London's sewers were open ditches sloped slightly to
drain human wastes toward the River Thames, and ultimately into the sea.
Sewer ditches quickly filled with garbage and human wastes,
which overflowed onto streets, into houses and
marketplaces throughout London.
By the late 1500s, King Henry VIII wrote an edict which made each
householder responsible for clearing the sewer passing by their dwelling.
The King also created a special Commission of Sewers to enforce
these rules. However, no money was provided to pay its members.
Therefore, the Commission was not installed until 1622,
when it was decided that fines for non-compliance could be used to fund
its activities. The day-to-day activities are recorded by the Clerk.
Every word uttered before the tribunal was precisely transcribed
in the permanent records of the Commission.
The transcript traces more than 250 years of human misery, due
largely to ignorance of the hazards of poor sanitation. Citizens,
physicians, politicians, inventors and police provided vivid horror
stories of "miasmas, plagues and sudden death" in the homes of London.
By the early 18th Century nearly every residence had a cesspit
beneath the floors. In the best of homes the nauseating stench
permeated the most elegant parlor. Indoor odors were often worse than
of the garbage- and manure - filled streets. While noxious fumes were
ignored by most people, it was fear of "night air" laden with coal smoke
and sulfurous industrial fogs which
alarmed the City dweller.
Doors and windows of homes and factories were sealed shut at
sunset to protect occupants form entry of the feared "night air." Entire
families and crews of workers died of mysterious "asphyxiation" during
the night. Doctors had no explanation for lingering illnesses and these
sudden "miasmas" occurring in the City. Vivid descriptions of horrible
deaths were routinely reported at Commission hearings and in the London
tabloids.
Most fatalities and injuries described were consistent with
asphyxiation by hydrogen sulfide or oxygen deficiency or methane
explosions. These conditions remain common in sewers, septic tanks and
confined spaces today. When cesspits filled to overflow, they were built
to drain to the street by means of a crudely built culvert to a
partially open sewer trench in the center of the street. Cesspit
wastes often soaked foundations, walls and floors of living quarters.
The culvert was frequently blocked causing sewage to spread under
buildings and contaminate shallow wells, cisterns and water
ways from which drinking water was drawn.
Many homeowners "stored" huge quantities of "night soil," which
had a cash value as fertilizer for crops. Those who "harvested" cesspit
and sewer wastes had to crawl on hands and knees through the mire and
drag wastes to the surface. Children were often employed to reach the
most difficult sections. Arguments before the commissioners
defended the employment of even very small children for this work,
as they were also employed as chimney sweeps. Cesspit and sewer cleaning
not only lead to instant death, but also led to slow, lingering death.
On January 12, 1849, this report of working conditions was
presented to the Commissioners: "The smell was of the most horrible
description, the air being so foul that explosions and choke damp
were frequent. We were very nearly losing a whole party by choke damp,
the last man being dragged out on his back through two feet of
black fetid deposit in a state of insensibility." On February 21,
1849: "Explosions occurred in two separate locations where the men had
the skin peeled off their faces and their hair singed. In advancing
toward Southampton, the deposit deepens to 2 feet 9 inches, leaving
only 1 foot 11 inches of space in the sewer. At about 400 feet from the
entrance, the first lamp went out and, 100 feet further on, the second
lamp created an explosion and burnt the hair and face of the person
holding it."
The Commission resolved that "It shall be laid down as a first
principle that no common sewer should be so small that an ordinary sized
man shall not be able to cleanse it."
After hearing thousands of such reports, Commissioners hired a
team of physicians to inspect work sites, measure sewer workers, and
develop sketches showing what sewers sizes were needed to provide
access for maintenance. They reviewed not only the actual size of
work space needed for the passage of the worker, but also measured the
depth of wastes accumulated in the sewers and drainage culverts. The
recommendations and drawings submitted brought awareness of the
plight of those engaged in sewer and cesspit cleaning.
Draining London's Sewage Swamp
The streets of London lie 30 feet below the surface of the Thames at high
tide. The city housed more than two million people in crowded conditions and
the situation was deteriorating daily. Epidemics of cholera, typhus,
"consumption" and other undefined maladies plagued the City over at least four
centuries.
Edwin Chadwick, a sanitary reformer of the era, struggled with upper
class apathy toward these horrible conditions. Chadwick explored sewers,
questioned slum dwellers, and turned out hundreds of reports to the
Commission. He experimented with the benefits of obtaining pure water from
lakes and reservoirs, rather than the fetid Thames. His Public Health Act
ultimately reversed the tide of death.
He chastised residents of London for defying the Law of Moses, often
pointing out that it "forbade even an open camp be defiled with human ordure,
and expressly ordained that it should be deposited at a distance and
immediately covered with soil." He attacked the greed of homeowners stating:
"Early in the progress of these investigations, the proposed system of cleansing,
by removal of the ordure in suspension in waste, was objected to on the grounds of
supposed loss of money received for manure."
The Commission argued that removal of night soils was no longer
profitable, and that "police must be employed to prevent the cleaner from
emptying cesspit ordure into gully-shoots in its highly concentrated and
dangerous state." (Illegal dumping!) The construction of large central covered
sewers had already begun in 1844, even though no plan had yet been drawn to
replace cesspits. However, due to the uneconomic and dangerous practices in
cleaning them, the Commission proposed temporary use of "moveable recepticals"
(porta-potties!) such as were being used in Paris at the time.
Meanwhile, engineers were hard at work devising a system of drainagewhich would carry the wastes of 2 million people out of the area, in
compliance with Mosaic law. Commissioners allowed experimentation with the
"soil-pan or watercloset principle" and the "tubular mode of drainage"
in cities and hamlets throughout England.
Though Sir Thomas Crapper had not perfected his invention, the
Commission had received hundreds of less functional designs for its
consideration. The "water closet" concept was, as yet, unwieldy.A complete
system of "tubular drains" were yet to be constructed to "carry immediately
away as solid or semi-solid matter," as the Commissioned envisioned.
In 1858 "The Great Stink," from the backed up Thames, caused thousands
to flee the City, while Parliament remained in session. Windows of the
parliament building were draped with curtains soaked in chloride of lime, to
prevent closing of the Government. Upper class residents fled the city or
drenched sheets with perfumes to mask the odor from the outside.
Aging Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, together with his son Isambard Kingdom
Brunel, submitted a plan to drain London to the lower side of the river by
building a 1,600 foot tunnel under the Thames. Their audacious plan relied on
constructing a 25 foot diameter shield behind which 9 men, donkeys and carts
would work to remove earth and transport soil to the surface. The huge 25 foot
diameter bore sloped from 35 feet under the river bed to 121 feet on the far side.
Desperate for any solution, the Commissioners sanctioned the project. If
successful, the Brunels would achieve what no one had ever attempted before.
Work proceeded rapidly and, surprisingly, the project was completed
without a single loss of life, though the younger Brunel was nearly killed in
a collapse of shoring just a few feet from the entry of the excavation.
When Queen Victoria learned of the success, she was so enthralled with
the idea of traveling beneath the Thames that she ordered a small scale rail
with open cars be constructed so that the entire Parliament could accompany
her at the dedication journey through the tunnel.
The public followed Victoria's enthusiasms. By popular demand, the sewer
tunnel was transformed into a fashionable promenade for Londoners. Victoria's
railway became a tourist attraction. Gaslights and walkways were installed and
small stalls lined the tunnel to provide souvenirs for visitors who paid a
small toll to walk under the mighty river. Today, the tunnel is part of
London's famous underground system called the "Bakerloo Line."
The "railroading" of Brunel's triumph drew even greater awareness and
support to the need for better living conditions as London's population
swelled to nearly 3 million.
The light at the end of the tunnel grew gradually larger.
The "hydrolic benefits of tubular drains" and central sewers were
promoted by the Commission to Parliament. Special reservoirs of water
constructed to "cleanse" existing sewers helped, but it became more and more
evident that smooth interior surfaces and adequate slope were needed to
provide smooth movement of wastes through the system.
The commissioners believed Sir Thomas Crapper's flush toilet was the
final connection required "to flush away London's problems."
They enthusiastically believed that "with a properly constructed sewer,
combined with supplies of water, no deposit will be occasioned and
obstructions would become so rare as to need no special provision for
cleaning."
Return to the Sewer History There you will find Parts 2 and 3 of the Sewers of London history,
along with a link to the Main Page.