The Sanitary Evolution of London

by Henry Jephson

Nor was there in the metropolis any central authority—no single body, representative or even otherwise—to attend to the great branches of municipal administration which affected and concerned the metropolis as a whole, and which could only be dealt with efficiently by the metropolis being treated as a whole.

The consequences to the inhabitants of London of the absence of any efficient form of local government were dire in character, terrible in extent, and unceasing in operation. The higher grades of society suffered in some degree, as disease, begotten in filth and nurtured in poverty, often invaded with disastrous consequences the homes of the well-to-do; but it was by the great mass of the industrial classes and the poorer people that the terrible burden of insanitation had to be borne, and upon them that it fell with the deadliest effect.

The non-existence of a central authority, or of any capable local authorities whose function it would have been to protect them from the causes of disease, had resulted in an insanitary condition which year after year entailed the waste of thousands upon thousands of lives. And the people, in the cruel circumstances of their position, were absolutely powerless to help themselves, and had no possible means of escape from the ever-present, all-surrounding danger.

The first absolute necessity of any sanitation whatever is the getting rid by deportation or destruction of all the filth daily made or left by man or beast, for such filth or refuse breeds all manner of disease, from the mildest up to the very worst types and sorts, and promptly becomes not only noxious to health, but fatal to life. The more rapidly and thoroughly, therefore, this riddance is effected, the better is it in every way for the general health of the public.

So far as the metropolis was concerned, this necessity had for generation after generation been very lightly regarded; and when at last it so forced itself upon public notice that it could no longer be ignored, the measures taken were wholly inadequate and ineffective.

What system there was in London as to the disposal of sewage throughout the earlier half of last century was based upon a Statute dating so far back as Henry VIII.’s reign, amended by another in William and Mary’s reign. Under these Statutes certain bodies had been constituted by the Crown as Commissioners of Sewers for certain portions of London, and charged with the duty of providing sewers and drains in their respective districts, and maintaining the same in proper working order.

But what might have been good enough for London in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries was certainly not adequate in the nineteenth, when London had extended her borders in every direction, and her population had reached almost two and a half millions. Successive Parliaments had not troubled themselves about such a matter; and this neglect, which now appears almost incredible, was typical of the habitual attitude of the governing classes to the sanitary requirements of the masses of the population of the metropolis.

In the eighteen hundred and forties, five such bodies of Commissioners were in existence in London, each with a separate portion of the metropolis under its charge and exercising an independent sway in its own district; and when we collect the best testimony of that time as to their work and that of their predecessors, we have the clearest demonstration of their glaring incapacity, and of the utter inadequacy and inefficiency of the sewerage in their respective districts.

Many miles of sewers had, it is true, in process of time been constructed, and did exist, but much of the work had been so misdone that the cure was little better than the disease.