A Tale of Two Towers

Supply water, supply water,
From wells of silver! 
 No sludge, that yields death and disease, 
 But a pure source, that refreshes the blood 
 supply water, supply water 
 That heals the sick.[1]

In 1873, Utrecht author Nicolas Beets celebrated the installation of modern infrastructure in these evocative lines. His words captured the hopes of a city ravaged by the cholera outbreak of 1866, which had taken nearly 1800 lives. For Beets, the prospect of clean, flowing water symbolized not only health but renewal. Yet his optimism proved premature; it wasn’t until 1881, years after his poetic tribute, that Utrecht began building the necessary waterworks.  

Allowing a private investor to develop the city’s water infrastructure, the Utrecht municipality had put its confidence in a Belgian firm: the Compagnie Générale des Conduites d’Eau. Under the leadership of its French director Henri Doat, this Liège-based company was expanding its reach globally, taking on projects as far afield as Venezuela and Japan. In the Netherlands, the company made a particularly lasting impression as it built several neo-renaissance water towers, or chateaux d’eau. Two of these towers still grace Utrecht’s skyline today, with one now housing an elegant restaurant that offers panoramic views of the city below. 

While the Moroccan port city of Tangier faced similar challenges as those in Utrecht, it lagged far behind in addressing them. The 1860s epidemic had sparked debates about the city’s water quality, but tangible action was slow to materialize. In nineteenth-century Morocco, sanitary concerns often fell under the remit of the Conseil Sanitaire du Maroc, an international body that had focused on quarantine measures since the late eighteenth century. However, a project as extensive as modernizing Tangier’s water structure fell outside the council’s experience.  

In 1892, Sultan Hassan I took an initial step to address Tangier’s water issues by elevating the local municipal hygiene committee to the status of an international Commission d’Hygiene, placing it under the authority of the Conseil Sanitaire. The tension between the diplomatic representatives’ traditional grip on sanitary issues and an increasingly frustrated Tangier bourgeoisie would thereby be pacified. Among the commission’s priorities were the operation of a slaughterhouse, street sweeping, and the improvement of water infrastructure. However, by the time cholera struck Tangier again in 1895, progress on water structure had been minimal.  

Belgian hydraulic engineer Gustave Defosse entered the scene in 1899, initially seeking a concession to develop Morocco’s first railroads. When this enterprise faltered, Defosse laid his eyes on Tangier’s water system.  In late November 1899, Prince Aleksandr A. Gagarin, president of the Sanitary Council, offered promising support: “The Sanitary Council grants the concession on the condition that you strictly adhere to the limits of the Sharifian firman.”[2]

The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered Defosse “intelligent, active, and enterprising”, but he also had the reputation of being “quite adventurous, and it would be no surprise to see him pursue a venture without having first studied its chances of success.” Notwithstanding these reservations, Director of Commerce and Consulates Léon Capelle assisted him in attracting Belgian capital for the project.[3] Ultimately, the Banque Internationale de Bruxelles and the Compagnie Générale des Conduites d’Eau became interested in financing and executing the works in Tangier. For a moment it seemed that water towers built by the Belgian company would soon appear in the Moroccan port city as well. 

The Defosse project dragged on and became a source of diplomatic struggles between the Sultan’s government, the Commission d’Hygiene and the Conseil Sanitaire. The legitimacy of the Defosse concession was questioned. Competing bids were made by French engineers and several diplomatic missions to the Sultan’s court in Fez bore no results. Ultimately, the Compagnie Générale des Conduites d’Eau pulled out of the project. 

After more than two decades of negotiations, a French company, the Société Marocaine de Distribution d’eau, de gaz et d’électricité [SMD],secured the Tangier water concession on the eve of the First World War. The SMD had already developed waterworks in Rabat and Casablanca. Yet, it was not a purely French project. Among the administrators of the company, the name of Henri Doat, director of the Compagnie Générale des Conduites d’Eau, pops up. After the Defosse project had fallen through, Belgian diplomats in Paris and Tangier successfully brokered access to the Moroccan markets for the Liège-based company. 

Years later, among the collection of French interwar resident Paul Servant I came across a photograph of a water tower under construction on the Marshan plateau, a suburb of Tangier known for its wells and fountains, such as the Fontaine Scott. Workmen appear to be putting the final touches to the chateau d’eau. For a moment, it feels like I have come full circle. Though its history remains unclear, this château d’eau stands as a testament to the bumpy road towards modern water infrastructure, and better living conditions in general, in Morocco. These and other thoughts will surely cross my mind whenever I pass by the Lauwerhof water tower on my commute to my office in Utrecht’s city center.  

Notes

[1] ‘Voor de Utrechtste Waterleiding. 24. Sept. 1873’, Dichtwerken van Nicolaas Beets: 1830-1873 (Utrecht: W. H. Kirberger, 1873), p. 412. 

[2] Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive (MFAA), Annex N.1 Defosse to de Buisseret, Brussels, 19 January 1905; Copy of Prince Gagarine to Defosse, Tangier, 27 November 1899. 

[2] BMFAA, Note (Brussels), 29 August 1899.

Further Reading

Al-Bazzāz, Muḥammad al-Amīn, Al-Majlis al-Ṣiḥḥī al-Dawlī fī al-Maghrib, 1792-1929 (Rabat: Kullīyat al-Ādāb wa-‘l-ʻUlūm al-Insānīya bi-‘r-Ribāṭ, 2000).

Destatte, Julien. “Le développement d’une multinationale métallurgique liégeoise: la Compagnie Générale des Conduites d’eau (1865-1939),” in Actes du neuvième congrès de l’Association des Cercles francophones d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Belgique (Liège: Institut archéologique liégeois, 2012).

Gilson Miller, Susan. “Watering the Garden of Tangier: Colonial Contestations in a Moroccan City,” in S. Slyomovics, ed., The Walled Arab City in Literature, Architecture and History. The Living Medina in the Maghrib (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 25-50.

Hettstedt, Daniela, Die Internationale Stadt Tanger Infrastrukturen Des Geteilten Kolonialismus, 1840-1956 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2022).

Zetland David, and Bene Colenbrander, “Water Civilization: The Evolution of the Dutch Drinking Water Sector,” Water Economics and Policy 3.4 (2018).