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Sir Joseph William Bazalgette and "The Big Stink"

An excerpt from the Society's Transactions

The paper entitled "Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819-1891): Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works" by D P Smith is published in Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 1986-87 Vol 58.

In his paper, Dr Smith describes the life and prodigious output of this "somewhat shadowy figure in Victorian engineering", who as Chief Engineer to the newly-formed Metropolitan Board of Works was responsible for a series of massive public engineering projects that have shaped London. They include the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea Embankments of the River Thames, twelve bridges (three of which were to Bazalgette’s designs), street improvements including communications between London’s new railway stations, artisans’ housing, and flood prevention for 40 miles of river frontage. But Bazalgette is best remembered today as the man responsible for designing and building the hundreds of miles of London’s underground sewers.

Father Thames greets Faraday (1855 Punch Cartoon, reproduced courtesy of the Royal Institution)

London in the 1850s was expanding rapidly, and following repeated cholera outbreaks London’s hitherto local and piecemeal drainage arrangements needed serious attention. The problems, which culminated in the 'Year of the Big Stink' (1858), were graphically described by Bazalgette:

"the whole of the sewage passed down sewers from the high ground at right angles to the Thames into the low grounds adjoining the Thames, where at high water it was pent up in the sewers, forming great elongated cesspools of stagnant sewage, and then when the tide went down and opened the outlets, that sewage was poured into the river at low water at a time when there was very little water in the river.

Furthermore, this sewage kept oscillating up and down the river, while more filth was continually adding to it, until the Thames became absolutely pestilential".

The Metropolitan Board of Works was created in 1855 to take responsibility for the built environment within London's 117 square miles. Metropolitan improvements 'under the earth and above the earth' were seen as its special function. A contemporary view of the Board was as 'appointed physician to the metropolitan organism... (with) the duty of restoring it to health and promoting its future growth, of giving strength to its muscular, and vitality to its arterial system, roundness to its limbs, and beauty to its face.' London’s sanitary arrangements naturally took priority in such circumstances, and in 1856 the Board asked Bazalgette to report as soon as possible. His first report was followed by enormously protracted public discussion of this and other schemes, involving central government, referees, and the press. But in 1858 the Board obtained its enabling Act and site work began shortly on the northern mid-level sewer, described by the author as follows:

"The brick-built intercepting sewers were laid to a fall of 2 feet per mile from west to east and it was, therefore, necessary to lift the sewage into the outfall sewers with pumping stations sited in east London... The work progressed towards completion, at least on the south side, during the summer of 1864 and Bazalgette's eighth annual report of 4 July captures something of the scale and character of the task:

'It is with satisfaction that I am enabled to state that fair progress has been made in the construction of the Main Drainage Lines of Sewers, and with numerous and extensive works in course of execution therewith at the several Pumping Stations, Reservoirs, Outlets, &c. during the past year, the weather having, as in the preceding year, been favourable to their progression, without any material interruption from long continued frosts or heavy rains. It is also satisfactory to me to be able to state that, whilst a large amount of tunnelling has been completed on the South Side of the River, under canals, railways, houses, and through treacherous soils, filled with water, from the precautions taken by the several Contractors for the safety of their respective works, and from the skill and judgement evinced in their execution, no one section of these works has failed, whilst the damage to property, allowing for the nature and magnitude of the work, and the extent of the Metropolis traversed by it, has been unimportant, and the casualties to the workmen not numerous, and with but few of a fatal character.'

To cater for the interest of those concerned, annual visits to the drainage works with groups comprising Board members, the City, Parliament, and District Vestries were arranged. Such a visit was made on Monday 25th July 1864 when 'the party numbered between 500 and 600 strong and were conveyed by two steamboats, which started from Hungerford early in the morning'. These visits foreshadowed the ceremonial opening of the drainage works. This took place on Tuesday 4 April 1865 when amongst others, the Prince of Wales, Members of Parliament, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin proceeded by steamboat down the river:

the Royal party landed at the Northern Outfall, at Barking, and after a brief inspection of the works at that place resumed their passage to the Southern Outfall at Crossness, where the general company had already assembled... they were conducted over the works; after which the Engineer explained the general principles and engineering details... the four pumping engines were then successively set in motion by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, which completed the opening of the works...the company then partook of luncheon."

Biographical Note: Denis Smith PhD, MSc, DIC, CEng, is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers' Panel for Historical Engineering Works, and member of their Archive Panel. He is a Past President of the Newcomen Society.

The complete text of this paper can be purchased on line from our archive.

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