Water testing kit, in wooden carrying case by Burroughs Wellcome and Co., England, 1920-1940

The kit contains equipment needed to examine water supplies at their source. It includes a spirit lamp, measuring cylinders, a tripod, ceramic dish, filter paper, a range of chemicals and printed sheets to record results. This kit was sold under the brand name ‘Soloid’ for £105 pounds, a considerable amount of money at the time. The kit was probably produced for use by the water companies that supplied people’s homes.

Such water testing shows a marked change from the situation a century earlier, when the quality of the water being drunk was of little concern to the companies selling it. Unfortunately, a number of diseases are transmitted through water including cholera and dysentery. In Britain a series of cholera outbreaks throughout the 1800s eventually led to major improvements in the quality of water supplied.