Wallace Fountains

Some cities have signifiers. Not sure that’s the right word but I haven’t used it before and it’s always good to add to the exiguous vocabulary deployed here.

London has its red public telephone boxes, New York its fire hydrants and Paris its drinking fountains; not the elaborate ones a few of which you can read about in yesterday’s post.

You may be aware that oil and gas prices have gone up because of America’s ill-considered war with Iran. Wars (and pandemics) skew prices. For four months at the end of 1870 Paris was besieged – the last gasp of the Franco -Prussian war. More than a hundred people escaped by balloon but some British citizens stayed, including Richard Wallace.

Water in Paris had effectively been privatised and the destruction of aqueducts carrying water to fountains made it scarce and expensive. Poor people were reduced to drawing dirty water from the Seine. Richard Wallace had already set up two field hospitals in Paris: one to serve French wounded, and the second for sick and destitute Britons. Now he decided to provide drinking water through a series of fountains. He had aesthetic sensibilities and applied criteria:

• Height: They had to be tall enough to be seen from afar but not so tall as to destroy the harmony of the surrounding landscape.
• Form: Both practical to use and pleasing to the eye.
• Price: Affordable enough to allow the installation of dozens.
• Materials: Resistant to the elements, easy to shape, and simple to maintain.

His sketches were improved and refined by a sculptor he knew and, voilá, there were Wallace fountains on the streets of Paris. More than a hundred are still extant today and examples crop up around the world. I have never noticed one outside The Wallace Collection in London. In Ireland there are two in Lisburn, where Sir Richard built a large house. Here are some examples of different models.

Of course after drinking all that water Frenchmen were bursting to go and another iconic structure appeared on the streets around 1830.