London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2

by Henry Mayhew

Concerning the sewerage of the most aristocratic parts of the city of Westminster, and of the fashionable squares, &c., to the north of Oxford-street, I glean the following particulars (reported in 1849). They show, at any rate, that the patrician quarters have not been unduly favoured; that there has been no partiality in the construction of the sewerage. In the Belgrave and Eaton-square districts there are many faulty places in the sewers which abound with noxious matter, in many instances stopping up the house drains and “smelling horribly.” It is much the same in the Grosvenor, Hanover, and Berkeley-square localities (the houses in the squares themselves included). Also in the neighbourhood of Covent-garden, Clare-market, Soho and Fitzroy-squares; while north of Oxford-street, in and about Cavendish, Bryanstone, Manchester, and Portman-squares, there is so much rottenness and decay that there is no security for the sewers standing from day to day, and to flush them for the removal of their “most loathsome deposit” might be “to bring some of them down altogether.”

One of the accounts of a subterranean survey concludes with the following rather curious statement:—“Throughout the new Paddington district the neighbourhood of Hyde Park Gardens, and the costly squares and streets adjacent, the sewers abound with the foulest deposit, from which the most disgusting effluvium arises; indeed, amidst the whole of the Westminster District of Sewers the only little spot which can be mentioned as being in at all a satisfactory state is the Seven Dials.”

I may point out also that these very curious and authenticated accounts by no means bear out the zymotic doctrine of the Board of Health as to the cause of cholera; for where the zymotic influences from the sewers were the worst, in the patrician squares of what has been called Belgravia and Tyburnia, the cholera was the least destructive. This, however, is no reason whatever why the stench should not be stifled.

Of the House-Drainage of the Metropolis as connected with the Sewers.

Every house built or rebuilt since the passing of the Metropolitan Sewers Act in 1848, must be drained, with an exception, which I shall specify, into a sewer. The law, indeed, divested of its technicalities is this: the owner of a newly-erected house must drain it to a sewer, without the intervention of a cesspool, if there be a sewer within 100 feet of the site of the house; and, if necessary, in places but partially built over, such owner must continue the sewer along the premises, and make the necessary drain into it; all being done under the approval of the proper officer under the Commissioners. If there be, however, an established sewer, along the side, front, or back of any house, a covered drain must be made into that at the cost of the owner of the premises to be drained. “Where a sewer,” says the 46th section of the Act, “shall already be made, and a drain only shall be required, the party is to pay a contribution towards the original expense of the sewer, if it shall have been made within thirty-five years before the 4th of September, 1848, the contribution to be paid to the builder of the sewer.”... “In cases where there shall be no sewer into which a drain could be made, the party must make a covered drain to lead into a cesspool or other place (not under a house) as the Commissioners may direct. If the parties infringe this rule, the Commissioners may do the work and throw the cost on them in the nature of an improvement rate, or as charges for default, and levy the amount by distress.”

I mention these circumstances more particularly to show the extent, and the far-continued ramification, of the subterranean metropolis. I am assured by one of the largest builders in the western district of the capital that the new regulations (as to the dispensing with cesspools) are readily complied with, as it is a recommendation which a house agent, or any one letting new premises, is never slow to advance (“and when it’s the truth,” he said, “they do it with a better grace”), that there will be in the course of occupancy no annoyance and no expense incurred in the clearing away of cesspoolage.

I shall at present describe only the house-drainage, which is connected with the public sewerage. The old mode of draining a house separately into the cesspool of the premises will, of course, be described under the head of cesspoolage, and that old system is still very prevalent.

At the times of passing both general and local Acts concerning buildings, town improvements and extensions, the erection of new streets and the removal of old, much has been said and written concerning better systems of ventilating, warming, and draining dwelling-houses; but until after the first outbreak of cholera in England, in 1832, little public attention was given to the great drainage of all the sewers. However, on the passing of the Building and Sanitary Acts generally, the authorities made many experiments, not so much to improve the system of sewerage as of house-drainage, so as to make the dwelling-houses more wholesome and sweet.

To effect this, the great object was the abolition of the cesspool system, under which filth must accumulate, and where, from scamped buildings or other causes, evaporation took place, the effects of the system were found to be vile and offensive, and have been pronounced miasmatic. Having just alluded to these matters, I proceed to describe the modernly-adopted connection of house-drainage and street-sewerage.

Experiments, as I have said, were set on foot under the auspices of public bodies, and the opinions of eminent engineers, architects, and surveyors were also taken. Their opinions seem really to be concentrated in the advocacy of one remedy—improved house-drainage; and they appear to have agreed that the system which is at present adopted is, under the circumstances, the best that can be adopted.