Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough - West Horsley
This is the seventh in our series of caches placed close to or associated with drinking fountains or animal troughs. The cache is located near to West Horsley near to an example of a Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association granite cattle troughs.
It was erected by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association in 1909, under the will of Laura M. Fielder. This is the first example of a trough that that is still filled with water and connected to the mains.
The Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association was an association set up in London by Samuel Gurney an MP and philanthropist and Edward Thomas Wakefield, a barrister in 1859 to provide free drinking water. Originally called the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association it changed its name to include cattle troughs in 1867, to also support animal welfare.
Water provision in the nineteenth century was from nine private water companies each with a geographic monopoly, which provided inadequate quantities of water which was often contaminated, as was famously discovered by John Snow during the 1854 cholera epidemic.
Population growth in London had been very rapid (more than doubling between 1800 and 1850) without an increase in infrastructure investment. Legislation in the mid nineteenth century gradually improved the situation; the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was formed, water filtration was made compulsory, and water intakes on the Thames were forced to be moved above the sewage outlets.
In this environment the public drinking fountain movement began, initially in Liverpool where the local government was granted the ability to buy out the private water companies in 1847. It built the first public baths and then encouraged philanthropic public drinking water fountains. This was taken up by Samuel Gurney.
The surviving cattle troughs are mainly large granite ones, in many cases planted with flowers. Earlier designs were of cast iron or zinc lined timber, but both were too easily damaged.
The cache has a log book and a pencil
If any body would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Merstham Mafia know first so he can keep track of the cache numbers and names to avoid duplication