70 years on from London's Great Smog, we still need cleaner air to protect health

By Suzanne Bartington, Clinical Research Fellow in Environmental Health, University of Birmingham
William Bloss, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Birmingham

London’s Great Smog of December 1952 was the largest in a series of “pea soupers” which brought normal activity to a halt across the capital. The smog lasted from December 5 to December 9 and led to a large spike in hospital admissions and as many as 12,000 deaths.

Pollution episodes like this one were driven by smoke from burning coal in city centres to generate power and heat homes (as recently as the 1980s power plants were still found right in the centre of London). This was then exacerbated…

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