Stinking Foreshore To Tree-lined Avenue: Rethinking The Cleansing Of The Sewage Filled River Thames of Mid Nineteenth Century London

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Post-medieval Archaeology and Pollution", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Nineteenth century London saw rapid population growth, leaving traditional methods of sewage removal unable to cope with the volume of waste being produced. Waves of cholera left disjointed city government unable to provide clean drinking water and remove waste. By 1858 the Thames was a gigantic sewer, which combined with unseasonable heat and low tides as the 'Great Stink' - sun-warmed sewage on the foreshore - which forced MPs to retreat from the Houses of Parliament, on the river bank. The solution from the new 'Metropolitain Board of Works' was underground, interconnecting sewers, and pumping stations to discharge waste downriver, beyond the city. These were housed in the Thames Embankments, pinacles of Victorian engineering and urban design. This paper deconstructs the male dominated narratives around sanitation and pollution control and explores the ways in which the Embankments impacted diverse lives in the vicinity of the Embankment at Chelsea.  

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Post-medieval Archaeology and Pollution   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow