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A report from 1965 from the Birmingham Public Works Department describes how the city’s rivers had been ‘improved’. “During the 19th century the land adjoining the brook was built up in a completely uncontrolled way … being enclosed between brick retaining walls without much regard for the size of the channels; for long lengths the buildings went over it. Flooding was inevitable and, by the early 1900s, had reached serious proportions. … The improvements of 16 miles of the Rivers Tame and Rea was begun in 1930 under a scheme to cost £1.9 million at the time (over £100 million today according to the Bank of England inflation calculator).” In places where the rivers flowed though built-up areas the channel was made deeper so it could carry more water. In areas where the river flowed through a more natural landscape, new concrete and brick channels were built to contain the water. Today, millions of pounds are being spent removing these concrete river channels and restoring the rivers’ natural courses and floodplains.
Before mains sewers were installed in Birmingham, waste disposal was haphazardly dealt with through open drains, cesspools, middens and the removal of ‘nightsoil’ by hand and cart. By the mind 1800s a new system of underground pipes removed human and industrial waste from the city to an outlet at Saltley, straight into the River Tame. The land downstream from this sewage outlet was owned by Charles Adderley of Hams Hall at Lea Marston who took the Birmingham city authorities to court over the nuisance (a legal term to describe pollution) caused by the new sewage outlet. The court heard that the water had become so polluted that “fish could no longer live there, cattle could no longer drink of the water, and sheep could no longer be washed in the river”. Reference: Leslie Rosenthal ‘Economic efficiency, nuisance, and sewage: New lessons from Attorney-General v. Council of the Borough of Birmingham, 1858-95’, The Journal of Legal Studies, Vol 36, No. 1 (2007).
New sewage facilities at Minworth were built to process the city’s sewage, including a system to burn the gasses it produces to generate electricity.
This plan prepared in 1914 by John D. Watson, engineer to the Birmingham Tame and Rea District Drainage Board, shows proposals to ‘improve’ the natural course of the River Tame in the valley between Nechells and Curdworth.