This fountain, outside Blackfriars Station in London, depicts the Biblical Samaritan ‘woman at the well’ and was meant to provide clean drinking water as an alternative to beer or stronger spirits at a time when clean drinking water was not a given in London and cholera epidemics were frequent.
The fountain was an outgrowth of the ‘temperance’ movement that was as concerned about drinking as it was about cholera. One outgrowth of that was the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, formed in 1859 by Samuel Gurney, a Member of Parliament and Edward Thomas Wakefield, a barrister. The plaques at the base of the fountain honor the effort.
The fountain was original installed in 1861 at the Royal Exchange, but was moved to Blackfriars in after World War I to make room for the City War Memorial. It was one of a number of temperance fountains erected around the city, some of which can still be found, including the first at St Sepulchre’s church.
The idea caught on in other places as well: there’s a large (and rather ugly) one to be found in Washington, DC, topped with a large heron and including a horse trough in its base.
