Fighting for Thirlmere: the Roots of Environmentalism

ESSAY A 19th-century reservoirin the Fighting for Thirlmere- idyllic countryside of the English LakeDistrict sparked the origins of modern environmentalactivism. The Roots of Environmentalism Harriet Ritvo Stretched placidly in the heart of the tion, to minimize Manchester'simpact on features of the l9th-century landscape. English Lake District, Thirlmere people, property,and landscape. Resistancewas inevitable,but normally only hardlypresents the stereotypicalface Of course,this was not the only way to on thepart of peoplewhose properties would of the industrialrevolution. On the con- look at it. Theprogressive industrialists who be directlyaffected or of rate-payerswho trary,with its sheet of watpr,its surround- ranmid-Victorian Manchester did not think wouldhave to foot the bill (1). Whatmade ing evergreens,and its lack of development of themselvesas Vandalsor Goths.Not long the Thirlmerescheme especially noteworthy or pollution,it seems to fit an alternative beforethe Thirlmerescheme was formulat- in its own time, andespecially predictive of stereotype.Yet the process by which this ed theythought that they had provided their the shapeof futureconflicts, was the promi- lake assumedthis apparentlypleasant form dynamiccity with an adequatesupply of nence of interestsunconnected with proper- provokeddecades of conflict in the late high-qualitywater by buildinga series of ty in thenarrowest sense. Thirlmere lay close l9th century,and the focus of resistance reservoirsin the nearbyPeak District.But to the centerof the LakeDistrict, which had was the "industrialization"of the lake.That even as this massiveproject drew near com- for a centuryoccupied a pre-eminentposi- conflict still reverberatesmore than a cen- pletion politiciansand engi- I _ turylater, both with referenceto Thirlmere neersbegan to realizethat the _ in particularand, more generally,as con- industrialdemand for water _l servationand other environmentalissues had outstrippedpredictions. _| havebecome of increasingconcern through- In addition,increasing water out the world. consumptionin working-class First,the story.During 1876, residents homesnot onlyreflected popu- of Cumberlandand Westmorland gradually lation growth,but also rising became awarethat the pristinebeauty of standardsof hygiene.A large one of theircherished lakes was underse- new sourceof waterhad to be riousthreat. Manchester, the largestindus- found. trial city in England,was planningto con- After careful deliberation, vertThirlmere into a reservoir:to damit, to Thirlmereemerged as the like- raise its level as much as 50 feet, and to liest site for a new reservoir.It pipe its waters 100 miles southeastto the lay within a circle of steep cisternsof Manchester.Not only wouldthe hills that would be relatively Thirlmerein| 1853. completeddam submergethe naturalout- easy to flood andits high ele- line of the lake, along with the dramatic vation would simplify the technicalchal- tion in thepantheon of Englishnatural beau- cliffs that surroundedit, but it was feared lenges of the 100-mile-long pipeline. ty, evenbefore its sacredstatus was consoli- that the new shorelinewould be liable to Thirlmere'swater was pure enough for datedby the poetryof WilliamWordsworth recede duringdry seasons, exposing large Manchester'stextile industry,and it was and his fellow Lake poets. Further,by the tractsof unsightlyand smelly mud. An ad potable without additional treatment. middleof theVictorian periodS many writers, hoc group, called the ThirlmereDefence Further,its shores were undevelopedand politicians,and otherswith readyaccess to Association,organized opposition to what lightly populated.Once the decision had the press had become summerresidents of became known as the Thirlmerescheme. been made, the ManchesterCorporation the LakeDistrict; paradoxically, chiefly be- Not only local residents,but lovers of na- moved vigorously to purchase as much cause of the constructionof a railroadthat ture,beauty, and heritagefrom throughout propertyas possiblebefore its intentionsbe- Wordsworthhad opposeda generationear- the English-speakingworld, rallied round. came public, hoping (vainly,as it turned lier. And perhaps most important, the In 1878, againstformidable odds, they out) to forestallboth "sentimental"resist- ThirlmereScheme was broachedat a time managedto stall the legislationnecessary ance and inflatedasking prices. In the endS whenthe notion of publicownership of land- to empowerthe ManchesterCorporation however,perseverance and ready money tri- scapewas beingexpanded and consolidatedS (thatis, the body that ran the city govern- umphedover all obstacles.In 1894,the first so that it was both newly potentand newly ment) to purchasethe propertyand ease- Thirlmerewater arrived in Manchester,ac- vague. mentsrequired for this massiveenterprise. companiedby officialdinners for the elite at In tandem with organizedattempts to Nevertheless,the legislationpassed easily eachend of the pipeline,with fireworksand protectphysical access to privateproperty, when it was reintroducedin 1879. After dancingin the streetsfor the hoi polloi. via rightsof way or publicfootpaths, came that, all that remainedwas rearguardac- But the mere fact of controversy-of al- assertions of a new kind of spectatorial ternativeperspectives-does not constitute rightor lien on land.It was claimedthat the the majorsignificance of this case, for the The author is in the Department of History, citizenryas a whole (the nation,that is to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Victoriansor for us. Similarlymassive proj- say) had a vested interestin preservingthe MA 02139, USA. E-mail: [email protected] ects, most notablyrailroads, were common traditional appearance of certain rural 1510 6 JUNE 2003 VOL 300 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org This content downloaded on Wed, 6 Feb 2013 16:02:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions will tend to injure or contami- E S S A Y landscapes.As one newspapereditorial put (more than a million comparedwith mere cernsof remoterconstituencies. As the Lord it, "The lake countrybelongs in a sense, tens of thousands)further served as the ba- Mayorput it at the oSicial openingof the andthat the widest andbest sense, not to a sis for insinuatingthat the ostensible de- works,"Of course the inhabitantsof thatdis- few ownersof mountainpasture but to the fendersof Thirlmerewere really arrogant trictdid not desireto see theircountry disfig- people of England"(2). elitists. This elite wished to preservea re- uredSbut they forgot,what ... they oughtto Contemporariesrecognized the novelty of source for their own trivial pleasure of havetaken into consideration,the objectthat suchclaims. Thus, a generationlater, the pro- which the laboringpeople of Lancashire Manchesterhad in view. Sentimentalism... jectors of the Hetch Hetchy reservoirin (the county in which Manchesterwas lo- oughtto havegiven way in the face ofthe ne- California scrutinized records of the cated)had more seriousneed. cessityof confernngupon a largeand crowd- Thirlmerecontroversy, as they formulated They even challengedtheir critics on ed populationthe inestimableboon of a good theirown responseto the oppositionmount- aesthetic grounds, asserting that, rather supplyof water"(5). Such statements,with ed by the SierraClub. In additionto defend- than impairingthe Cumbrianlandscape, theirbland self-confidenceand their good- ing the threatenedlake itself, opponentsof their works would "enhancethe natural natured3condescending dismissal of counter- Manchester'splan made what might now be beautiesin that district"(3). The carriage vailingconcerns, offered the preservationists calledan ecologicalargument, in whichthe road to be built along with the proposed onlythe coldestkind of comfort. value of Thirlmerederived from its integral waterworks would, in addition, make Hindsightdoes not help much in recon- positionwithin a moreextensive landscape or Thirlmeremore accessible,so thatthe best ciling these positions.The assessmentof a natural system. From this perspective, views of the lake, which had previously policy or set of actionsmust depend to some Thirlmerewas a vitallink in a chainthat con- been restricted to intrepid pedestrians, extenton the rangeof availableoptions. In nectedthc entireregion, not onlybecause of wouldbecome available to less enterprising 1878,the most compellingalternative to the its geographicalposition, but because the visitors.And while makingthe lake more Thirlmerescheme was the Thirlmerenon- preservationof everypart was essential to the beautifuland more open to the admiring scheme,that is, the preservationof the sta- preservationof the whole.The fact thatthe gaze, Manchester'splan would paradoxical- tus quo.Of course,that option no longerex- Lake Districthad managedto preserveits ly also preserveThirlmere from the depre- ists. InsteadSpossible alternatives are repre- dations of tourism and ordi- sentedby the otherCumbrian lakes, which za:EiEb5 # P _ S g | e nary commerce.AS one engl- exemplifyvarious histories of exploitation E 0 X neer pointed out, "in orderto and development.Next to Thirlmerein its L maintainthe purityof the wa- currentincarnation, undistinguished but rel- ter ..., the Corporationhave ativelyundisturbed some of them seem to purchasedthe whole drainage have sufferedat least equal disfigurement, ground of the lake, and it is andperhaps in not so good a cause. their interest to prevent the Aroundthe worldSdams remainamong erection of buildings,or lead the most controversialof public works workings,or of anythingwhich

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