“Peter Morice, a Dutchman, in 1580 explained before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen his invention for raising the Thames water high enough to supply the upper parts of the City, and threw a jet of water over the steeple of St. Magnus Church. Before this time no such thing had been known in England. Whereupon the City granted him a lease for 500 years of the Thames water, and the places where his mills stood, and of one of the arches of old London Bridge, at 10s. yearly. Two years afterwards they granted him another arch on the same terms. He received large grants from the City to help him to complete this curious system of hydraulic mechanism. In the Act for rebuilding the City after the Great Fire it was provided that Thomas Morris should have power to rebuild with timber his water-house for supplying the City (18 & 19 Charles II. c. 8). The works continued in the family till 1701, when they were sold for £36,000 to Richard Soames, and afterwards became the property of a Company. On June 23rd, 1767, the fifth arch was granted for the use of the Company. By Act of Parliament, 3 Geo. IV. cap. 109, July 26th, 1822, the Acts relating to the Company were repealed. The Company were to be paid £10,000, and their works to be removed by, or at the expense of, the New River Company.” (Remembrancia.)

This invention and the subsequent supply of the whole City with water laid on, killed the Company of Water-bearers.

“The ‘Rules, Ordinances, and Statutes made by the Rulers, Wardens, and Fellowship of the Brotherhood of Saint Cristofer of the Water-bearers of London,’ are dated October 20th, 1496 (Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society, vol. vi. p. 55). Their hall was situated in Bishopsgate Street, near Sun Street, now numbered 143 and 144, Bishopsgate Street Without:—‘Robert Donkin, Citizen and Merchant Taylor of London, left by his will, dated December 1st, 1570, that messuage or howse which he purchased of the Company of Water-bearers on the 9th of October, 1568.’”