Tytam Tuk Worka
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Second Section.
Speech by D.P.W. at Memorial Stone Ceremony
2.2.18
487
Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen. - We are met herál 18
to-day to commemorate the completion of a work which must ever
rank as one of the most important public works of this Colony.
Notwithstanding the numerous works carried out in the past for
the purpose of affording an adequate supply of water to the
City of Victoria, that essential requirement of every civilized
community remained unfulfilled until the dam on which we stand,
with its contingent works, had been completed.
The construction of Water-Works for the supply of the
City of Victoria commenced in the year 1860 or 19 years after
Hongkong was oeded to Great Britain. In that year, Hr. Hawling,
who was then in charge of Public Works, proposed to construct a
resoavoir with a capacity of 30 million gallons in the Pokfulam
Valley, together with a delivery main and ɗther contingent works,
but a Committee, to whom the project was referred, recommended
that the reservoir should be omitted as they were of opinion
that further provision beyond the construction of a suitable
intake in the stream-bed was unnecessary. In accordande with
their advice, the reservoir was reduced to a mere basin capable
of containing 2 million gallons. Such was the foresight of the
men of that day.
From this humble beginning sprang the waterworks of to-day.
It is unnecessary for me to trouble you with details of the
successive additions made in the shape of storage reservoirs
and otherwise, further than to state that, notwithstanding such
additions, including the original Tytam Reservoir, with a
capacity of 312 million gallons, completed in 1859, the supply
continued to be inadequate to the demand. Up to 1902, the
combined capacity of the reservoira amounted to 510,660,000
gallons and there was then in course of construction a small
reservoir, known as the Tytam Byewash Reservoir, which was
capable of containing 26,301,000 gallons additional, It was
completed in 1904, raising the storage capacity to nearly 537
million gallons.
The