ABSTRACT
The pollution of the River Nene below Northampton, and the Borsdane Brook as it flowed into Hindley, provide illuminating examples of the use of the tactic of diversion in face of liability for nuisance caused in rivers. Northampton is the county town of Northamptonshire, and has been for centuries the preeminent centre for the trade and manufacture of boots and shoes in Britain. Richard Harrold was an experienced and capable miller in the trade and he proved to be much less tolerant of the nuisances and rather more impatient with the Improvement Commissioners than had been. The suit of Harrold v Markham opened before Vice-Chancellor Sir William Milbourne James at Chancery on 16 July 1869. The dispute between Richard Pennington and the concerns the pollution of a small Lancashire stream by a private colliery company to the nuisance of Pennington's cotton mill enterprise, another private company, sited in Hindley, near Wigan in Lancashire.
