SEWAGE

Water closets had become a feature of some of the wealthiest homes. However, they were expensive and required a reliable supply of water. During the early years of the 19^thC London's water companies installed water-carriage systems. These made water supply far more dependable in the metropolis than it had been previously. Water closets became increasingly common in the city's wealthier districts.

London s sewer system had been constructed to remove rainfall from the city s streets. For the most part, it was discharged into the Thames. In 1815 it became legal for the metropolis's householders to feed their water closets outflow to the infrastructure. As a result, as more and more water closets were installed so increasing volumes of human excrement were fed into the river, which became increasingly polluted and noxious.

In the 1840s guano started to be imported from Peru. This had the effect of undermining the nightsoil industry.

Edwin Chadwick was a social reformer who had become engaged by the issue of public. In 1842 he completed his Report On The Sanitary Condition of The Labouring Population of Great Britain.

In 1847 London's eight extant commissions of sewer were amalgamated to form the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers.

Chadwick s research and lobbying were factors that facilitated Parliament's passing the Public Health Act of 1848. The measure enabled the General Board of Health to be set up.

The Public Health Act of 1848 conferred upon local authorities the power to exploit sewage commercially. These powers were confirmed in a number of subsequent Acts.

The Public Health Act of 1848 required that in London new houses, or ones that were being substantially rebuilt, to have adequate sanitary provision.

Chadwick held with the prevalent orthodoxy that the increasingly frequent outbreaks of disease In London as deriving from build-ups of bad air (miasma). He regarded domestic cesspools as being the principal sources of this air. Therefore, he lobbied the Commissioners of Sewers to ban all such cesspools and instead require the water closets outflow should be connected to the city's sewer system. The pottery manufacturer Henry Doulton had a stoneware pipe that met the need. As a result, the Thames became increasingly vile.

In the early 1840s the Prefect of Paris had engaged in a campaign that had furnished Paris with numerous public conveniences. The Public Health Act of 1848 granted the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers powers to furnish London with them. The body declined to use these. The Royal Society of Arts believed that it should and lobbied it to do so. The Commission did not do so.

The Society had noted that a series of industrial and commercial expositions had been hosted in Paris. It decided that London should stage one. This was the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Society used it as an opportunity to forward its agenda on public conveniences. It commissioned George Jennings to equip the exhibition venue, the Crystal Palace, with a number. In these he installed monkey closets , a simplified form of water closet. The conveniences were used 827,820 times. They were one of the numerous features of the Exhibition that were held to have been a great success. The Society produced a report on the exposition that it submitted to Parliament. This drew attention to the convenience's success and called for them to be built for the public s convenience.

In the 1850s British sanitary engineers made a number of innovations to the water closet.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 popularised the water closet. This led to the Great Stink.

In 1855 Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed the 1500-bed military hospital at Renkioi. Every ward had George Jennings-manufactured water closets. These fed into a piping infrastructure than ensured their outflow was cleared away physically. The facility s mortality rates were much lower than those at Florence Nightingale's hospital at Scutari. Nightingale was left in no doubt about the importance of flush water closets.

Three years before the Great Stink of 1858 Michael Faraday felt moved to write a public letter about the appalling condition of the Thames.

In 1887 James Duckett devised the Tipper water closet. The tipping was in the lavatory rather than the cistern.

Location: The Royal Society of Arts, 8 John Adam Street, WC2N 6EZ (orange, red)

The Old Football Pitches, Hyde Park, SW7 1SE. The site of the Great Exhibition. (orange, purple)

The Great Stink and Its Aftermath

The hot summer and low rainfall of 1858 led to the Great Stink. The River Thames became a fetid, chemical soup that gave off a stench that made central London vile to be in. The Stink prompted the authorities not only to embank the river in order to make its current stronger but also to deal with the city's growing sewage problem.

In the wake of the Great Stink of 1858 Parliament sanctioned the construction of as co-ordinated sewerage scheme for London.

The Metropolitan Board of Works commissioned Sir Joseph Bazalgette to building a system of sewers that ran from east to west across the metropolis. This drainage system was completed in 1875. Through its northern arm, sewage was pumped out to Beckton in east London. Through its southern one, the material was sent out to Crossness in Kent. Originally, the effluent was then discharged raw into the Thames. In 1887 a decision was made to treat the waste chemically at the outfall stations, after which it was allowed to enter the river. The by-product sludge taken out to sea in ships and dumped at a site known as the Black Deep.

Location: The Palace of Westminster, Parliament Square, SW1A 0AA (purple, blue)

The Green Way runs on the top of the Northern Main Sewer through East London to Beckton. It used to be known as the Sewerbank.

Fatbergs

Flushers are the people who ensure that London's sewage flows freely through its sewers. It is a job that is often done by people whose fathers were flushers before them.

Fatbergs are composed of two principal elements: oil and grease that enters the sewage system from caf's and restaurants pouring them into sinks, and sanitary products, such as tampons, nappies, and condoms being flushed down lavatories.

A fatberg can be broken up with picks, shovels, high-powered jet hoses, and vacuum pipes. However, care has to be taken not to damage the sewer.

Historically, there had been a problem with cotton buds blocking the mesh of treatment facilities sieving drums. Kimberley-Clark and Proctor & Gamble had been making wet wipes since the 1960s. They had been sold into the babycare and fast food restaurant sectors. In 2005 extending their marketing of the product to make an alternative to lavatory paper for adults. As a result, fatbergs began to occur. In 2013 a 15 tonne one had to be dealt with in Kingston. Two years later the word fatberg was added to The Oxford English Dictionary.

In the late summer of 2017 four of Soho's sewers were concurrently blocked by a 26-tonne fatberg. A couple of months later one that was 820ft.-long and that weighed 130 tonnes was discovered beneath Whitechapel. The reason why is had been able to grow so large without there being any warning signs was the shape of the sewer's cross-section. This was an inverted that had a narrower bottom than top. The fatberg had grown in the upper portion and therefore there had been no interruption to the flow of sewage through the pipe. The following year a portion of it was put on display at the Museum of London.

Website: www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/putting-fatberg-display

The London Tideway Tunnels

In the 1930s a construction programme expanded the size of London's sewage tunnel network.

In 2007 the government gave its approval for Thames Water to build a 2bn, 32km (20 mile) tunnel running along the line of the Thames from Hammersmith to Becton. At its deepest point it will be 80m. below the ground. Five million tonnes of material will have to be excavated to allow for its construction. It would be the height of two double decker buses and be able to transport over 32 million cubic metres of overflow.

There will be a second, north-to-south tunnel along the valley of the River Lee. This will be known as the Lee Tunnel. Together the pair will be called the London Tideway Tunnels.

In 2014 Thames Water was given permission to build its super-sewer.

Website: www.tideway.london

The Outfalls

Both the Beckton and Crossness outfalls have numerous seagulls and a respectable showing of cormorants bobbing up and down on them

Location: Tollgate Road, Beckton, E16 3SW. To the west of Barking Creek, which is the final section of the River Roding before it enters the Thames.

Crossness

By the time the sewage reached Crossness it was 5m below the ground. It was raised to the surface by four pumping engines that were named after members of the royal family.

One of the gargoyles on Crossness - a small one - was of Bazalgette.

Location: Bazalgette Way, Abbey Wood, SE2 9AQ

Website: www.crossness.org.uk

Thames Mud Butter

Thames Mud Butter was a fat that was sold to factories for lubricating machinery. It was derived from food fats that had passed through people's bodies and had been discharged at Beckton Sewage Works outflow. It was harvested by people in boats skimming the water with sieves.

Toshers

Toshers searched the sewers for valuable items that had entered the system. They tended be beer drinkers. As a result, they tended not to suffer from cholera.

See Also: BEER; CHOLERA

Waste Water

In the 1940s waste water started to be examined in an effort to counter polio.

First at King's College and then at Imperial College, Leon Barron developed a range of techniques for analysing London's waste water. He was able to show that over the years 2011-15 cocaine consumption in the city had doubled and then levelled off. In 2024 the chemist commented that if there was not some trace of the drug could not be found in a sample of waste water then the lab that processed it was almost certainly at fault.

During the Covid pandemic, Dr Barron's team played a role in monitoring antibiotic resistance.

David Backhouse 2024