Company campaigns ‘drip-fed’ messages about theneed for careful water use and tried to instil in consumers a sense that drought was a ‘normal’feature of everyday life.87

During drought, public debates have easily become polarised in a politics of blame targetingnegligent providers or wasteful consumers. What we have shown, by contrast, is that consumers

77 Bakker, Uncooperative Commodity (note 6); Howarth, Privatisation (note 76).78 H. Chappells, Reconceptualising Electricity and Water: Institutions, Infrastructures and the Construction of

Demand (PhD Thesis, Dept. of Sociology, Lancaster University, 2003).79 Bakker, Uncooperative Commodity (note 6).80 POST, The 1995 Drought (note 38).81 Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 10-Point Water Plan, London, 1998; Department of

the Environment, Using Water Wisely: A Consultation Paper, London, 2002.82 Howarth, Privatisation (note 76).83 Andrew, We Didn’t Wait (note 59).84 Defra, Water Supply in the Long Term (note 43).85 Defra, ‘Drought in the South East – Minister Urges ‘Use Water Sensibly Now’’, Defra News Release, 2 Feb. 2006:<http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2006/060202e.htm>.86 W. Medd and H. Chappells, Drought, demand and scale: fluidity and flexibility in the framing of water relations,

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 32 (2007) 233–248.87 Defra, Water Supply in the Long Term (note 43).

http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2006/060202e.htm


and providers both bear responsibility in constructing and alleviating water crises. The capacitiesof individual consumers to cope with crises are closely related to shifting ideologies of provision.In particular, responses to drought are mediated by perceptions of consumer rights, responsibil-ities and needs. How consumers have responded to droughts also relates to specific formations ofconsumer identity and consumer politics.

In the late nineteenth century, the question of consumer representation was framed within thedebate between municipal and private water supply. The 1890s shortages in London were markedby collective consumer protests and the formation of Water Consumer Defence Associations. As-serting the rights of domestic users to a constant supply of water, these consumer groups followedearlier protests over water charging regimes in Sheffield and London, both under private waterprovision. They challenged providers’ and regulators’ definitions of waste and misuse.88 Compa-nies were accused of hiding behind a purely ‘imaginary drought’.89

Municipalisation in London in 1902 was expected to eliminate shortages and waste, and estab-lish universal equity and a new solidarity between consumers and providers. As co-owners ofa public enterprise, consumers, it was believed, would adopt more civic modes of water use.90

In exchange, municipal authorities would provide reliable water supplies, sufficient for a standardof civilisation to be shared equally by all. This civilising contract underlay the public mode of pro-vision. Looking back in 1939, leading Labour MP George Lansbury remembered that in the de-cade before municipalisation: ‘The coming of summer always heralded a water famine for EastLondon, and this was not remedied until the Metropolitan Water Board [MWB] was estab-lished’.91 This was idealistic: shortages, disparities and profligacy continued.

One of the effects of the shift from commercial monopolies to public provision from the latenineteenth century onwards was to mute the collective voice of the consumer. People continuedto be angry about disruptions to their daily routines, but under municipal supply criticism tendedto be fragmented and sporadic, rather than part of a sustained social movement or organised con-sumer politics. There were localised agitations over rate increases, but in general, the water pro-vider/consumer relationship became less polarised; there were no concerted consumer campaignsof the kind seen in the 1890s during the 1921 drought.92 Broadly speaking, the relative decline ofself-organised consumer groups in the water field paralleled the history of civil society more gen-erally in this era of advancing state welfare and planning. Civil society lost part of its autonomy,as its organisations, resources and functions became more dependent on the state.93

Conflict over water provision moved to different sites. Firstly, there were localised tensions. De-bates over the adequacy of consumer representation came to a head when water undertakings pro-posed increased powers or charges.94 In 1921, the MWB was opposed both by Conservative

88 Trentmann and Taylor, From users (note 10).89 e.g. Letter from Yarrow Baldock, The Times, 6 Aug. 1895, 10.90 Royal Commission on Water Supply within the Limits of the Metropolitan Water Companies, PP 1900, 38 (Pt. I)

[Cd. 25], Final Report, Para. 93.91 The Times, 21 March 1939, 37.92 City of London protests against the MWB Charges Act 1907: City of London Observer, 18 July 1908, 3.93 J. Harris, Society and the state in twentieth century Britain, in: F.M.L. Thompson (Ed), The Cambridge Social

History of Britain, 1750–1950: Vol. 3, Social Agencies and Institutions, Cambridge, 1992.94 Water Undertakings Modification of Charges Bill, Hansard, 4th Series, Vol. 144, cc. 971–89, 11 July 1921.


opponents (as an ‘autocratic Board’) and by members of the London County Council, whose ownhopes for control of London water had been dashed.95 There were disputes between different tiersof local government with rival claims to represent local interests.96 Large municipal water author-ities were often at odds with neighbouring suburbs they supplied.97 Droughts also fuelled tensionsbetween different municipalities. In the summer of 1922, for example, Leeds had a surplus, butneither Doncaster nor Harrogate – who needed water – would take it.98

Secondly, in the inter-war years, water issues became re-situated within broader debates about so-cial welfare and industrial policy. Concerns over water provision were increasingly absorbed withinhousing debates, and were integral to discussions of unemployed labour schemes, rural depopulationand post-war reconstruction. Central government continued to receive supply complaints from in-dividual users and local authorities, but there were also new players in the field: the Women’s Insti-tute, for example, campaigned actively for improved rural water supplies in the 1930s and ’40s.99

Thirdly, as we have seen, from the 1920s onwards debates over water supply were increasinglypolarised between national strategy and local autonomy.100 Calls for greater central control, how-ever, were not matched by new modes of water consumer representation. The Labour party’s 1950manifesto called for water nationalisation without reference to consumer representation. The 1959drought brought more talk of nationalisation and intermittent demands for consumer representa-tion, but water consumers remained unrepresented at a national level until the 1970s.101 At thelocal level, municipal water undertakings, claiming to represent local consumers, were often as re-sistant to centralisation and amalgamation as private companies.102

Nationalisation in 1973 ended direct local government representation of water consumers, whowere now brought under the general remit of the new National Consumer Council [NCC].103 Fol-lowing re-privatisation in 1989, consumers were for the first time represented within the regulatoryframework, through Watervoice (established by the new regulator, OFWAT), alongside continu-ing NCC representation. These bodies were different from the self-organised consumer groups ofthe late nineteenth century. Closer to these was Yorkshire WaterWatch, which played an impor-tant role as a water company critic during the 1995 drought.104 Other representatives of consumer

95 MWB (Charges) Bill: Hansard, 4th Series, Vol. 140, cc. 571, 583, 7 April 1921.96 e.g. Northallerton Water Rate Action Group [1964–65], Thirsk, Bedale & Northallerton Times, 17 Sept. 1964, 1.97 The Sanitary World, 31 Jan. 1885, 146. LRO: Water Supply News Cuttings (1900-1920): 352 CLE/CUT 3/2: Letters

from J.D. Banks, Mercury, 2 Dec. 1901 and 6 June 1902; Letter from ‘Publicola’, Horwich Chronicle, 27 July 1901.98 M. Coplans [water engineer] in The Times, 10 June 1922, 5.99 PRO: HLG 50/2123: Water Supply (Rural Areas): General Correspondence from Women’s Institutes, 1943–1955;

Hassan, History of Water (note 5), 58.100 Hassan, Water industry (note 18).101 There was no water equivalent of the Nationalised Industry Consumer Councils. For NICCs, see L. Tivey, Quasi-

government for consumers, in: A. Barker (Ed), Quangos in Britain: Government and the Networks of Public Policy Mak-ing, Basingstoke, 1982, 144–147.102 Annual Report of the Executive Committee, Journal of the British Waterworks Association 41 (May 1959) 211–217;

The Times, 5 March 1959, 6.103 It did not, however, put to an end the debate over consumer representation; letter from J. Mitchell, The Times, 22

Nov. 1978, 30; The Times, 22 March 1980, 3, and 17 Sept. 1980, 4.104 G. Haughton, Private profits – public drought: the creation of a crisis in water management for West Yorkshire,

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 23 (1998) 419–433.


interests, including the Public Utilities Access Forum [PUAF], were critical of Ofwat’s voluntaristagreements with water companies over leakage and metering.105

The establishment in 2005 of the Consumer Council for Water [CCW], representing customersof water and sewerage companies in England and Wales, sought to match a reliable access to wa-ter with a fair, affordable charging system. As part of the strategic co-ordination across environ-mental, economic and social interests during the 2006 drought, CCW worked with theEnvironment Agency and south-eastern water companies on the Beat the Drought campaign.Central to this campaign and to the wider work of a Water Saving Group (established in early2006), has been a commitment to ‘engage with consumers’ and ‘better understand their percep-tions and needs’.106 In 2006, too, CCW conducted a programme of participatory research withconsumers.107 This new emphasis on engagement, shared responsibility and co-dependency hastransformed the context for consumer representation.

The dynamics of ‘normal’ and ‘rational’ consumption

Droughts reveal the contingent and shifting nature of consumer vulnerabilities, entitlements,and perceptions of ‘normal’ and ‘rational’ water consumption. In the 1890s, debates in Londonfocused on the consumption practices and needs of domestic water users. An 1895 LGB inquiryconsidered numerous complaints that (metered) trade consumers were receiving regular supply,while domestic consumers and un-metered small traders went without.108 Distinct norms of con-sumption and entitlement are evident also in the public perception of drought as an urban prob-lem at this time: rural consumers suffered hardship and paid for water by the bucket withoutmedia scrutiny.109 Victorian battles were harnessed to an idea of the joint advance of civilisationand water consumption. As the progressive water activist Archibald Dobbs wrote approvingly in1890:

105 P106 D107 C108 H

Lond109 O

Hydro110 A111 T

Gasw

When iron pipes and high-pressure engines were introduced a much larger quantity of waterwas used. The requirements of householders are naturally and properly always on the rise:the standard of comfort constantly improves.110

At the same time, discussions of civilisation were strongly inflected by class and the issue ofwaste. Highlighting public health concerns and questions of absolute need, the 1890s watershortages moved the plight of poor consumers to centre stage, in contrast to the propertied tax-payer-consumers prominent in previous consumer agitations.111 Actual levels of danger and

OST, The 1995 Drought (note 38).efra, Water Supply in the Long Term (note 43).

onsumer Council for Water, Using Water Wisely, Final Report, Birmingham, Nov. 2006.ackney Archives: J/Z 1: Local Government Board Inquiry into the Failure of the East London Water Supply,

on, 1895.

bserver at Forest Lodge, Maresfield, Sussex: ‘British Rainfall for 1899’, quoted in BHS Chronology of Britishlogical Events: <http://www.dundee.ac.uk/geography/cbhe/> (accessed: 25 Oct. 2007).. Dobbs, By Meter or Annual Value? London, 1890, 30.

he Star, 16 Aug. 1895, 1; King Warry, Parish of Hackney; PRO, MH23/33: Branch Secretary, National Union oforkers and General Labourers, to LGB, 23 Aug. 1898.



need, however, were contentious: company supporters suggested there was ‘simulated distress’and much waste among the poor.112 The 1890s saw an emerging concern over more widespreadhabits of wasteful consumption. In the summer of 1899, attention was focused not just on thepoor – with their faulty fittings and taps left running all night, as in previous droughts – buton the wasteful routines of those who ‘ought to know better’, watering their lawns in the affluentvillas of suburbia.113

The issue of waste remained prominent after World War One, but now debates concerned therights and responsibilities of the citizen. The media highlighted selfish, uncivic behaviour. A Timesleader reported in June 1921, that in the MWB area, ‘half the daily shortage is being used for .gardens, tennis courts, and golf greens’ – ‘an abuse of the citizen’s privileges’.114 Voluntary restric-tions (such as the 5’’ bath) were urged upon citizens, with the normative model of an affluent, ur-ban middle-class life-style. This voluntarist strategy was central to the civilising contract, with itscombined ethics of socially responsible behaviour and a vision of ever-rising levels of comfort andcivilisation. Implicit in this was a liberal belief in the capacity for self-restraint and distaste forcompulsory restriction.

The other side of this liberal coin, however, was unlimited entitlement. In this model, droughtswere temporary disruptions in a legitimately expanding trend of consumption. Authorities wereseen to have a duty to provide ‘a constant supply sufficiently large to meet all possible demands’,‘independently and in spite of occasional droughts’.115 Such reasoning effectively limited demand-management options. As the Durham Labour MP, J.J. Lawson, stated in July 1934, he had ‘seennothing more pathetic, though at the same time somewhat humorous, than the notices on thetrams to use less water, when we have been taught for years to use more water as a rule ofgood health’.116

Concerns over waste continued in the post-war period but became secondary to anxiety overrising legitimate demand. This rise in demand was rooted in the changing nature of the modernhome and in developments in industry and agriculture. Water supply experts and other observerslooked to the United States, where daily urban consumption had exceeded 100 gallons on the eveof the Second World War.117 While projections varied, Britain appeared to be going in the samedirection.118 There were several, often contradictory, strands in the discussion of rising consump-tion, ranging from economic growth and cultural progress to waste and conservation. Rural areaswere contributing to the growth in demand: by 1957, the vast majority of the rural population wasconnected to piped supply (90% England; 79% Wales).119 But the real problem was growing ur-ban and industrial demand. Water use was expanding in the electricity, nuclear power, steel,

112 The Times: 29 July 1895; 6 Aug. 1895, 10.113 The Times, 23 Aug. 1899, 10.114 The Times, 25 June 1921, 11.115 The Times, 8 June 1922, 15.116 Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 291, c. 1824, 3 July 1934.117 B. Cunningham, National inland water survey, The Geographical Journal 85 (June 1935) 535–536; B. Cunningham,

Water resources problems of the United States: A comparison with Great Britain, Geographical Review 28 (July 1938)482–484.118 The Times, 16 March 1954, 9; W.G.V. Balchin, A water use survey, The Geographical Journal 124 (1958) 476–477.119 Hassan, History of Water (note 5), 89–90.


chemical and paper industries. There was an increasing focus on the need for conservation andrecycling of industrial water.120 Industry was central to the ‘country’s hopes of higher living stan-dards’, as The Economist argued in 1957.121 A higher ‘standard of living’ in the domestic arena, inturn, ratcheted up water consumption. By the 1950s, alongside the ever more widespread fixedbath and water closet, there was also the arrival of the washing machine, dish washer and gar-bage-disposal unit.122

The urban character of dominant norms of water consumption was highlighted by ruraldrought in the inter-war years. The 1930s drought revealed the divided nature of water provisionand the uneven achievements of the civilising mission to the water consumer. Against an averageof 25–40 gallons a day for the urban consumer, rural usage was estimated at a mere 5–20 gal-lons.123 For many contemporaries, such disparities were out of place in modern society. As Con-servative MP Thomas Levy put it in 1932: ‘in the greatest civilised country in the world, in thistwentieth century, all members of the community should have a sufficient supply of pure, clean,cold water’. Levy considered it ‘scandalous’ that people were buying water ‘at 2d a pail’; therewere rural areas in Britain ‘in a worse condition than a west African Village’.124

In rural areas, with low domestic consumption levels, demand management during drought wasof limited value: the focus was on emergency supply. There was significant support in rural areasfor improved supplies. By August 1934, the Ministry of Health reported that applications for per-manent improvement schemes (under the Rural Water Supplies Act, 1934) had been received fromRural District Councils [RDCs] covering 846 parishes.125 Some RDCs received ratepayer deputa-tions.126 In the village of Randwick, Gloucestershire, local water ‘users’ formed a committee todraw up an independent water scheme in the summer of 1934.127

Perceptions of ‘scarcity’, needs and entitlements, however, have always varied among con-sumers, as well as between consumers and water providers and policy-makers. Not everyoneshared the modernising vision of universal piped water and sewerage. In the 1930s, some ruralinhabitants resisted piped supply because it promised higher local rates. Others felt their needswere adequately met by wells and traditional sources, except during severe drought. As one Rand-wick inhabitant suggested at a public meeting in June 1934: ‘they had nothing to grumble about.They had always had to fetch their water from a distance and they had done it uncomplain-ingly’.128 There were competing interests between farmers and landowners with differential accessto local water sources.129 Shortages also fostered a new sense of entitlement among some ruralwater users that could conflict with established riparian interests, such as mill owners. Sir Basil

120 CAWC, Growing Demand for Water: First Report, London, 1959, 11–12; CACW, Growing Demand: Final Report,6–7, 29–30.121 The Economist, 26 Jan. 1957, 305.122 Balchin, Discussion, The Geographical Journal 124 (1958) 487, 489.123 Hassan, History of Water (note 5), 56.124 Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 272, c. 1745, 7 Dec. 1932; Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 304, cc. 1105-06, 17 July 1935.125 Ministry of Health figures, reported in The Times, 2 Aug. 1934, 10.126 Wycombe RDC in the 1929 drought, The Bucks Free Press, 2 Aug. 1929, 4.127 Stroud News and Gloucester County Advertiser: 31 Aug. 1934, 5; 12 Oct. 1934, 3.128 Stroud News, 8 June 1934, 7.129 PRO: HLG 50/1132: Dauntsey Water Supply: D. Marsh to Ministry of Health: 4 Oct. 1937; 30 May 1938.


Peto, Conservative MP for Barnstaple, condemned the Water Supplies (Exceptional Shortage Or-ders) Bill in 1934 (allowing temporary reductions in compensation water), as ‘a CommunisticMeasure’ allowing ‘the same rights to every one except to the people who at present own thewater’.130

The 1959 drought witnessed the return of the urban water problem, alongside continuing ruralproblems. But it also highlighted tensions between domestic and commercial users. In late sum-mer, the Water Companies Association acknowledged the primary duty to domestic consumersand warned of the public health dangers of water shortages.131 The prevailing voluntarist model,operating in the case of domestic consumers, however, had implications for industrial users,severely hit by drought in some areas. In September, supplies to industry were suspended inten Lancashire towns in the Irwell Valley Water Authority district. Attempts were made to cutdomestic demand through appeals for voluntary reductions, night-time cut offs and bans onthe non-essential use of water (hosepipes). Standpipes for domestic users were seen as a last resortthough several other restrictions were introduced in some districts. In September 1959, 170,000domestic Irwell Valley consumers were prohibited from using washing machines and even baths,being advised to ‘sponge down’ instead. These shortages provoked widespread criticism of WaterBoard ‘inefficiency’.132

The needs of industry emerged strongly from the 1959 drought. Increased water supply was vi-tal to the expansion plans of ICI and other firms in the 1950s and 1960s.133 In September 1959,representatives of the heavy and chemical industries of Teesside, reduced to half supply, met withthe Tees Valley and Cleveland Water Board, pointing out that this kind of production ‘can’t justbe switched on and off suddenly’. The drought was estimated to have cost Teesside firms around£100,000.134 Following the drought, the Water Board overcame strong local opposition and pres-sure from an influential environmentalist group (the Teesdale Defence Committee) to create theCow Green reservoir.135 Industrial and environmental interests were now sharply polarised.Cow Green was a turning point in the debate about supply expansion. From the 1960s, water sup-pliers found it more difficult to secure new water sources in the face of growing environmentalopposition and support for the preservation of natural landscapes.136

If drought in the 1950s raised the profile of industry’s water needs, it also reinforced concernsabout unlimited domestic entitlement. Some observers began to question the cultural norm of

130 Water Supplies (Exceptional Shortage Orders) Bill, Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 288, c. 528, 12 April 1934.131 The Times, 16 Sept. 1959, 4; The Medical Officer, 24 Dec. 1959, 325.132 The Bury Times: 22 Aug. 1959, 16; 5 Sept. 1959, 1. The Times: 15 Sept. 1959, 3; 16 Sept. 1959, 4; 22 Sept. 1959, 5.133 The Economist, 28 Aug. 1965, 811; ICI Website: http://www.ici.com/aboutus/Milestones/History (accessed 25 Oct.

2007).134 Spokesman, in Water boards given warning, The Times, 16 Sept. 1959, 4; Estimate in Journal of the British

Waterworks Association 42 (March 1960) 149.135 The Times: 27 July 1966, 13; 4 Nov. 1966, 12; 7 Nov. 1966, 11. This contrasts with the defeat of the Board’s res-

ervoir plans in 1957. See: J.A. Brady, Uncertainty in demand forecasting and its consequences in water resource plan-

ning: the Teesside experience, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers 78 (1985) 1383–1401; C.S. McCulloch,Political ecology of dams in Teesdale, in: H. Hewlett (Ed), Long-Term Benefits and Performance of Dams, London,2004, 157–87; Hassan, History of Water (note 5), 87–88, 99–102; J. Sheail, Environmental History (note 12), 79–80.136 Sheail, Environmental History (note 12), 79. See, e.g., the stringent environmental conditions attached to the 1960

Ullswater development: Porter, Water Management (note 12), 39.

http://www.ici.com/aboutus/Milestones/History


ever-increasing consumption as inherently wasteful and unsustainable. The commodification ofdomestic water and meter debates are especially associated with the privatised industry. Yet, ar-guments for water as an economic good were becoming more prominent already in the 1950s, anera normally associated with the retreat of the market. Droughts, some argued, showed that mostpeople had little sense of water as a scarce good, treating it as an infinite resource. This made itdifficult to change people’s habits. To induce change, the laws of supply and demand were calledin. Domestic metering was seen as a possible way to control the current ‘profligacy’ in consump-tion, and ‘the water wasting tendency which has become in-bred in townsfolk’.137 In February1959, a Central Advisory Water Committee report argued that the adequacy of supply for grow-ing demand was dependent upon the ‘the readiness of all concerned to regard water as a valuablecommodity and to provide money and materials accordingly’.138 At the height of the drought laterthat year, civil engineer and British Waterworks Association member Delwyn Davies rejectedclaims that inadequate information and planning underlay the drought. ‘The fundamental cause’,he argued, ‘lies in the nation’s attitude to its most valuable raw material: its reluctance to adaptitself to extremes of climate’. The long-standing popular perception of water as a free natural giftwas seen as masking the real price of water and blocking public acceptance of funding for newworks.139

In the 1976 drought, the emphasis was firmly on protecting national industry.140 Agriculturewas seen as more economically resilient. It was individual citizens who faced the most stringentrestrictions – including rationing and patrols to enforce hosepipe bans in some areas – eventhough they were relatively low water users.141 While official figures claimed that the domestic sec-tor consumed 40% of total water supply, this figure included commercial users such as hotels,shops, bars and facilities such as hospitals and golf courses.142 Drought Minister Dennis Howellstated in an interview: ‘It comes down to every person in the household to save water’.143

Domestic consumers were also the focus of demand management initiatives in 1995 and 2006.In England and Wales in 1995, 22% of the population (18 million people) were subject to hosepipebans. While parts of the north-west and south-west faced acute drought, Yorkshire – a region of 3million people – was threatened with complete supply failure.144 Political pressure was most in-tense in remote villages with intermittent supply in the summer months, indicating a politicisationof rural water supply.145 In the 2006 drought, domestic water users were primary targets in thecontrol of demand, with 15.6 million people restricted in their hosepipe use.146 Many outdoor wa-ter uses were considered by water companies as ‘non-essential’, beyond statutory supply duties,

137 Economics of the drought, The Economist, 2 June 1956, 880; letter from J.M. Easton, The Times, 18 April 1953, 7;letter from E. Bellingham, The Times, 21 Sept. 1959, 11.138 CAWC, Growing Demand: First Report, 13.139 Letter from D. Davies, The Times, 22 Sept. 1959, 11.140 Morren, Rural ecology (note 8).141 The Times, 10 April 1976, 2.142 Morren, Rural ecology (note 8).143 BBC Radio 4, ‘The Drought of ’76’, 26 June 2006: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/pip/8jqbz/>.144 Bakker, Uncooperative Commodity (note 6).145 Osborn and Marvin, Restabilising note (6).146 EA, Early Drought Prospects for 2007 (note 2).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/pip/8jqbz


and therefore likely to cause minimal disruption to householders. Nevertheless, definitions of le-gitimate water use encoded in the hosepipe ban became the subject of controversy. The use ofa hosepipe to wash a private car or water a domestic garden was included in the ban, while fillinga swimming pool or hot tub, or using newer contraptions (jet washers) or washing driveways es-caped restrictions.147 There were also disputes about whether the ban should be extended to semi-commercial enterprises, such as allotments.

As in the 1990s, debates in 2006 focused on whether restrictions were appropriate in a customerservice based industry. But there was also a new desire to move away from crisis management anddraconian restrictions towards demand management and long-term changes in consumption be-haviour.148 The 2006 drought witnessed a return to older debates about the real or imaginary na-ture of drought. Some claimed it was not a real resource crisis but a way of pushing mandatorymetering; in April 2006, the Government allowed Folkestone and Dover Water to install the firstcompulsory meters on the basis of ‘water scarcity’ status. The concept of permanent ‘water scar-city’, distinct from short term drought, may prove a tipping point in the long-standing debate overmetering, re-framing the rights of domestic water consumers.

While the implications of the 2006 drought for consumer-provider relations are yet to be fullyanalysed, early indications are that companies were successful in gaining the support of consumersand engaging them as managers of demand. There are signs of a more cooperative relationshipbetween customers and companies and a more promising context for demand management: de-mand during the drought was 5% to 15% lower than expected.149 At the same time, controversiesabout provider leakage and universal metering indicated the continuing challenges facing pro-viders and consumers as co-partners in the management of drought.

Conclusion

Droughts have always been with us, but their spatial impact, duration and resolution havechanged over time. These changes have been the result of socio-technical politics, institutional sys-tems and changing norms of consumption, as well as climatic factors. To understand these dy-namics, this paper has drawn on approaches from history, geography and sociology, focusingon the interplay between institutional regimes, consumer identities and the evolving norms of ev-eryday demand. We identify consumers as central actors whose expectations and practices havecontributed to the moral, political, and institutional framing of droughts. By helping to definethe range of possible interventions by water providers and public authorities, consumers becomeco-partners with providers in determining legitimate modes of supply and demand. Consumers,here, are not individualised actors, making rational choices about costs and benefits based on ap-propriate information. Rather, the identities of the consumer co-evolve with the shifting dynamics

147 D. Adam, Gardens out, but patios in: millions face hosepipe ban confusion, The Guardian, 4 April 2006, 9; V. Tay-lor and F. Trentmann, Hosepipes, history and a sustainable future, History & Policy Website (July 2008) at: <http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-75.html>.148 Medd and Chappells, Drought, demand and scale.149 EA, Drought Prospects 2006 (note 1).

http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-75.html

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of socio-technical networks of water provision and with changing notions of what is ‘normal’ or‘rational’ water use.

In England and Wales over the last century, droughts – and conflicts over drought – have cutacross shifts in the ownership of water: from private to municipal and public in the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries, then back into private hands in the late 1980s. Comparing droughtsilluminates continuities as well as discontinuities between these regimes. Between the 1890s and2006, the very definition and severity of drought related to shifting institutional frameworksand infrastructural configurations. On the one hand, we see changes in the ownership and orga-nisation of water institutions, in the demarcation of spatial boundaries of water planning and gov-ernance, and in the integration and interconnectivity capabilities of supply networks. On the otherhand, we see continuity in debates about the appropriate degree of institutional co-ordination be-tween local, regional and national levels. One crucial difference is that organised consumer politicshas emerged more easily in response to drought at times of private commercial supply (in the1890s and 1995). When water is in public hands, consumer grievances are more fragmented,and public authorities assume the role of consumer representation.

This contrast is overshadowed, however, by a larger continuity that runs across the period:a growing preference for voluntary restraint and a reluctance to interfere directly with the routinesand lifestyles of domestic consumers. In most droughts, authorities have avoided intervention be-yond appeals urging citizens to stop watering their gardens and washing their cars. It has onlybeen in exceptional circumstances in the twentieth century (such as the global drought in 1976or in localised situations of shortage in 1995) that consumers have faced severe interventions intheir daily routines, such as standpipes and rota cuts. In the twentieth century, strategies have gen-erally moved away from the more draconian measures of the past, such as in the 1895 ‘water fam-ine’ when the East London Water Company simply stopped constant supply and forced people tomake do with a few hours of water per day. This shift has been most accentuated since 1995: sup-ply interruptions are considered inappropriate in a customer service oriented water sector.

This reluctance, we argue, can be seen as part of a broader civilising contract between con-sumers and public authorities that gained ground in the metropolitan campaign for public con-trol. It has been reinforced by a complementary sense of individual freedom and perceptions ofindividual comfort and entitlement in a democratic consuming society. The civilising contract en-visaged a relationship of mutual obligations between citizen-consumers and the state. The publicprovision of an ever-expanding volume of clean, constant water would be matched by consumer-citizens using water responsibly. This was a noble democratic vision, but reflected a poor under-standing of the sociology and ecology of water. It presumed that water shortages were the resultof a commercial ethos that cared about profits not people, rather than of more fundamentalchanges in lifestyle and of growing pressures on the natural environment. Critical reflection onthis civilising consumerism was first heard in the droughts of the 1950s, but it remained a minorityview. Paradoxically, the emergence of a new focus on consumers as co-partners in the manage-ment of demand, evident in the 2006 drought, shows surer signs of effectively curbing demandthan more top-down approaches. The environment, emerging as a major player in this drought,is an important counterweight to the model of ever-expanding consumer entitlements.

Our argument affords a challenge to the narrative in which the transition from private to publicownership is the decisive watershed for citizen-consumership. Instead, we highlight the evolutionof civic sensibilities in the initial, late nineteenth-century context of private supply. The discussion


reveals the diversities and tensions at play within understandings of legitimate ‘demand’ and ‘theconsumer’ across temporal, spatial and social scales. We also identify continuities in culturalnorms of water use that have transcended shifts from private to public and back to private pro-vision over the last century. These continuities suggest that the voluntarist outlook on demandmanagement, rooted in a broad consensus about the civilising effects of rising water use, mayhave been more significant than who owned and managed water supply.

Droughts reveal fundamental tensions about consumption within liberal democratic society.Should consumers be at liberty to consume as much as they want? Should it depend on their abil-ity to pay? Under which conditions are restrictions to be imposed? Are droughts unusual emer-gency events or are they part of ordinary life, indicating the vulnerability of routine practicesand systemic tensions and weaknesses? The 2006 drought occurred against the backdrop of cur-rent concerns with potentially permanent ‘water scarcity’ in parts of the UK. These concerns arenot new. At least since the 1890s, droughts have revealed an oscillation between responses thattreat drought as an emergency event and those that identify inherent problems with the ordinaryarrangements of supply and demand. From the latter perspective, drought, instead of requiringa quick fix, can be embraced as a positive catalyst for long-term behaviour change and for socialand political reform.

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research undertaken from two projects: ‘Liquid Politics’ (Trentmannand Taylor), part of the ESRC/AHRC Cultures of Consumption Research Programme (RES-154-25-0022); and an ESRC project, ‘Drought and Demand in 2006’ (Medd and Chappells),co-funded by UKWIR, Defra, OFWAT, Environment Agency, Anglian Water, Essex and SuffolkWater, Folkestone and Dover Water, Three Valleys Water and South-East Water (RES-0177-25-0002). The authors of this paper would like to thank these bodies for their generous assistance,and the International Water History Association and UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR)for helpful discussion at earlier presentations of this paper.

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