31
SESSION 1948-1949.
(Read before the Engineering Society of Hongkong on Dec. 1st 1948).
THE HONG KONG WATERWORKS
By
LEONARD JACKSON, B.ENG., A.M.I.C.E.
INTRODUCTION.
The Hong Kong Waterworks owes its origin to Sir Hercules Robinson who, as Governor of the Colony, in 1859 offered a reward of £1,000 for a design for a water supply. Previous to that date supplies had been limited to wells or tanks filled from the hillside streams; in fact Sir John Bowring who was Sir Hercules' immediate predecessor had actually stated that it was not the duty of the Authorities to supply the public with water any more than the other necessities of life.
The award was won by a Mr. Rawling a clerk-of-works attached to the Royal Engineers, who proposed a small impounding reservoir in the Pokfulam Valley on the South side of the Island, from which the water would be conveyed by means of a conduit, around the West end of the Island to tanks in Bonham Road, from which the town could be supplied.
The work was put in hand immediately and the first scheme was completed in 1863, but not without some financial difficulties. result of an imperfect estimate of the cost of materials ordered out from England and to the substitution, at the order of the Colonial Office, of cement for lime, the original estimate was considerably exceeded. This was eventually provided for in a special Ordinance- No. 12 of 1860-wherein permission was given to mortgage the water rate of 2% to a sum of £30,000.
From that date to the present, the history of the Waterworks is that of a continual struggle to catch up with ever increasing demands, a struggle which, through no fault of the Waterworks Engineers, but due largely to the continuously growing demands, has hardly ever succeeded.
When Mr. Rawling prepared his scheme the population was about 90,000, but by the time the first section was complete it had already reached 125,000, and further supplies were needed. A new dam at Pokfulam upstream of the original dam was commenced soon after
December 1948.
Vol. II No. 3.
34
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.