Note 141 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED. (continued 2)
Reading edition
To the memory of this great and public-spirited citizen I never saw any other memorial. Such a benefactor to the city ought to have had a statue of gold placed in the centre of the Royal Exchange.
He was a native of Denbigh, in North Wales, and a citizen and goldsmith of London. Though there were three Acts of Parliament empowering the freemen of London to cut through lands, and bring a river from any part of Middlesex or Hertfordshire, the project had always been considered as impracticable, till Sir Hugh Middleton undertook it. He made choice of two springs, one in the parish of Amwell, in Hertfordshire, the other near Ware, each of them about twenty miles from town. Having united their streams with immense labour and expense, he conveyed them to London. This most arduous and useful work was begun on the 20th of February 1608, and brought into the reservoir, at Islington, on Michaelmas day, 1613. Like many other projectors, he ruined his private fortune by his public spirit. King James I., however, created him a baronet; and his descendants, in lieu of a very considerable estate, had the honour of being called Sirs. For the benefit of the poor members of the Goldsmiths' Company, he left a share in his New River water; and his portrait is still preserved in their hall.
The seventy-two shares into which this great liquid property was divided, originally sold for one hundred pounds each, and for thirty years afforded scarce any advantage to the proprietors. In the year 1780, shares were sold at nine and ten thousand pounds each; and their price is increasing in proportion to the increase of the dividends, by which their value is regulated.