Description: Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth. Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today. Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'. This delightful picture brings back a phase of Nottingham's history which has long passed away, for the representation of the old water works buildings at the northern end of Trent Bridge calls to mind the time when the water of the Trent was a mainstay of Nottingham's water supply. These buildings were acquired by the Corporation about the year 1880, and immediately demolished. In our modern days when water is so plentifully supplied to each one of us, one hardly realises the difficulty, in this respect, under which our forefathers listed. At a very early date, 1696 to be precise, Nottingham was supplied with water from the river Leen, and a water engine was established on its banks at the foot of the Castle Rock, which pumped water up to a reservoir in Postern Street, whose site is now occupied by a portion of the General Hospital. This reservoir was quite small, and only supplied a portion of the town; there were various other sources of supply, such as a well on Zion Hill, and another one almost half way up Derby Road, near where the 'Hand and Heart' now stands. In addition to this, there were twenty-two other public wells scattered throughout the town, some of which were fitted with pumps. These different wells had separate reputations for producing water; some of them were considered better than others for making tea, while others were considered more efficacious than their neighbours for washing purposes. Sometimes people would make quite considerable journeys to obtain water from the pump of their choice. Almost within living memory large barrels of water used to be drawn about the town, from which water was purchased at the rate of a half- penny per bucket. Fortunately, all that has passed away, and Nottingham now has a wonderfully copious supply of most excellent water. The site of the old water works is now occupied by the block of buildings which includes the Town Arms Hotel on the north western side of Trent Bridge. Image and descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.