THIS STINKS!
The recent Canadian forest fire haze in the Northeast sparked (see what I did there?) serious discussion of climate change, and a slew of apocalyptic viral memes. But anyone alive in London in 1858 would barely have noticed.
After all, the Northeast hadn’t become a giant open sewer…and the whole thing did, ultimately, quite literally blow over.
Not so the Great Stink of 1858.
The problem had been growing for a while. London started building brick sewers in the 17th century, and by the mid-1800s, the sewer system was old and in bad repair. On the clean water side, they were still busy replacing medieval wooden pipes with iron ones. The widespread use of the flush toilet, invented by one Thomas Crapper, another post for another day, only added to the strain on the system.
It all basically went one place anyway: the Thames River.
Observers described the river as being nothing but a literal reeking sewer. In 1857, the British government poured disinfectants like lime and carbolic acid straight into the river in hopes of easing the stench.
The next summer, even that didn’t help.
Temperatures soared in June 1858. Records show average temperatures in the mid-90s (Fahrenheit) in the shade…and as much as 118 degrees in the sun. The relentless heat baked the sludge in the Thames, six feet deep in spots, creating what one reporter called “a pestiferous abomination,” and none other than Charles Dickens observed that the river had become a “deadly sewer.”
The vile stench affected everyone. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attempted a pleasure cruise on the river and had to turn back. Parliament soaked their curtains in lime chloride, dumped more into the river, and it was still so bad that they had to consider moving business to Oxford or St. Albans. Well-off folks were able to leave the city during the worst of it, but the poor were as trapped as they always were, and the reek just added another layer of wretchedness to their already difficult lives.
All of this wasn’t just repulsive, it was dangerous. While the Victorian miasma theory of illness, the idea that bad air makes you sick, wasn’t quite right, there were plenty of germs in that stinky air and water. Cholera outbreaks were common, and deadly. We know now that cholera is transmitted by bacteria in excrement and that dirty water is a prime vector, but the idea of water-borne illness wasn’t fully accepted until a later outbreak.
The really interesting part of the Great Stink is what happened later in the summer.
After several weeks of conducting the nation’s business while breathing through handkerchiefs and even newspapers, lawmakers decided that they had to do something about it, and they proceeded to come up with a big, serious plan.
And agree on it.
They approved a new sewer system for London, with as much waste as possible to be pumped out of the city. It wasn’t cheap – three million pounds in 1858 money, which is an almost unimaginable sum now. A three-penny tax on every London household paid for it. While the situation didn’t improve immediately, eventually, the city became much safer and healthier. And, eventually, people looked back on the Great Stink as a disaster that they had to work together to solve…and did.
That doesn’t stink.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
After all, the Northeast hadn’t become a giant open sewer…and the whole thing did, ultimately, quite literally blow over.
Not so the Great Stink of 1858.
The problem had been growing for a while. London started building brick sewers in the 17th century, and by the mid-1800s, the sewer system was old and in bad repair. On the clean water side, they were still busy replacing medieval wooden pipes with iron ones. The widespread use of the flush toilet, invented by one Thomas Crapper, another post for another day, only added to the strain on the system.
It all basically went one place anyway: the Thames River.
Observers described the river as being nothing but a literal reeking sewer. In 1857, the British government poured disinfectants like lime and carbolic acid straight into the river in hopes of easing the stench.
The next summer, even that didn’t help.
Temperatures soared in June 1858. Records show average temperatures in the mid-90s (Fahrenheit) in the shade…and as much as 118 degrees in the sun. The relentless heat baked the sludge in the Thames, six feet deep in spots, creating what one reporter called “a pestiferous abomination,” and none other than Charles Dickens observed that the river had become a “deadly sewer.”
The vile stench affected everyone. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attempted a pleasure cruise on the river and had to turn back. Parliament soaked their curtains in lime chloride, dumped more into the river, and it was still so bad that they had to consider moving business to Oxford or St. Albans. Well-off folks were able to leave the city during the worst of it, but the poor were as trapped as they always were, and the reek just added another layer of wretchedness to their already difficult lives.
All of this wasn’t just repulsive, it was dangerous. While the Victorian miasma theory of illness, the idea that bad air makes you sick, wasn’t quite right, there were plenty of germs in that stinky air and water. Cholera outbreaks were common, and deadly. We know now that cholera is transmitted by bacteria in excrement and that dirty water is a prime vector, but the idea of water-borne illness wasn’t fully accepted until a later outbreak.
The really interesting part of the Great Stink is what happened later in the summer.
After several weeks of conducting the nation’s business while breathing through handkerchiefs and even newspapers, lawmakers decided that they had to do something about it, and they proceeded to come up with a big, serious plan.
And agree on it.
They approved a new sewer system for London, with as much waste as possible to be pumped out of the city. It wasn’t cheap – three million pounds in 1858 money, which is an almost unimaginable sum now. A three-penny tax on every London household paid for it. While the situation didn’t improve immediately, eventually, the city became much safer and healthier. And, eventually, people looked back on the Great Stink as a disaster that they had to work together to solve…and did.
That doesn’t stink.
Got a #ThrowbackThursday idea? Drop it in the comments!
No comments have been added yet.
