James Newlands

James Newlands (28 July 1813 – 15 July 1871), was a Scottish civil engineer who worked in Liverpool as the first Borough Engineer appointed in the United Kingdom, and is credited with designing and implementing the first integrated sewerage system in the world in 1848.

He was born in Edinburgh, the third of nine children of Thomas Newlands, a ropemaker, and Janet Mckay. After studying mathematics and natural philosophy at Edinburgh University, Newlands became apprenticed (c. 1827) to Edinburgh Corporation architect, Thomas Brown, and then worked for Professor Low of the University's school of agriculture. He married in 1845, was widowed in 1848 and never remarried, living in his later years with his sister, Jessie.

Newlands was one of a celebrated trio of pioneering officers appointed under a private Act, the Liverpool Sanatory Act by the Borough of Liverpool Health of Towns Committee. The other officers appointed under the Act were William Henry Duncan, Medical Officer for Health, and Thomas Fresh, Inspector of Nuisances (an early antecedent of the environmental health officer). One of five applicants for the post, Newlands was appointed Borough Engineer of Liverpool on 26 January 1847. He was paid a salary of £700, plus a horse and 'vehicle'.

He made a careful and exact survey of Liverpool and its surroundings, involving somewhere about 3,000 geodetical observations, and resulting in the construction of a contour map of the town and its neighbourhood, on a scale of one inch to 20 feet. From this elaborate survey Newlands proceeded to lay down a comprehensive system of outlet and contributory sewers, and main and subsidiary drains, to an aggregate extent of nearly 300 miles. The details of this projected system he presented to the Corporation in April 1848.

In July 1848 James Newlands' sewer construction programme began, and over the next eleven years 86 miles of new sewers were built. Between 1856 and 1862 another 58 miles were added. This programme was completed in 1869. Before the sewers were built, life expectancy in Liverpool was an appalling 19 years, and by the time Newlands retired it had more than doubled.

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