It was not until the formation of the London Water Polo League in 1889 that the game was specially catered for, but a form of it had previously been known and played in several parts of England and Scotland. In 1870 the old London Swimming Association, the forerunner of the present Amateur Swimming Association, appointed a committee to draw up rules for a game of “Football in the water,” but no report of that committee appears to have been presented. In 1876 aquatic handball matches were played in the sea off Bournemouth by members of the Bournemouth Premier Rowing Club, and in 1877 there were similar matches at the annual competition for the Bon Accord Club in the river Dee, and a year prior to that some rules had been drawn up for the Aberdeen Club. The game at length found its way to the Midlands, and led to the foundation of the Midland Aquatic Football Association, whose rules were somewhat similar to those in vogue in America, where goals are scored by placing the ball in a marked-out space called “goal.” In 1883 Birmingham Leander played All England at Portsmouth; in 1885 the Amateur Swimming Association took official recognition of the game, and in 1888 started the English championship, this being won the first year by Burton-on-Trent. Then came the foundation of the London Water Polo League, through whose agency county associations came into being, inter-county matches were played, and international games arranged. The first county matches were played in 1890, and the first international the same year, the game being between England and Scotland at Kensington Baths on 28th July. England was beaten by four goals to none, but the outcome of the match was the cementing of friendly relations between the English and Scottish associations, and the gradual spread of the game, until the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh associations joined together and formed an international board, without whose sanction none of the rules of the game can now be altered. Oxford and Cambridge met for the first time in 1891, and since then the Blues’ committee of each university have given swimming and water polo a “half blue.” The game has become popular in many European countries, and friendly matches between English and continental clubs are frequently played. It has also extended to Egypt, India and Australia, in which countries the British rules have been adopted.
See the Amateur Swimming Association’s Handbook for rules of the game and instructions to referees. (W. Hy.)
WATER RIGHTS. By the law of England the property in
the bed and water of a tidal river, as high as the tide ebbs and
flows at a medium spring tide, is presumed to be in the crown
or as a franchise in a grantee of the crown, such as the lord of
a manor, or a district council, and to be extra-parochial. The
bed and water of a non-tidal river are presumed to belong to
the person through whose land it flows, or, if it divide two
properties, to the riparian proprietors, the rights of each extending
to midstream (ad medium filum aquae). In order to give
riparian rights, the river must flow in a defined channel, or at
least above ground. The diminution of underground water
collected by percolation, even though malicious, does not give
a cause of action to the owner of the land in which it collects,
it being merely damnum sine injuria, though he is entitled to
have it unpolluted unless a right of pollution be gained against
him by prescription. The right to draw water from another’s
well is an easement, not a profit à prendre, and is therefore
claimable by custom. As a general rule a riparian proprietor,
whether on a tidal or a non-tidal river, has full rights of user
of his property. Most of the statute law will be found in the
Sea Fisheries Acts 1843 to 1891, and the Salmon and Freshwater
Fisheries Acts 1861 to 1886. In certain cases the rights of the
riparian proprietors are subject to the intervening rights of other
persons. These rights vary according as the river is navigable
or not, or tidal or not. For instance, all the riparian proprietors
might combine to divert a non-navigable river, though one
alone could not do so as against the others, but no combination
of riparian proprietors could defeat the right of the public to
have a navigable river maintained undiverted. We shall here
consider shortly the rights enjoyed by, and the limitations
imposed upon, riparian proprietors, in addition to those falling
under the head of fishery or navigation. In these matters
English law is in substantial accordance with the law of other
countries, most of the rules being deduced from Roman law.
Perhaps the main difference is that running water is in Roman
law a res communis, like the air and the sea. In England,
owing to the greater value of river water for manufacturing
and other purposes, it cannot be said to be common property,
even though it may be used for navigation. The effect of this
difference is that certain rights, public in Roman law, such as
mooring and unloading cargo, bathing, drying nets, fishing for
oysters, digging for sand, towing, &c., are only acquirable by
prescription or custom in England. By Roman law, a hut might
lawfully be built on the shore of the sea or of a tidal river; in
England such a building would be a mere trespass. Preaching
on the foreshore is not legal unless by custom or prescription
(Llandudno Urban Council v. Woods, 1899, 2 Ch. 705). Nor
may a fisherman who dredges for oysters appropriate a part of
the foreshore for storing them (Truro Corporation v. Rowe, 1902,
2 K.B. 709).
The right of use of the water of a natural stream cannot be better described than in the words of Lord Kingsdown in 1858: “By the general law applicable to running streams, every riparian proprietor has a right to what may be called the ordinary use of water flowing past his land—for instance, to the reasonable use of the water for domestic purposes and for his cattle, and this without regard to the effect which such use may have in case of a deficiency upon proprietors lower down the stream. But, further, he has a right to the use of it for any purpose, or what may be deemed the extraordinary use of it, provided he does not thereby interfere with the rights of other proprietors, either above or below him. Subject to this condition, he may dam up a stream for the purposes of a mill, or divert the water for the purpose of irrigation. But he has no right to intercept the regular flow of the stream, if he thereby interferes with the lawful use of the water by other proprietors, and inflicts upon them a sensible injury” (Miner v. Gilmour, 12 Moore’s P.C. Cases, 156). The rights of riparian proprietors where the flow of water is artificial rest on a different principle. s the artificial stream is made by a person for his own benefit, any right of another person as a riparian proprietor does not arise at common law, as in the case of a natural stream, but must be established by grant or prescription. If its origin be unknown the inference appears to be that riparian proprietors have the same rights as if the stream had been a natural one (Baily v. Clark, 1902, 1 Ch. 649). The rights of a person not a riparian proprietor who uses land abutting on a river or stream by the licence or grant of the riparian proprietor are not as full as though he were a riparian proprietor, for he cannot be imposed as a riparian proprietor upon the other proprietors without their consent. The effect of this appears to be that he is not entitled to sensibly affect their rights, even by the ordinary as distinguished from the extraordinary use of the water. Even a riparian proprietor cannot divert the stream to a place outside his tenement and there use it for purposes unconnected with the tenement (McCartney v. Londonderry & Lough Swilly Rly. Co., 1904, A.C . 301).
The limitations to which the right of the riparian proprietor is subject may be divided into those existing by common right, those imposed for public purposes, and those established against him by crown grant or by custom or prescription. Under the first head comes the public right of navigation, of anchorage and fishery from boats (in tidal waters), and of taking shell-fish (and probably other fish except royal fish) on the shore of tidal waters as far as any right of several fishery does not intervene. Under the second head would fall the right of eminent domain by which the state takes riparian rights for public purposes, compensating the proprietor, the restrictions upon the sporting rights of the proprietor, as by acts forbidding the taking of fish in close time, and the Wild Birds Protection Acts, and the restrictions on the ground of public health, as by the Rivers Pollution Act 1876 and the regulations of port sanitary authorities. The jurisdiction of the state over rivers in England may be exercised by officers of the crown, as by commissioners of sewers or by the Board of Trade, under the Crown Lands Act 1866. A bridge is erected and maintained by the county authorities, and the riparian proprietor must bear any convenience resulting from it. An example of an adverse right by crown grant is a ferry or a port. The crown, moreover, as the guardian of the realm, has jurisdiction to restrain the removal of the foreshore, the natural barrier of the sea, by its owner in case of apprehended danger to the coast. The rights established against a riparian proprietor by private persons must as a rule be based on prescription or custom, only on prescription where they are in the nature of profits à prendre. The public cannot claim such rights by prescription, still less by custom. Among such rights are the right to land, to discharge cargo, to tow to dry nets, to beach boats, to take sand, shingle or water, to have a sea-wall maintained, to pollute the water (subject to the Rivers
