Like all European capitals, Britain’s bustling metropolis of London has had its fair share of historical drama. Notwithstanding great fires that have torn through the city, strikes and riots that have brought the capital to its knees, and devastating civil wars, London has also played witness to scores of plagues, pestilences, and (just for good measure) public executions. Yet showing true British resolve, London has withstood all of this, keeping calm and carrying on to become one of the European (if not global) centres of culture and commerce.
Though today’s city might not show it, London was built on shaky foundations. Even in the ancient world, the city was the site of some horrendous violence, most famously in 60 AD when Queen Boudicca stormed the city and put thousands of its inhabitants to the sword (a historical episode that makes the statue of her at the end of Westminster Bridge somewhat problematic).
With over 2,000 years of continuous inhabitation, London is bursting with history. And this history isn’t just confined to its hundreds of museums, churches, and galleries. Beneath the very streets you walk, and within the walls of the buildings that line them are countless stories of the city’s dark and violent past. You have just to scratch beneath the layers to find them.
The Great Stink of 1858
Britain isn’t famous for its sweltering summers. But when they come, we easily find cause to complain. The summer of 1858, however, was worthy of complaint, especially if you were unfortunate enough to be living in London. For through the haze of heat and pollution, the baking sun was lightly toasting the mounds of human excrement piling up on the banks of the River Thames.
The stench this created was bad enough to drive British parliamentarians out of Westminster; or at least those who hadn’t already fled to their houses in the country through fear of joining the thousands of others who were perishing from cholera. When you consider that in 1858 there were a fair few pressing issues on the parliamentary agenda—not least Britain’s involvement in an opium war over in China and a full-scale mutiny in India—this gives you an idea of just how bad the situation was. Even the lime soaked curtains parliamentarians hid themselves behind to soften the stench couldn’t persuade them to stay.
Extreme times called for extreme measures. To make sure this “evil odour” never resurfaced the government appointed Sir Joseph Bazalgette to revolutionise the city’s sewage system. It wasn’t an easy task. London’s population had more than doubled between 1800 and 1850, as had the amount of waste being produced. What was worse, there was nothing to separate the Thames’s contaminated water with the water London’s citizens were drinking. As humourist Sydney Smith once remarked, “He who drinks a tumbler of London water has in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe.”
A former rail engineer, Bazalgette proved himself up to the job. With the £3 million he’d been allocated, he set about building a number of embankments along the Thames—Victoria, Albert, and Chelsea—as well as constructing an 82 mile network of interconnected sewers, treatment works, and pumping stations, planned with remarkable foresight for future population growth and extreme cases of flooding. Testament to their efficacy is the fact that they still serve London’s 8.8 million residents today.