At the end of March 2009 The Warsaw Surveying Company WPG S.A. took place an important exhibition about Warsaw „Hoppe, Lindley, WPG, Warsaw Cartography 1641-2009”. The exhibition was organized by The Warsaw Surveying Company WPG in cooperation with the State Archive of City of Warsaw (APW).
Author of the exhibtion was Paweł Weszpiński, member of Board of our Societas
Lindleiana, which administers and takes care of the so called Lindley plans in
the archive. The exhibition was
dedicated to the 150 anniversary of birth of Josepha Lindley, the younest of
three Lindley brothers.
The exhibition reminded Young generation that the waterworks and sewage systems as well as modern surveying of the city is to thank family of English civil engineers, father William Lindley (1808-1900), and sons Sir William Heerlein Lindley (1853-1917), Robert Searls (1854 – 1925) and Joseph (1859-1906).
Warsaw, March – May 2009. Author of the exhibition Paweł Weszpiński (on the photo first to the right). Introduction to the catalogue Ryszard Żelichowski.
http://muzeum.wpg.com.pl/en/page/wydarzenia/gid/24
2016 was another good year for our Society. In September we took part in the 130-anniversary of the Water Supply Company in Warsaw. We have published the W.H. Lindley Plan of 1912 Warsaw, very important for Warsaw after war destructions. It is a collector item.
We wish you all:
Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New Year 2017
Phot. Urszula Frydrych
In October 2021, Marek Smółka, spokesman of Water Supply Company, informed
the inhabitants of Warsaw about an interesting find. In the Praga collector
chamber under Jagiellońska Street, at the intersection with ul. I. Kłopotowski, two
commemorative plaques in Polish and Russian were found. The inscription on
them, which is difficult to read due to the passage of time, reads: "The stone
laid by the acting mayor of Warsaw, W. Litwiński, to commemorate the
commencement of sewage works in the suburbs of Praga on October 20, 1906,
according to the design and under the supervision of engineer W.H. Lindley ".
Two plaques, in Russian (left) and Polish
The Ottoman Emipre ruled Hungarian lands 1541-1686. When the Turks were defeated by the Habsburgs, Hungariona cities Buda, Óbuda and Pest became a part of the Habsburg dominion. In 1867, after signing the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was established. Hungary, in general, and Buda and Pest, in particular, benefited greatly from this union and enjoyed a rapid growth, economicand progress. Pest became the political, economic and trade hub in the area, and in time, it became the most populated area.
In 1866 the cholera outbreak in these cities made the City Council to decide to build a waterworks to supply water to Pest (the water supply of Buda was less critical).
The Municipal Commission visited several cities in Western Europe, where modern water and sewage systems were built. Among them Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main, because on the advice of the chief engineer of Pest, Pál Szumrak, the mayor Móric Szentkirályi, proposed in mid-December 1867, that the work related to water supply to Pest be entrusted to William Lindley, famous for his waterworks in German cities. After visiting the site, Lindley handed the project over to the city in early February of the following year. He suggested in the report that before sufficient amount of money is raised for a modern water plant, a temporary system of pumps and wells be set up in the shipyard site (Flottillenplatzon, now Kossuth Lajos Square) near the Danube, for the extraction of water naturally filtered by the river gravel. From here, a network of pipes was to be pumped to a part of the city and its inhabitants. Since the capacity of such an intake due to the thin layer of gravel was insufficient for the rapidly growing number of the city's inhabitants, he designed the construction of sand filters from the Danube waters and a more efficient pumping station, pipeline network as well as a high-level reservoir in a nearby quarry at such a height that would ensure adequate pressure in the network. William Lindley was assigned in 1868 to build the waterworks and reservoirs. according to his design.
After an audience with Emperor Francis I, the mayor of the city and Lindley obtained permission to use the shipyard area, current Kossuth-tér and Parliament Building. Constructions started in April and were finished in November 1968.
Temporary water supply system in the Flottillenplatzon, now Kossuth Lajos Square, with water reservoir under construction, 1868
Two impressive underground water reservoirs were
built between 1869 and 1871 in Ihász Street (Kőbánya, 10th district of Budapest) on the Óhegy hill. They had capacity of 10,800 m3
each, and the reservoirs were able to store 21,600 m3 water. Though
at that time the water consumption of Pest was estimated at 1,850 m3
per day, Lindley planned the waterworks, pipeline and reservoirs for a daily
capacity of 9,100 m3/day. The
reservoirs were built by masons from Italy; the bricks were produced in
Hungary.
Kőbánya water reservoir (present state)
In 1869 William was joined in Pest by his eldest son William Heerelein, who was then 16-years old. The same pattern of construction of water reservoirs were used by him almost over 40 years later in Polish Lodz.
The previously separate towns of Buda, Óbuda, and Pest were officially unified in 1873 and given the new name Budapest. The reservoirs are still in use and can be visited once a year when they drained for maintenance.
Read more:
First chapter of the Polish and Russian edition
The authors of the work from 1911 do not mention the date of July 3, 1886, which in the interwar period gave rise to the celebrations that continue to this day. The collective work published by the engineer Szenfeld is the publication on the 30th anniversary of the approval of the projects [April 21, 1881] and the signing of the agreement with the Lindleys [July 23, 1881].
It is worth adding here that the associates of W.H. Lindley the beginning of the water supply works in Warsaw connected with 1882 and planned the first 25th anniversary celebrations in 1907. Probably for the same reasons, on July 4, 1907, at the Filter Station, next to the water tower, a monument (bust) of Socrates Starynkiewicz, carved by Jan Woydyga, was unveiled. However, these celebrations took place two years later.
For more details see: R. Żelichowski, Lindleyowie. Dzieje inżynierskiej rodu, Biblioteka Lindleiana, t. II, Warszawa 2019, s. 278-284.
After more than a half century, in August 2021, a new biography of William Lindley appeared on the German publishing market. His author is a Hamburger historian Ortwin Pelc and the title of his book is William Lindley (1808-1900). Ingenieur und Stadtplaner. Eine biographie (William Lindley (1808-1900). Engineer and urbanist. Biography). It is a 26th volume from the series "Hamburgische Lebensbilder" issued by "Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte" and published by Wallenstein Verlag (Göttingen 2021).
The book, with a handy
format 21.5 x 12.5 cm (192 pages), consists of 14 chapters, from which the vast
majority concerns Lindley's engineering achievements in the free Hanseatic city
of Hamburg.
This is a valuable and important book. Since the first publication by Gustav H. Leo, written in 1936, published sixty-three years later (Gustav H. Leo, William Lindley. Ein Pionier der Technischen Hygiene, Hamburg 1969) the knowledge of historians on William Lindley and his families increased significantly. A few new publications in Polish and German appeared, many occasional conferences devoted to W. Lindley in Poland and Germany took place.
Ortwin Pelc has gathered all new information on the achievements of this great English engineer (in Hamburg, also excellent urbanist) and put it in a nice literary form. His book is a highly recommend position in the library of every admirer of William Lindley's work, as well as people interested in the history of urban infrastructure in the 19th-century Europe.