Wakefield Museums and Castles

'I am informed that my letters have done a world of good.'

In the 1840s, Charles Waterton wrote many letters to the Wakefield Examiner and the Gardener’s Chronicle. He was highlighting the dangers of industrial pollution for wildlife. He reflects on his campaign in a letter to his friend Alexander Fletcher.

Waterton also had a long running legal battle with Edward ‘Soapy’ Simpson’s Walton soap works. Soap making in Victorian times involved boiling animal fat. This created clouds of hydrochloric acid gas. These turned into acid rain over Waterton’s nature park.

He wrote: 

'No pen can describe the wretched appearance of the once flourishing and beautiful groves of fir trees at the grotto.  Every time the wind is in the north, it brings additional destruction to them from Simpson's chimnies.'

Waterton eventually won the pollution case. An injunction was served in 1849. The soap works closed its operations at the Walton site. They moved closer to Wakefield town centre.

Waterton’s legal campaign was possibly the first time Victorian industry was challenged in court for damaging the environment. The Alkali Act in 1863 made factories more accountable for their pollution. It came nearly 15 years after Waterton’s legal case.

Wakefield Museums and Castles have over 150 letters written by Charles Waterton in our collection. We also have some of his notebooks.