In part consequent on the lack of sewers, house drainage was either non-existent or fearfully defective. In every part of the metropolis the evil was evident.
In Clerkenwell the “drainage was either none or very imperfect. Numberless houses do not drain into the sewers.” In St. Martin-in-the-Fields, “in the old streets and courts the drainage was the same as it was when the houses were built, some as far back as the reign of Elizabeth, and many in that of Charles I.”
In St. George-in-the-East (1856), “it is astonishing how few houses have availed themselves of the sewers.”
In Paddington, “the condition of the house-drains is far worse than that of the sewers. They include every possible variety of geometrical construction, from a circle to a square. Some have fallen in; others are choked with filth.”
In Lewisham (1856–7), “in several places there are reported to be nuisances of the usual character … cesspools, no water, &c.—stinking ditches filled with sewage which can get no further—every abomination, and people apparently doing what they pleased as regards getting rid of their filth.”
Nor was it only in the poorer parts of London that the house-drainage was bad. In St. James’ (Westminster) the Medical Officer of Health wrote (1861):—
“For the last two or three years the worst cases of neglected drainage have not been in houses inhabited by the poor, but in those inhabited by the wealthier classes of the community. It is to me frequently a matter of great astonishment to find how regardless those classes are, whose circumstances can command every comfort of life, of the sources of disease and death. This is not only seen in neglect of attention to drainage, but also in the neglect of ventilation.”
Nor was care being taken to provide drainage even to houses which were in course of erection. The Medical Officer of Health for Hackney, which was a growing district, reported (1858–9):—
“Building operations have recently been carried on with considerable activity, numerous new streets have been laid out and built on…. Unfortunately there have not been, and there are not at the present time, any means whereby the construction of proper drainage works could be enforced before the erection of buildings along the line of new streets, and the consequence has been that, to avoid the heavy cost of constructing effective sewers, the drainage works have been almost everywhere but very imperfectly carried out, and in many cases not even a brick has been laid for these purposes.”
The internal condition of the houses was very bad.