Something unusual started to happen to water in the 19th century. What had
been a free public resource started to be privatised. There were very good
reasons why something that fell freely from the sky now needed to be managed and
paid for. In water we find a perfect metaphor to describe the relentless
advances and commercialisation that have signified the passage of our modern
age.
The early years of the 19th century marked the beginnings of a new industrial
period in producing clean drinking water not witnessed since Roman times. It
started in Paisley Scotland, 1804 when John Gibb constructed the first water
filtering system by the town's reservoir using concentric circles of sand to
sieve the dirty water. He built this for his bleachery, but demand from the
township encouraged him to sell his surplus house-to-house by cart. Two years
later Paris had devised a much larger sand and charcoal water purification
plant. Water was diverted from the Seine and left to settle for half a day; then
it was filtered through sponges for about 4 hours and another 6 hours through
sand and charcoal. Horses worked in continuous shifts to pump the water through
each stage. Remarkably it continued to operate for another 50 years.
The new industrial age in Europe was attracting labour to the cities and
towns. This dramatic shift and increases in populations created concentrations
of human and commercial pollution, some at alarming and unprecedented rates.
This environmental degradation impacted on community water sources and brought
on harmful diseases. Today over 70,000 contaminants have been found in drinking
water. The most dangerous are the infectious and fatal diseases cholera and
typhoid. These diseases were becoming more prevalent as people lived in closer
proximity to one another. Due to escalating infections New York City established
a daily count of gastro-intestinal deaths in 1832, as over 3,000 of the city's
citizens died annually because of these water bourn scourges.
The cause of these water bourn diseases were not discovered until 1884 when
Dr Robert Koch observed the micro-organisms of the cholera bacteria sampled from
the polluted Elbe River. He puzzled that the citizens living upriver in Hamburg
suffered a higher incidence of mortality than those down stream. This contrary
phenomenon was revealed to be due to the township of Altona installing a
municipal sand filtering system that removed most of the pathogens even though
their water was more polluted. Thirty years earlier in London John Snow had
tracked a cholera outbreak in Broad Street to a single well infecting the
immediate community who drew their water there. Beyond the obvious malodorous
appearance of fetid water and perhaps anecdotal reports of linking water to
sickness the prevailing belief was that it was the air, not the water that was
the agent of death.
The need for urban populations to get clean drinking water gained urgency
during the 19th century. Europe's largest city, London with a population of two
million inhabitants installed a massive sand filtering system in 1829; the sand
covered a number of hectares to a depth of one metre. In twenty years London was
consuming 200 million litres per day, this would quadruple in fifty years to
serve over four million inhabitants. By the mid 1850s cholera epidemics, which
had first started in 1830 had killed over 30,000 Londoners. Diseases like
cholera, typhoid and dysentery were harboured in the rudimentary sewers, in some
parts of London a dilapidated remnant from the Roman days. The stench from
cesspools and blocked drains created such foul conditions that even explosions
of the putrefying gas were not uncommon occurrences. It reached an apogee with
the 'great stink' in 1858 when the Thames was so polluted thousands were forced
to flee London. Parliament situated by the Thames, barely survived the miasmic
emissions, legislating to urgently commence building an efficient city-wide
water and sewage complex. Some 2,100 kilometres of underground water pipelines
and sewerage tunnels would plumb London in the coming years.
By the end of the century improvements were not only made for the inward
transportation of fresh water and the outward disposal of unclean water, but
additional chemical and technological methods were applied to cleanse the water.
The Netherlands town of Oudshoon was the first to introduce ozonation in1893.
This became Europe's most popular purifier, even though chlorination, first
applied in London in 1905 was a far more effective disinfectant and cheaper too.
The fact that chlorine was used as a poisonous chemical agent during WWI drew
much suspicion from Continental Europeans. The same stratagems used in the
ancient world to clean water were also adopted using modern technologies and
mass production: settling pools to let sediment fall; coagulants like aluminium
sulphate, lime and organic polymers to solidify pollutants; disinfectants like
chlorine and ozone; aeration to sterilise, and flocculants to remove fine
suspended particles.
A complimentary phenomenon also emerged in Europe during the 18th century to
become new industry; this was the renewed interest in personal hygiene. Personal
hygiene also shared a close collaboration with health and water. Rehabilitating
the spas and baths the Romans originally erected 2,000 years earlier they became
places of pilgrimage for health and relaxation. Some were gaining fame as water
hospitals such as Contrex in France, renown since the early 1700s as a curative
for kidney stones. By the 19th century numerous spa resorts were attracting the
infirm and the idle vacationer. Many of these resorts and springs live on today
as familiar European brand names Evian, San Pelligrino (pilgrimage), Badan Badan
(bath bath), Perrier and Vittel; in the US, Poland Springs and White Rock; even
fledging Australia built health hotels at sites at Hepburn Springs and Medlow
Bath.
The spa towns erected extravagant resort palaces and became the preserve of
the wealthy leisured class. The resort owners and spring licensees later
discovered additional income could be earned by bottling their health waters for
loyal patrons to continue their treatment at home, as well as to find new users
through export and referrals. Originally this mineral water was sold in
stoneware jars, porcelain demi-jars and later glass containers.
Evian appears to have been the first in Europe to sell their water in
earthenware bottles in 1830. It was not until 1920 they moved to packaging their
water in glass bottles. Evian first opened as a thermal bath in 1824, situated
on the private estate of the king of Sardinia. In 1826 he granted permission to
sell the water. A company was formed in 1829 to start retailing its vernal
waters. For Evian water is relatively young water deriving from snow and rains
that fell upon the French Alps fifteen years ago. Compared to water from the
Libyan aquifer that is water is one million years old, creeping northwards from
the Equator at the speed of growing grass. While Evian was the first European
spring to commercialise water to the north in Vosges, Dr Louis Bouloumie
obtained the legal permit to access the water at Vittel. Vittel first bottled in
1855.
In the south of France Perrier was named after Dr Loius Perrier who bought
the Vergeze spa site with a local farmer in 1888, gaining full control in 1898.
Hannibal used the spring in 218 BCE on his advance to Rome and it remained free
for use until Napoleon III sold the rights to it in 1863, later acquired by
Perrier. St John Harmsworth went there to recuperate in 1903 and saw the
opportunity to market these effervescent waters. He bought the spring from Dr
Perrier and named it after him to imbue it with the aura of medical authority.
He had the iconic green bottle designed to reflect the Indian clubs or weighted
skittles he used during his convalescing exercises. While the French were the
first to commercially exploit their water resources other countries soon
followed. Malvern in the Costwolds was the first English enterprise to bottle in
1851, debuting at the Great Exhibition in London. San Pelligrino packed 35, 343
bottles during its first year in 1899. Sao Lourence, Brazil in 1890. By 1908 it
was being exported throughout the world to even remote places like Peru, China
and Australia.
In the US Saratoga Springs began selling their water in 1820 and were
followed by other springs in upstate New York. Hiram Rick who owned the Poland
Springs hostelry and water source in Maine was one of the earliest to sell his
'efficacious waters' in 11 litre jugs (3 gallon) in 1859.
To replicate the healthy effervescent effects of mineral water Dr Joseph
Priestly invented the first aeration machinery in 1767 to produce carbonated
beverages. Before the first natural bottled mineral was brought to market a US
patent had been registered to make an artificial mineral water in 1810 and in
1837 the first bottle of soda water was sold.
Demand for natural bottled mineral water quietly grew during the first 50
years of the twentieth century, remaining primarily in the realm of the rich. It
was not until the 1950s that mineral water gained a new lease of life with mass
bottling and lower costs, making it more accessible to a wider audience.
Clever marketing strategies were needed to create a demand amongst the new
and prosperous consumer society. Evian again proved to be a pioneer company
during the 1950s when they mass marketed their water to young mothers and
infants selling Evian water with the powerful claim - 'to help lactating mothers
and important minerals for infants'. The soft pink and blue pastel colours on
the Evian label were designed to symbolise purity and innocence. Mass marketing
to young mothers and a new generation of consumers showed great prescience as
this cohort turned out to be the baby-boomer generation who took Evian to world
leadership in bottled mineral water.
.
The first signal that began a
marketing revolution - redefining mineral water from a health beverage to
healthy refreshment - was started by Vittel. When they launched the first
plastic mineral water bottle they capitalised on this innovative moment to
reposition their brand as representing 'vitality'. This subtle change was to
have enormous implications in popularising mineral water, taking it from an
expensive and benign therapeutic drink to refreshment and everyday use. Today it
is the second most traded legal commodity to oil.
It is estimated to be over 10,000 brands of bottled water throughout the
world today, of which 3,000 are mineral and spring water sourced. Most consumers
perceive it to be healthier and more nutritious than tap water, a residual
memory from past folklore, publicity and marketing hubris. Although numerous
tests demonstrate this is not the case, with quite a number of bottled waters
containing greater concentrations of threatening contaminants than municipal tap
water. Mineral water's appeal is more than its perceived functional values, but
in a mythology deeply embedded in our cultural psyche. It has almost magical
qualities, with an occult association of primeval springs, lakes and caves from
where it flows. There is something wonderfully mysterious about spring water
that has been purified and yet absorbed the mineral essence of the land.
Water is also the most pliable of substances, slipping easily between gas,
liquid and solid in our natural world. It has also proven to be equally
adaptable to the inventive world of product marketing, where thousands of brand
stories have been developed to differentiate one product from another. Brands of
water are celebrated on their geographic origins, role as a lifestyle accessory,
its exclusiveness, a status symbol, its purity and naturalness, great taste and
thirst quenching qualities, a safe substitute to tainted tap water and a healthy
alternative to calorific soft drinks.
But there is a paradox that seems almost poetic in the Age of Aquarius, even
more whimsical than the reverse-spelling of the Evian name - and it speaks to
the very nature of water itself. For whilst bountiful and at the same time
precious we invest much in a substance that when consumed in its ideal form
should be colourless, odourless and tasteless. Yet we are willing to pay up to a
million times more for bottled mineral water than clean treated water that runs
freely from our taps. Therein lies the final paradox, the commonest of
commodities has become today a valued branded product, a personal symbol of good
living and discernment.
© Chris Middleton August 22 2005
Chris Middleton
of Fountainhead is a Senior Adviser for FineWaters stationed in Sydney,
Australia. Chris does drink trend analysis, new product and brand development.
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The Water Connoisseur
