THE CONTROL OF RIVERS 263
ENCROACHMENT ON VALLEYS
In the past, valleys were recognised as liable to flooding, and
men established their farms, homes, and other buildings out of
reach of the water, leaving a wide valley, tolerably free of obstruc-
tion, for the floods to pass down. During the industrial revolution
and thereafter, encouraged no doubt by a reduction in the occurr-
ence of small floods by reason of certain local improvements,
people have encroached on the valley flood plains with factories,
roads, houses, and reservoirs; so that the relief formerly afforded
to big floods is sadly reduced. Not only so, but the safety of these
floodable areas is always jeopardised by floods, and much valuable
plant and property may be endangered. Lands that should have
remained as meadows, such as now exist beside the Ouse
between Huntingdon and Godmanchester, no longer exist at many
places that now fear damage every time the nearby river floods.
Such lands formerly existed in the Lee Valley between Bow Bridge
and Stratford Market; and the open playing fields on Hackney
Marshes are some indication of what formerly existed throughout
the valley, but at a different level.
What has been done cannot at all readily be undone, and the
remedy in this last-mentioned case has already been referred to;
the cutting of an alternative relief channel. Passing as this will do
under roads and railways, and beside waterworks and industrial
establishments, its planning, design, and execution will be slow and
expensive.
EXISTING ADMINISTRATIONS
From being nobody's business, the control of rivers had evolved
through several stages to their present management by Catchment
Boards.1 For many years the control of a river, and its enjoyment,
or otherwise, remained entirely with the riparian frontagers. Each
frontager accepted these conditions, but his methods of dealing
with any troubles were bound to differ from those proposed, or
adopted, by his neighbours. In any event, there were no adequate
funds available for remedial works on any scale calculated to pro-
vide lasting value. Local groups of interested parties were there-
fore set up, from Tudor times onwards, known as Commissions
of Sewers, and, much later, as Drainage Boards, with powers to
levy rates, to order works to be done, or execute them in default,
and to maintain those works. They appear to have been a great
improvement, but to have functioned spasmodically, and locally;
and were again handicapped by inadequate funds.
In 1877, recognising that one river system needed a uniform
overall control, the various Drainage Boards in Somerset were
empowered to set up a Commission to look after all the arterial
1 River Boards are now being formed, under the Act of 1948, to supersede most of the
former Catchment Boards.