Manchester Hydraulic Power
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Manchester's Hydraulic Power system was a public
hydraulic power network A hydraulic power network is a system of interconnected pipes carrying pressurized liquid used to transmit mechanical power from a power source, like a pump, to hydraulic equipment like lifts or motors. The system is analogous to an electrical gri ...
supplying energy across the city of
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
via a system of high-pressure water pipes from three pumping stations from 1894 until 1972. The system, which provided a cleaner and more compact alternative to
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
s, was used to power workshop machinery,
lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobile ...
s, cranes and a large number of cotton baling presses in warehouses as it was particularly useful for processes that required intermittent power. It was used to wind
Manchester Town Hall Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments. The building faces Albert Square to th ...
clock, pump the organ at
Manchester Cathedral Manchester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George, in Manchester, England, is the mother church Mother church or matrice is a term depicting the Christian Church as a mother ...
and raise the safety curtain at
Manchester Opera House The Opera House in Quay Street, Manchester, England, is a 1,920-seater commercial touring theatre that plays host to touring musicals, ballet, concerts and a Christmas pantomime. It is a Grade II listed building. The Opera House is one of the mai ...
in Quay Street. A large number of the lifts and baling presses that used the system had hydraulic packings manufactured by John Talent and Co.Ltd. who had a factory at Ashworth Street, just off the Bury New Rd. close to the Salford boundary. Manchester Corporation opened its first pumping station in 1894, following pioneering schemes in
Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east ...
and
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. The scheme was a success and additional pumping stations to cope with the demand for power were added in 1899 and 1909. Modernisation started in the 1920s, when the original steam pumps were replaced by electric motors at two pumping stations. The greatest volume of water was supplied in the 1920s, although the length of the water mains continued to increase until 1948. Usage started to decrease in the 1930s, and the first pumping station closed in 1939. By the 1960s, there were serious concerns about the state of some of the equipment and corrosion in the high-pressure mains, and in 1968 the corporation announced its intent to switch the system off, which it did at the end of 1972. The
grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
pumping station built in
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
style at Water Street has a new life as part of the
People's History Museum The People's History Museum (the National Museum of Labour History until 2001) in Manchester, England, is the UK's national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of working people i ...
, while one of its pump sets has been restored and is displayed at the Museum of Science and Industry, where it is part of a larger display about hydraulic power.


History

While
Joseph Bramah Joseph Bramah (13 April 1748 – 9 December 1814), born Stainborough Lane Farm, Stainborough, in Barnsley, Yorkshire, was an English inventor and locksmith. He is best known for having improved the flush toilet and inventing the hydraulic pr ...
had registered a patent for the distribution of high-pressure water via a ring main at the London Patent Office on 29 April 1812, and engineer William Armstrong had installed hydraulic systems for single customers from the 1840s, the first installation of a public hydraulic power network became operational in
Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east ...
in 1876.
Edward B. Ellington Edward Bayzand Ellington (2 August 1845 – 10 November 1914) was a British hydraulic engineer who pioneered the development of urban-scale hydraulic power distribution systems. Ellington was managing director of the Hydraulic Engineering Co of ...
was responsible, and created the General Hydraulic Power Company, from which developed the
London Hydraulic Power Company The London Hydraulic Power Company was established in 1883 to install a hydraulic power network in London. This expanded to cover most of central London at its peak, before being replaced by electricity, with the final pump house closing in 1977. ...
. With the technology tested, and Ellington's model of marketing hydraulic power as a public utility having proved successful, Manchester Corporation obtained an
act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...
authorising it to build a network to distribute hydraulic power to the city in 1891. The corporation had the advantage over a private company in that it did not have to apply for permission to dig up the streets to install the network of high-pressure water mains. The pumping station was situated on Whitworth Street West, between Oxford Road railway station and the
Rochdale Canal The Rochdale Canal is in Northern England, between Manchester and Sowerby Bridge, part of the connected system of the canals of Great Britain. Its name refers to the town of Rochdale through which it passes. The Rochdale is a broad canal beca ...
. Its working pressure was set at , much higher than the of the London system, because it was expected that much of the power would be used for baling cotton, and the extra pressure was dictated by the design of existing baling equipment. Pressure was supplied by six triple-expansion steam engines, rated at each, and was maintained by two
hydraulic accumulator A hydraulic accumulator is a pressure storage reservoir in which an incompressible hydraulic fluid is held under pressure that is applied by an external source of mechanical energy. The external source can be an engine, a spring, a raised weight, ...
s, with pistons of diameter, a stroke of , and loaded with 127 tonnes. The equipment was supplied by Ellington's company. Installation was completed by 1894, and by 1895 there were 12 miles (19 km) of hydraulic pipes under the city streets, providing power for 247 machines. Demand was high, and a second pumping station commenced operation on 6 July 1899. It was constructed at Pott Street in
Ancoats Ancoats is an area of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England. It is located next to the Northern Quarter, the northern part of Manchester city centre. Historically in Lancashire, Ancoats became a cradle of the Industrial Revolution and has ...
, close to the Rochdale Canal, and had four pumping engines and two accumulators. The number of engines was increased to seven, six of and one of . A third pumping station was soon required and was constructed between Water Street and the
River Irwell The River Irwell ( ) is a tributary of the River Mersey in north west England. It rises at Irwell Springs on Deerplay Moor, approximately north of Bacup and flows southwards for to meet the Mersey near Irlam. The Irwell marks the boundary be ...
. It had two accumulators, and six steam engines. Coal for the engines was delivered by boat, and it began operating on 14 October 1909. Although all three pumping stations were situated beside waterways, its water supply was obtained from boreholes. The borehole at Whitworth Street was deep, and water at all three was raised by compressed air delivery systems, which lasted until 1948, when they were superseded by submersible pumps. By the 1930s, the system had grown to 35 miles (56 km) of pipes working some 2400 machines. Replacement of the steam engines began in 1922, starting at Whitworth Street. Four pumping engines were removed and replaced by electrically driven
centrifugal pump Centrifugal pumps are used to transport fluids by the conversion of rotational kinetic energy to the hydrodynamic energy of the fluid flow. The rotational energy typically comes from an engine or electric motor. They are a sub-class of dynamic ...
s. The work was completed by 1924. The following year, the remaining pumps were retained, but their steam cylinders were removed, and the flywheels replaced by a helical gear drive, to connect the pumps to electric motors. These were variable speed direct current devices, and a motor converter set had to be installed, to provide the low voltage DC supply from the incoming high voltage alternating current supply. The motor converter set was built in 1914, and was second-hand. The pumps at the Water Street station were converted to electrical operation in a similar manner soon afterwards.


Decline

Demand for hydraulic power began to fall in the 1930s, as
electric power Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions o ...
became more popular, but although the number of customers dropped, the supply pipes were extended until the system reached its maximum length of in 1948. The Pott Street pumping station closed in 1939. By the 1960s, the motor converter set was 50 years old, and most of the pumps were older still. The effects of corrosion on high-pressure water mains were also a cause for concern. In 1964, a similar system in Glasgow, opened a year later than the Manchester system using water at was switched off and some of its equipment was used to refit Whitworth Street station. The two centrifugal pumps and a converted steam pump were removed and replaced by two high-speed reciprocating pumps from Glasgow. Although not ideal for a diminishing network, because they were fixed speed devices, they provided a back-up system if there were problems at Water Street. By 1968, the length of pressure main was reduced to , and the Waterworks Committee gave notice to all 120 customers that the system would be shut down in four years' time. By that time, the stations were supplying 2 million
gallons The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use: *the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as , which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Austral ...
(9.1 Megalitres) of pressurised water per year, down from the 360 million gallons (1,600 Ml) supplied when the system was at its peak. The system was switched off on 28 December 1972, when the Chairman of the Waterworks Committee stopped the pumps at a ceremony.


Pumping stations

The three hydraulic power stations were located at Whitworth Street West, Pott Street and Water Street. The Whitworth Street station was opened in 1894 on the banks of the
Rochdale Canal The Rochdale Canal is in Northern England, between Manchester and Sowerby Bridge, part of the connected system of the canals of Great Britain. Its name refers to the town of Rochdale through which it passes. The Rochdale is a broad canal beca ...
, between the canal and Oxford Road railway station, immediately to the west of St Mary's Hospital. It was the first to be upgraded to electrical operation, but was little used after 1964, as it held equipment bought from Glasgow, which was only used as a backup. After the system closed, its contents were sold for scrap and the building was demolished. Pott Street station was in Ancoats and opened in 1899. It was not electrified, and closed in 1939. Its site and the site at Pott Street have disappeared under the car park at the Central Retail Park in Ancoats. The third station at Water Street, on the banks of the
River Irwell The River Irwell ( ) is a tributary of the River Mersey in north west England. It rises at Irwell Springs on Deerplay Moor, approximately north of Bacup and flows southwards for to meet the Mersey near Irlam. The Irwell marks the boundary be ...
was completed in 1909, and was designed in
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
style by architect Henry Price. The station was electrified in 1925, and was the location for the closing ceremony at the end of 1972. After closure, it was used as a workshop by the City College. In 1992, it was designated a
grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
structure, and since 1994 has been part of the
People's History Museum The People's History Museum (the National Museum of Labour History until 2001) in Manchester, England, is the UK's national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of working people i ...
complex. One of the pump sets has been moved to the Museum of Science and Industry, where it has been restored to working order and forms part of a display about hydraulic power. The pumps were made by the Manchester firm of Galloways. It is now referred to as the Bridge Street station, because the part of Water Street on which it stood has disappeared in the redevelopment of the area.


See also

*
London Hydraulic Power Company The London Hydraulic Power Company was established in 1883 to install a hydraulic power network in London. This expanded to cover most of central London at its peak, before being replaced by electricity, with the final pump house closing in 1977. ...
*
Liverpool Hydraulic Power Company Liverpool's Hydraulic Power Company were the operators of a public hydraulic power network supplying energy across the city of Liverpool, England, via a system of high-pressure water pipes from two pumping stations. The system was the third publi ...


Bibliography

* * *


References


External links


People's History Museum

Museum of Science & Industry: Water Power

Hydraulic power in London
from Subterranea Britannica including photographs. {{Hydraulics Hydraulics Subterranea of the United Kingdom Utilities of the United Kingdom