Dr William Budd moved to Bristol in 1841, working at St Peter's Hospital and the Infirmary where he cared for patients during typhoid and cholera epidemics, for which there was no cure. He was able to identify how these diseases spread, seeing at first hand the insanitary hovels, andrealising the need for preventive measures. An early director of the Bristol Waterworks Company, William Budd was the moving force behind ensuring a clean water supply, one of the first essentials in combating water-born disease. Several major epidemics of infection diseases swept through 19th century Britain, showing no respect for age or social class. For years, Budd fought to change orthodoxies in the medical professional which denied the contagious nature of these killer diseases. When the 1866 cholera epidemic reached Bristol, much reduced death figures showed that he had largely won the fight to improve the nation's health.