From the Great Stink to the modern sewage scandal: why 19th-century sewers are failing 21st-century England

By Ruth Emily Sylvester, Research Fellow in Water and Health Governance, University of Leeds

The raw sewage in England’s rivers and seas is not just a story of corporate failure. It’s also a legacy of Victorian sewers – impressive and high-tech in their day, but with inequality and exploitation baked in.

In the summer of 1858, London succumbed to a “Great Stink” as hot weather exacerbated the smell of human waste in and around the River Thames. Along parts of the Thames, sewage was piled six foot deep.

This compelled the Victorians to find a new way of handling the faeces of the…

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