The Great Stink was an event in central London in July and August of 1858 where hot weather exacerbated the smell of untreated human wastes and industrial waste present on the banks of the River Thames. The problem has escalated over the years, with an old and inadequate waterway system that instantly empties the Thames River. Toxins from effluents are thought to transmit communicable diseases, and three cholera outbreaks before Bau Agung are blamed on the ongoing problems with the river.
The smell, and the public fear of possible impacts, encourage action from local and national administrators who have considered possible solutions to the problem. The authorities received a proposal from civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette to move the effluent eastward along a series of interconnected gutters that sloped outfalls outside the metropolitan area. Working on high, middle and low-level systems for the Northern and Southern Exit Disposal Channels that only started in early 1859 and lasted until 1875. To assist with drainage, pumping stations were placed to lift waste from lower levels to higher pipes.. Two of the more ornate stations, Abbey Mills in Stratford and Crossness at Erith Marshes, are registered to be protected by English Heritage. The Bazalgette plan introduces three dikes to London where the sewers are flowing - The Victoria, Chelsea and Albert dykes.
Bazalgette's work ensured that the dirt was no longer discharged to the shore of the River Thames and ended a cholera outbreak; his actions may save more lives than any other Victorian official. Its sewer system operates into the 21st century, serving a city that has grown to a population of over eight million. Historian Peter Ackroyd argues that Bazalgette should be regarded as a London hero.
Video Great Stink
​​â € <â €
The brick gullies had been built in London from the 17th century when parts of the Fleet and Walbrook rivers were covered for that purpose. In the previous century 1856, over a hundred sewers were built in London, and on that date the city had about 200,000 holes and 360 sewers. Some chimneys leaked methane and other gases, often burning and exploding, causing loss of life, while many sewers are in poor repair condition. During the early 19th century repair was done in water supply to London, and in 1858 many medieval wooden water pipes were replaced with iron ones. This, combined with the introduction of watered toilets and rising urban populations from just one million to three million, causes more water to flow into the sewers, along with the associated wastes. Outflow from factories, slaughterhouses and other industrial activities weighed heavily on the already failed system. Most of these outflows are overflowing, or thrown directly, into the Thames River.
Scientist Michael Faraday described the situation in a letter to The Times in July 1855: shocked by the state of the Thames, he dropped pieces of white paper into the river to "test the level of evil". The conclusion is that "Near the bridge, feculence rolls up in clouds so dense that they are visible on the surface, even in this kind of water.... The smell is very bad, and common to the whole water, it is the same as it now appears from the holes- "The smell of the river was so bad that in 1857 the government poured lime chalk, lime chloride and carbolic acid into the waterways to alleviate the foul odor.
The prevailing thought in Victorian health concerning the transmission of infectious diseases is the theory of miasma, which states that most infectious diseases are caused by the inhaling of contaminated air. This contamination may be the smell of dead bodies or dirt, but also rotting vegetation, or breath exhaled from someone who is already ill. Miasma is believed by most to be a cholera transmission vector, which increased in 19th century Europe. This disease is very feared by everyone, because the speed of its spread, and the high death rate.
The first cholera epidemic in London struck in 1831, when the disease claimed 6,536 victims. In 1848-49 there was a second outbreak where 14,137 Londoners died, and this was followed by a further outbreak in 1853-54 where 10,738 died. During the second outbreak, John Snow, a London-based physician, noticed that mortality rates were higher in areas supplied by water companies Lambeth and Southwark and Vauxhall. In 1849 he published a paper, In Cholera Communication Mode , which proposed the transmission theory of waterborne diseases, rather than the theory of miasma; little attention was given to the newspaper. After the third cholera epidemic in 1854, Snow published an update to his treatise, after which he focused on securities on Broad Street, Soho. Snow has stripped the handle of the local water pump, thus preventing access to contaminated water, resulting in death. It was then determined that the wells with water taken had a leaking drainage channel nearby.
Maps Great Stink
Local government
The civil infrastructure that oversees the management of London's sewerage has undergone some changes in the 19th century. In 1848, the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers (MCS) was founded at the urging of social reformer Edwin Chadwick and the Royal Commission. The Commission replaces seven of the eight authorities that have governed the London sewer since the time of Henry VIII; this is the first time the power of unity has fully controlled the sanitary facilities of the capital. The Building Act of 1844 has ensured that all new buildings must be connected to a sewer, not a septic tank, and the commission regulates about connecting septic septic to the drain, or removing it altogether. Fearing that the toxins from the sewers would lead to the spread of the disease, Chadwick and his successor, pathologist John Simon, ensured that the sewer was regularly washed down, a policy that resulted in more waste being dumped into the Thames River.
In August 1849 MCS appointed Joseph Bazalgette to the position of assistant surveyor. He has worked as a consultant engineer in the railway industry until excessive labor has caused serious damage to his health; his appointment to the commission was his first position on his return to work. Working under the chief engineer, Frank Foster, he began to develop a more systematic plan for the city sewer. Stress was too much for Foster and he died in 1852; Bazalgette is promoted to his position, and continues to refine and develop plans for the development of the sewerage system. The Metropolis Management Act of 1855 replaces the commission with the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW), which controls the sewer.
In June 1856 Bazalgette completed its definitive plan, which provided a small local drainage of about 3 feet (0.9 m) in diameter to fit into a series of larger waterways until they were piped to the 11-foot main outlet (3.4 m). Northern and southern exhaust ducts are planned to manage waste for each side of the river. London is mapped to high, middle and low-level areas, with the main sewer serving each; a series of pumping stations are planned to dispose of waste to the east of the city. The Bazalgette plan is based on Foster, but on a larger scale, and allows a population increase more than Foster - from 3 to 4.5 million. Bazalgette submitted his plan to Sir Benjamin Hall, the First Commissioner of Works. Hall has an objection about outfall - the point of disposal from waste outlets to other bodies of water - from sewers, which he says are still within the confines of the capital, and therefore unacceptable. During the ongoing discussions, Bazalgette refined and modified his plans, in line with Hall's demands. In December 1856 Hall submitted a plan to a group of three consultant engineers, Captain Douglas Strutt Galton of Royal Engineers, James Simpson, an engineer with two water companies, and Thomas Blackwood, chief engineer at Kennet and Avon Canal. The trio reported back to Hall in July 1857 with proposed changes to the position of the captivity, which was forwarded to MBW in October. The proposed new disposal point is an open sewer, running 15 miles (24 km) outside of the position proposed by the council; the cost of their plan is more than £ 5.4 million, far more than the maximum estimated Bazalgette plan, which reached 2.4 million pounds. In February 1858 the elections saw the fall of Whig Lord Palmerston's government, replaced by Conservative Lord Wyly's ministry; Lord John Manners succeeds Hall, and Benjamin Disraeli is appointed as the Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
June to August 1858
By the mid of 1858 problems with the River Thames had been built for several years. In his novel Little Dorrit - published as a series between 1855 and 1857 - Charles Dickens writes that the Thames River is "a deadly sewer... in a nice and fresh river place". In a letter to a friend, Dickens said: "I can state that the stinging smell, even in that short smell, is the most stubborn and stomach nature", while social scientist and journalist George Godwin writes that "On deposit more than six meters "on the banks of the Thames, and that" this whole thickness is infused with dirty matter ". In June 1858 the temperatures in the shade in London averaged 34-36 Â ° C (93-97 Â ° F) - rising to 48 Â ° C (118 Â ° F) in the sun.
Combined with extended dry weather spells, the Thames level is down and the raw sewage from the gutter stays on the banks of the river. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert try to take a pleasant cruise on the Thames, but return to the beach in a few minutes because the smell is terrible. The press immediately began calling the show "The Great Stink"; The main article in City Press observes that "Hate speech ends - it smells, and anyone who breathes in the smell can never forget it and can consider himself lucky if he lives to remember it." A writer for The Standard agrees with that opinion. One of his reporters described the river as "breeding pests and typhoid hunters", while the second wrote that "the amount of poisonous gas thrown in proportion to the increase in waste passed into the river". The main article in The Illustrated London News commented that:
We can colonize the most distant ends of the earth; we can conquer India; we can pay the largest debt interest ever contracted; we can spread our names, and our fame, and our fruitful fortunes for every part of the world; but we can not clean the Thames.
In June the foul smell from the river has become so bad that business in Parliament is affected, and the curtains on the river side of the building were soaked in chalk chloride to cope with the odor. The size did not work, and discussions were held about the possibility of transferring government business to Oxford or St Albans. The Examiner reported that Disraeli, who attended one of the committee's chambers, left shortly thereafter with another committee member, "with a pile of papers in one hand, and with his handkerchief pocket applied to his hand, nose" because of the smell very bad. Disruption to his legislative work raises questions raised in the House of Commons. According to Hansard, MP Member John Brady informed that members could not use the Chamber Committee or Library because of the stench, and asked the minister "if the noble Lord has taken any action to reduce the effluvium and stop disturbance ". Manners replied that the Thames River was not under its jurisdiction. Four days later a second member of parliament said to the People Acting that "With the evil ingenuity, one of the noblest rivers has been transformed into a septic tank, and I want to ask whether Your Majesty's Government intends to take steps to remedy the evil?" The manners show "that Your Majesty's Government has nothing to do with the River Thames". The satirical magazine Punch commented that "One interesting topic in both Houses of Parliament... is a matter of Conspiracy against Poison." From the mistakes of the old culprit, Pastor Thames, there is ample evidence. "
At the peak of the odor, between 200 and 250 tons of lime is used near the mouth of a sewer dumped into the River Thames, and the people work spreading chalk to the banks of the River Thames at low tide; the cost is Ã, Â £ 1,500 per week. On 15 June Disraeli filed a bill on Amendments to Metropolis Local Management, a proposed amendment to the 1855 Act; in the opening debate he called the Thames "Stygian swimming pool, smelling of indescribable and unbearable horror". The bill sets out the responsibility for clearing the Thames River at MBW, and states that "as far as possible" sewerage should not be within the borders of London; it also allows the Council to borrow Ã, Â £ 3 million, to be repaid from a three-cent levy on all London households over the next forty years. Those terms favored Bazalgette's original plan of 1856, and overcame Hall's objections to him. Main article in The Times observes that "Parliament does not need to pass a law on major London disruptions due to the pungent odor power". The bill was disputed at the end of July and passed into law on August 2.
Construction
The Bazalgette Plan for 1,100 miles (1,800 km) of additional waterways (collecting wastewater and rainwater), which would feed up to 82 miles (132 km) of interconnected main sewers, was issued for tenders between 1859 and 1865 Four hundred drawers working on detailed plans and outlook sections for the first phase of the development process. There are some technical challenges to be overcome, especially the fact that parts of London - including the area around Lambeth and Pimlico - are located under high watermarks. The Bazalgette plan for low-level areas is to remove waste from the lower drainage at the key points to the middle and high level sewers, which then flow with the aid of gravity, out towards the eastern estuary with a gradient of 2 feet per mile (38 cm/km).
Bazalgette is a supporter of the use of Portland cement, a material stronger than standard cement, but with weakness when overheated. To overcome that problem he applied a quality control system to test the cement collection, described by historian Stephen Halliday as "complicated" and "cruel". The results are given back to the producers, who change their production processes to further improve the product. One cement producer commented that MBW was the first public body to use such a testing process. The progress of Bazalgette's work is well reported in the media. Paul Dobraszczyk, the architectural historian, described the coverage as a poet of many workers "in a positive light, even heroically," and in 1861 The Observer described the progress on the sewer as "the most expensive and beautiful work of the times modern ". Construction costs were so high that in July 1863 an additional Ã, £ 1.2m was lent out to MBW to cover employment costs.
Southern drainage system
The southern system, in a less populous suburb of London, is part of a smaller and easier to build system. Three main channels flowed from Putney, Wandsworth, and Norwood until they were connected together at Deptford. At that point a pumping station raised a 21 foot (6.4 m) effluent to the main drain, which flows into the Crossness Pumping Station in Erith Marshes, where it is discharged to the River Thames at high tide. The newly built station at Crossness was designed by Bazalgette and a consultant engineer, Charles Henry Driver, advocates the use of cast iron as a building material. The building is in Roman style and its interior contains an iron architecture cast depicting English Heritage as important. The power to pump large amounts of waste is provided by four large ray machines, named Victoria, Prince Consort, Albert Edward and Alexandra, produced by James Watt and Co.
The station was opened in April 1865 by the Prince of Wales - the future of King Edward VII - who officially started the engine. The ceremony, which was attended by other royal members, MPs, Lord Mayor of London and Archbishops Canterbury and York, was followed by a dinner for 500 people inside the building. The ceremony marked the completion of the construction of the Southern Outfall Disposal Channel, and the beginning of their operation.
With the successful completion of the southern outflow, one of the MBW board members, a lawmaker named Miller, proposed a bonus for Bazalgette. The board agrees, and is ready to pay engineers for £ 6,000 - three times the annual salary - with an additional Ã, Â £ 4,000 to be shared among his three assistants. Although the idea then falls after criticism, Halliday observes that the large amounts discussed "at a time when austerity is a dominant characteristic of public spending is a strong indication of the depth of public interest and approval that seems to have characterized the work."
Northern drainage system
The north side of the River Thames is a densely populated city, home to two-thirds of Londoners, and work must travel through crowded roads and overcome urban obstacles such as canals, bridges and railways. Work began on the system on January 31, 1859, but the builders encountered many problems in construction, including labor strikes in 1859-60, harsh winters in winter, and more severe rain than usual. The rain was so heavy in June 1862 that there was an accident on the job of rebuilding the Fleet drain. The deep excavations run parallel with the excavation cuts at Clerkenwell for the Metropolitan Railway (now the Metropolitan line), and 8 <1 / 2 -foot (2.6 m) wall dividing the two trenches collapsed, spilling Fleet water onto Victoria Street, damaging gas and water pipes.
The high-level ditch - the northernmost of the work - ran from Hampstead Heath to Stoke Newington and across Victoria Park, where it joined the eastern end of a mid-level gutter. The middle-level ditch starts in the west at Bayswater and runs along Oxford Street, through Clerkenwell and Bethnal Green, before the connection. The combined mainline ran to the Abbey Mills Pump Station in Stratford, where it joined the eastern end of the low-level ditch. The pumps at Abbey Mills lift effluents from a 36-foot (11 m) low-gutter into the main channel. The main drain ran 5 miles (8 km) - along what is now known as the Greenway - to the dump at Beckton.
Like Crossness Pumping Station, Abbey Mills is a joint design by Bazalgette and Driver. Above the home-machine center is an ornate dome which, Dobraszczyk considers, gives the building "a superficial resemblance... to the Byzantine church". Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, in his Building of England , thought the building showed "interesting architecture applied for the dirtiest purpose"; he went on to describe it as "an unusual mixture, in Italian Gothic style vaguely but with tiers of Byzantine windows and middle octagonal lanterns adding a friendly Russian flavor".
To provide drainage for low-level sewers, in February 1864 Bazalgette began to build three dikes along the Thames River. On the north side he built the Victorian Levee, which stretches from Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge, and Chelsea Embankment, running from Millbank to Cadogan Pier in Chelsea. The south side contains the Albert Levee, from the Lambeth Westminster Bridge end to Vauxhall. He ran the gutter along the banks of the River Thames, built a wall on the beach, running plumbing inside and heating up around them. The works claimed more than 52 acres (21Ã, ha) of land from the River Thames; The Victorian Levee has the added benefit of reducing congestion on existing roads between Westminster and the City of London. The cost of embankment construction is estimated at Ã, Â £ 1.71 million, of which Ã, Â £ 450,000 is used to purchase the necessary riverbed property, which tends to the use of light industry. The embankment project is of national importance and, with the Queen unable to attend due to illness, the Victoria Levee was opened by the Prince of Wales in July 1870. The Albert embankment was completed in November 1869, while the Chelsea Embankment opened in July 1874.
Bazalgette considers the Embankment project "one of the most difficult and complicated things that... [MBW] should do", and shortly after Chelsea Embankment is opened, she becomes knighted. In 1875 the work on the west drainage was completed, and the system became operational. Building work has required 318 million bricks and 880,000 cubic meters (670,000 m 3 ) of concrete and cement; the final cost is about Ã, Â £ 6.5 million.
Legacy
In 1866 there was a further cholera outbreak in London that claimed 5,596 lives, though it was confined to the East End area between Aldgate and Bow. At the time it was part of London that was not yet connected to the Bazalgette system, and 93 percent of the casualties occurred in the area. The problem lies with the East London Water Company, which drains their wastewater half a mile (800 m) downstream from their reservoir: the waste is brought upstream to the reservoir at the time of the incoming water, polluting the drinking water in the area. Epidemics, and the diagnosis of the cause, leads to the acceptance that cholera is water borne, not transmitted by toxins. The Lancet, in relation to details of the investigation of the incident by Dr William Farr, stated that his report "will make an unbearable conclusion on where he has arrived with regard to the influence of the water supply in the cause of the epidemic." It was an epidemic last in the capital.
In 1878 a Thames pleasure carrying vessel, SSÃ, Princess Alice , collided with the Bywell Castle collier and drowned, causing over 650 deaths. The accident happened near the exile and a question was asked in the British press about whether the waste was responsible for several deaths. In the 1880s further fears over possible health problems because outfall led to the disposal of MBW refinery waste at Crossness and Beckton, rather than disposing of untreated waste into rivers, and a series of six mud ships were ordered to send waste to the North Sea. to throw away. The first ship assigned was named SS Bazalgette , which remained in operation until December 1998, when dumping stopped, and an incinerator was used to dispose of waste. The sewers were expanded at the end of the 19th century and again in the early 20th century. The drainage network, by 2015, is managed by Thames Water, and is used up to eight million people per day. The company states that "this system is striving to address the demands of the 21st century London".
Crossism Pumping Station remained in use until the mid-1950s when it was replaced. Machines are too large to be released and left in situ , even if they fall in damaged condition. The station itself became a first class building registered with the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works in June 1970 (since being replaced by English Heritage). The building and its machinery, by 2015, are under restoration by the Crossness Engines Trust. President of trust is the British television producer Peter Bazalgette, the great-grandson of Joseph. By 2015 part of the Abbey Mill facility continues to operate as a waste pumping station. The large double chimney of the building was removed during the Second World War following concerns that they could be used by the Luftwaffe as a marker for navigation, and the building became a class II building * registered at the Ministry of Works in November 1974.
The provision of an integrated and fully functional sewer system for capital, along with a corresponding decline in cholera cases, led historians John Doxat to assert that Bazalgette "might be better, and save more lives, than any Victorian official". Bazalgette continued to work at MBW until 1889, during which time he replaced three London bridges: Putney in 1886, Hammersmith in 1887 and Battersea in 1890. He was appointed president of the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) in 1884, and in 1901 a monument which commemorates his life opened in the Victorian Levee. When he died in March 1891, his obituary at The Illustrated London News wrote that "two great titles for Bazalgette's fame were that he beautified London and drained him," while Sir John Coode, the ICE president of the time, Bazalgette's work "will remain as a monument to his professional skills and abilities". The obituarist for The Times believes that "when New Zealand comes to London a thousand years then... the tremendous solidity and perfect symmetry of the large granite blocks that form the walls of the Thames-dyke will remain." He continued, "the huge sewer running under London... has added about 20 years to their life chances". Historian Peter Ackroyd, in his underground history of London, considers that "with [John] Nash and [Christopher] Wren, Bazalgette entering the heroes of London" for his work, in particular the development of Victoria and Albert Embankments.
See also
- Victorian-era portal
- 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak
Notes and references
Note
References
Source
External links
- The Great Stink Thames information and history period
- The Great Stink at The Crossness Engines Trust
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments