Thames Embankment.

A fine watercolour on paper of the proposed designs for the Thames Embankment - measuring 36 x 21 cms. approx. This picture has at one time either been mounted in an album or on board, judging from the edge glue mark. It has a very small nick at the lower edge towards the right corner visible in the attached image, but apart from that it is in excellent condition, indistinctly signed in red ink and dated '1863?' in the lower right corner. *CHARLES HENRY DRIVER (1832-1900), eminent architect of the Victorian Gothic era. He was a pioneer in the use of ornamental iron work and an authority on its casting and manufacture. His work in this field is strikingly seen in the Thames pumping stations at Crossness and Abbey Mill. In these two projects and with his work on the monuments and jetties of the Thames Embankment he collaborated with Sir Joseph Bazalgette. The above painting of the latter work is signed and d of the work in 1864. He painted in both oils and watercolour. **The Southern Outfall Works, as the Crossness complex was originally called, wasy opened on 4 April 1865, by Edward, Prince of Wales, attended by Prince AlfredDuke of Cambridge, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and the Lord Mayor of London, and many other persons of rank. Following an address by Joseph Bazalgette, the Royal party toured the works and reservoirs, and the Prince then turned the wheel which started the engines. At Crossness, the incoming liquid was raised some 30 to 40 feet (912 m) by the application of four large steam driven pumps. The engines were of enormous size and power, built by James Watt & Co. to Joseph Bazalgette's designs and specification, and were named "Victoria", "Prince Consort", "Albert Edward" and "Alexandra". At 11 revolutions per minute, 6 tons (approximately 1,500 imp gal or 6,800 l) of sewage per stroke per engine were pumped up into a 27-million-imperial-gallon (120,000 m3) reservoir, and was released into the Thames during the ebbing tide. The steam required to power these engines was raised by 12 Cornish boilers with single "straight-through" flues situated in the Boiler House to the south of the Engine House, and which consumed 5,000 tons of Welsh coal annually. The Crossness Works merely disposed of raw sewage into the river seawards, and in 1882, a Royal Commission recommended that the solid matter in the sewage should be separated out, and that only the liquid portion remaining should be allowed, as a temporary measure, to pass into the river. In 1891, sedimentation tanks were added to the works, and the sludge was carried by steam boats and dumped further out into the estuary, at sea. During the 1880s, chemical engineer William Webster developed a system for the electrolytic purification of sewage (patent application filed on 22 December 1887; US patent awarded on 19 February 1889), trialled in 1888 at the Southern Outfall works which had been built by his father's firm over 20 years earlier. By 1897, additional pumping capacity was needed, and four extra pumps operated by triple-expansion steam engines were installed in an extension, designed to fit in with Bazalgette's main engine house, to the north of the older building. Later, in 1899, a further increase in London's population necessitated an increase in the efficiency of the original Watt engines, and considerable alteration to their design was carried out by Goodfellow and Co of Hyde, Manchester, for London County Council. They were converted from simple to compound engines with the original single cylinders were augmented by high and intermediate pressure cylinders. The additional steam required was provided by replacing the earlier Cornish boilers by more efficient Lancashire boilers with double flues and in 1901 the improved engines were fully working. In 1913, the triple expansion steam engines were replaced by diesel engines, which are still to be seen in the triple expansion engine house, and by 1956, the.…