On this day … 11 September 1858

The Preston Guardian reported that a drinking fountain had been erected in the Market Place. The moving force behind its installation and other drinking fountains soon after built around town was the temperance movement and Joseph Livesey.

The Market Place drinking fountain was provided by the corporation. Others were provided in that year, paid for by Livesey himself, in Fishergate, Church Street, Lancaster Road, Lune Street, North Road and Marsh Lane.

Preston was leading the way, for it was not until the following year that a public drinking fountain was built in London, following the establishment of the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association that year.

Livesey recorded the part he played in the spread of these drinking fountains, in his usual self-congratulating style, in his autobiography:

‘I have always felt it a pleasure—as I think every citizen ought—to render any little service I could for the improvement of our town.

‘Formerly we had a number of pumps in the public streets for the use of the inhabitants, but they are nearly all removed, and so far their only substitutes are the eight fountains which I have provided in different parts of the town.

‘These are preachers of temperance day and night to all the passers by, and thousands slake their thirst at these constantly running streams, who might otherwise be tempted into the beer-house. I felt anxious to erect a superior one in Avenham Park, but after naming it several times I met with very little encouragement.

‘… At Bowness Bay, near the landing of the Windermere steamers, I erected a beautiful fountain which is supplied with excellent water from the grounds of Messrs. Crossley, of Halifax. There is a nice fountain on Douglas pier erected by my eldest son.

‘I name these that others, possessing means, may be induced to do the same; and if temperance men were sufficiently alive to the advantages of water fountains there would not be a town or a village, or any public grounds or buildings without them.’

A particularly splendid example was built a few years later, but it lasted only a short time, as Hewitson recorded in his History of Preston:

‘In 1871 a somewhat massive, elaborate drinking fountain, made of white marble, red granite, and freestone, was erected in Lancaster-road, at the south-eastern corner of St. Thomas’s church-yard … In the winter of 1881 the water with which this fountain was supplied was shut off, owing to the annoying way mischievous children played with it. The fountain is now in a dilapidated state.’

Others survived for longer (see Fishergate picture) and many will remember the drinking fountains that could be found still operating in Preston’s parks until near the end of the last century.

The drinking fountain in Bowness that Livesey paid for was an especially ornate construction. It was designed by his youngest son, James, an engineer by training, and impressed the Illustrated London News, which carried an article on its design and construction accompanied by an illustration.

Both the temperance movement and the evangelical movement promoted the building of drinking fountains in the second half of the nineteenth century. The temperance advocates usually sited theirs opposite public houses, whereas the evangelicals favoured churchyards.

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Sources
Joseph Livesey’s Autobiography
Hewitson’s History of Preston
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_fountain