By Isle of Wight Observer
On 31st July, 1880, Seaview resident W E. Matthews wrote to the Isle of Wight Observer criticising the Island’s drainage system, arguing that foul smells, illness and disease were caused by poorly designed sewer outlets discharging onto the foreshore rather than into the sea. He was clearly an armchair sewage engineer.
Sir, – In your journal of last week there is a reference to the bad smells occasioned by the ventilators from the drains laid-down by the Local Board. It is what I always predicted from the time the Local Board undertook the drainage of the parish; and I believe I have said a hundred times, and shall perhaps say a hundred times more, that it results – if not entirely – yet principally from the erroneous manner of discharge on the foreshore. I some years ago pointed out, in the columns of the Observer, how I believed drains, sewers, and all outlets into the sea ought to be constructed. Of course my plan was “unscientific,” and everything nowadays must be “scientifically” constructed, and when anything is at fault send and get a London engineer and a London doctor to enlighten the public with their wisdom. All very well, Sir, if they only knew how to do their own drains; but just read a letter in the Standard of Monday, the 26th inst., and then say, “Physician, heal thyself!” I avow my conviction, Sir, that there is not, in this enlightened age, a single sewer in all England, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End, that has its outlet constructed in a proper manner, and that to the want of this in obvious instances is due illness, sickness, and death; but then “scientific” men construct the works, and by means of ventilators and shafts “death enters our houses and is come up into our windows.” I should never allow one of the abominable things on our property. The Surveyor came some years ago and wanted to know where he could fix one, and I told him candidly not on my property; if he did I should knock it down and stop it up, and the project was abandoned.
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I am, Sir, yours truly,
W. E. MATTHEWS.
Sea View, July 29, 1880.