The Great Stink
How London's 1858 Sewage Crisis Produced a Modern Sewer System
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This book examines how local government responded to the emergency, detailing the months from June through August when the stench became unbearable. It covers the construction of intercepting sewers and the massive Crossness pumping station that would transform London's drainage system. The work includes the southern and northern drainage systems that eventually reduced cholera deaths dramatically.
Readers interested in Victorian civil engineering, public health history, or urban planning will find this account of London's 1858 sewage crisis both informative and essential.
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In the 17th century, sections of the Fleet and Walbrook rivers were covered to make room for early brick sewers in London. By 1856, over a hundred more had been built, and the city was home to about 200,000 cesspits and 360 sewers. Some of those cesspits leaked methane and other gases, which sometimes ignited and caused explosions. Many of the sewers were in poor condition. During the early 1800s, the water supply was improved as medieval wooden pipes were replaced with iron ones. At the same time, flushing toilets became more common, and the population grew from just under one million to three million. This increase in people meant more water and waste flowing into the sewers. Factories and slaughterhouses also added to the burden, as their industrial effluent overwhelmed the aging system. Much of this waste either overflowed or was dumped straight into the Thames.
In July 1855, the scientist Michael Faraday wrote to The Times about the condition of the Thames, describing how he dropped white paper into the river to test its clarity. He found the water so thick with waste that it formed dense clouds near the bridges, visible even at the surface. Faraday compared the smell to what you'd find in street gully-holes, calling the entire river a functioning sewer for a time. By 1857, the stench had become unbearable that the government tried to ease it by pouring chalk lime, chloride of lime, and carbolic acid into the river.
In 1858, London was struck by what became known as the Great Stink, a crisis so severe that it brought the city to its knees. The smell coming from the Thames was unbearable, and people believed it was linked to disease. At the time, the medical understanding of how illness spread was based on the miasma theory — the idea that bad air carried contagions. This belief held that diseases like cholera were transmitted through polluted air, whether from rotting corpses, sewage, or even the breath of the sick. Cholera was spreading quickly across 19th-century Europe, and its deadly speed made it a source of deep fear for everyone.
In 1831, London faced its first major cholera outbreak, with 6,536 people dying. The second wave struck in 1848–49, killing 14,137 residents. Then came a third outbreak in 1853–54, claiming 10,738 lives. During the second outbreak, physician John Snow observed that areas supplied by the Lambeth and Southwark and Vauxhall water companies had higher death rates. He published a paper in 1849 titled On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, arguing that cholera spread through polluted water, not bad air. His ideas were largely dismissed. After the third outbreak in 1854, Snow returned to his research, focusing on Broad Street in Soho. He removed the handle from a local pump to stop people from drinking contaminated water, which led to a drop in deaths. Later, it was discovered that a broken sewer had polluted the nearby well.
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In 1848, the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was created, pushed forward by social reformer Edwin Chadwick and a Royal Commission. It replaced seven of the eight sewer management groups that had been in charge since Henry VIII’s time, marking the first moment a single authority controlled London’s sanitation system. The Building Act of 1844 had already required new buildings to connect to sewers instead of cesspools. Now, the Commission began linking old cesspools to the sewer system or removing them entirely. Edwin Chadwick and later, the pathologist John Simon, worried that the miasma from sewers could spread disease, so they made sure the sewers were regularly flushed—though this led to more sewage being dumped into the Thames.
In August 1849, the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers appointed Joseph Bazalgette as assistant surveyor. He had been working in the railway industry until illness forced him to take a break from work; this appointment was his return to employment. He began developing a more organized plan for London’s sewers under chief engineer Frank Foster. Foster died in 1852 from the stress of the job, and Bazalgette took over his position, continuing to improve the sewer system plans. In 1855, the Metropolis Management Act replaced the commission with the Metropolitan Board of Works, which assumed control of the sewers.
By June 1856, Bazalgette completed his final plans for London's sewer system, designing small local sewers feeding into larger ones that drained to outflow pipes 11 feet high. The city was divided into high-, middle-, and low-level areas, each served by a main sewer and pumping stations east of the city. His plan, based on Foster's but scaled up for a population rise from 3 to 4.5 million, was submitted to Sir Benjamin Hall, who objected to the outfalls within the capital. After revisions, the plans were reviewed in December 1856 by consultant engineers Captain Douglas Strutt Galton, James Simpson, and Thomas Blackwood. They recommended moving the discharge points 15 miles beyond the original locations, increasing costs to over £5.4 million—far exceeding Bazalgette's £2.4 million estimate. In February 1858, a general election brought Lord Derby's Conservative government to power, replacing Hall and appointing Benjamin Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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By mid-1858, London's Thames problems had been growing for years. In his novel Little Dorrit, published between 1855 and 1857, Charles Dickens described the river as "a deadly sewer ... in the place of a fine, fresh river." He wrote that even a brief whiff of the smell was "of a most head-and-stomach-distending nature." The social scientist George Godwin said the Thames foreshore had deposits more than six feet deep, thickly impregnated with impure matter. In June 1858, London's temperatures in the shade averaged 34–36 °C, rising to 48 °C in the sun. With dry weather, the river level dropped and raw sewage from the sewers stayed on the banks. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert tried a pleasure cruise but returned quickly due to the smell. The press called it "The Great Stink." One writer said, "Gentility of speech is at an end—it stinks," while another described the river as a "pestiferous and typhus breeding abomination."
London could rule the world, expand its empire, and manage debts that would break any other nation—but still it could not clean the River Thames. The city had grown rich and powerful, its influence spreading across continents, yet the stench rising from the river was a constant reminder of its failure. In 1858, as the summer heat intensified, the pollution reached a peak that made life unbearable in the capital. The Thames, once a source of pride, had become a symbol of neglect and decay. No amount of wealth or empire-building could fix what lay beneath its surface.
By June, the Thames smell had grown so unbearable it affected Parliament's work. Curtains in the chamber facing the river were soaked in lime chloride, but failed. Some members considered relocating government business to Oxford or St Albans. The Examiner reported that Disraeli left a committee meeting quickly, holding papers in one hand and pressing a handkerchief to his nose because of the stench. MPs raised concerns in the House of Commons. John Brady told Manners the smell made it impossible to use the Committee Rooms or Library, asking if any action had been taken. Manners replied the Thames wasn't under his control. A few days later, another MP criticized the river, calling it a "cesspool," and asked if the government planned to act. Manners again said the government had no authority over the Thames. The satirical magazine Punch noted that the "Conspiracy to Poison question" dominated both Houses of Parliament, with the Thames itself named as the guilty party.
At the height of the 1858 stink, workers were spreading tons of lime on the Thames foreshore to combat the smell, at a cost of £1,500 per week. On 15 June, Disraeli introduced the Metropolis Local Management Amendment Bill, calling the Thames "a Stygian pool, reeking with ineffable and intolerable horrors." The bill assigned responsibility for cleaning the river to the Metropolitan Board of Works, required sewer outlets to stay outside London where possible, and allowed the Board to borrow £3 million repayable over forty years by a three-penny tax on households. The legislation favored Bazalgette’s original 1856 plan and overcame objections from Hall. The Times noted that "Parliament was all but compelled to legislate upon the great London nuisance by the force of sheer stench." After debate in late July, the bill became law on 2 August.
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Bazalgette’s design for the new sewer system called for 1,100 miles of street sewers to collect both sewage and rainwater. These would connect to 82 miles of main sewers that carried the flow out of London. The plans went out to tender from 1859 through 1865. During this time, four hundred draftsmen were busy creating detailed drawings for the first stage of construction. One major issue was that areas like Lambeth and Pimlico lie below the high-water level. To deal with this, Bazalgette’s solution involved lifting wastewater at certain points from lower sewers into higher ones, where gravity would take over and send it toward the eastern outfalls. The slope was set at two feet per mile to ensure the flow moved efficiently.
Bazalgette used Portland cement, stronger than usual but prone to overheating, so he created a strict quality control system. Historian Stephen Halliday called it “elaborate” and “draconian.” Results were sent back to manufacturers, who adjusted their methods, improving the cement. One maker said the MBW was the first public body to use such testing. The press covered the work positively, with architectural historian Paul Dobraszczyk noting many workers were portrayed “in a positive, even heroic, light.” In 1861, The Observer called the sewers “the most expensive and wonderful work of modern times.” Costs grew so high that in July 1863, an extra £1.2 million was loaned to the MBW.
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The southern drainage system in London was the smaller and easier part of the overall project, stretching from suburbs like Putney, Wandsworth, and Norwood, where three main sewers came together in Deptford. From there, a pumping station raised the waste 21 feet into a larger outflow sewer that led to the Crossness Pumping Station on the Erith Marshes. There, the sewage was discharged into the Thames at high tide. Designed by Joseph Bazalgette and engineer Charles Driver, the station featured Romanesque architecture and notable cast ironwork described by English Heritage as important. The power to move the sewage came from four large beam engines—Victoria, Prince Consort, Albert Edward, and Alexandra—made by James Watt and Co.
The Southern Outfall Sewers opened in April 1865 with a formal ceremony led by the Prince of Wales, who would become King Edward VII. He personally started the engines as royalty, MPs, and dignitaries looked on. The event included a dinner for five hundred guests inside the building. This celebration signaled both the end of construction and the beginning of the sewers’ operation.
After the southern outflow was finished, a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works named Miller suggested giving Bazalgette a bonus. The board agreed to pay him £6,000—three times his yearly salary—and an extra £4,000 for his three assistants. But later, because of criticism, the plan was dropped. Still, Halliday notes that the large amounts discussed at a time when public spending was usually kept tight show how much support the project had from the people.
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The northern side of the Thames held two-thirds of London’s population, making it the more crowded area for the sewer project. Construction began on 31 January 1859, but workers faced many challenges. There was a strike in 1859–60, harsh winter frosts, and heavy rain, especially in June 1862. During that rain, an accident happened at the Fleet sewer site. The deep holes being dug were close to a railway cutting for the Metropolitan Railway, and the wall between them gave way. Water from the Fleet spilled onto Victoria Street, damaging gas and water pipes.
The high-level sewer ran from Hampstead Heath to Stoke Newington, crossing Victoria Park where it linked up with the mid-level sewer coming in from the east. Starting in Bayswater on the west, the mid-level sewer followed Oxford Street through Clerkenwell and Bethnal Green before connecting. These two sewers joined to form a main line that led to the Abbey Mills Pumping Station in Stratford. At that point, pumps lifted waste from the low-level sewer 36 feet into the larger sewer. The combined system traveled five miles along what is now known as the Greenway, ending at the outfall in Beckton.
Abbey Mills Pumping Station was designed together by Bazalgette and Driver, just as was the Crossness facility. Atop its engine house rose an elaborate dome, which Dobraszczyk notes gives the structure a "superficial resemblance ... to a Byzantine church." Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, writing in his Buildings of England, found the building striking for its "exciting architecture applied to the most foul purposes." He described it further as "an unorthodox mix, vaguely Italian Gothic in style but with tiers of Byzantine windows and a central octagonal lantern that adds a gracious Russian flavour."
In February 1864, Bazalgette began constructing three Thames embankments to handle sewage from low-level sewers. On the northern shore, he built the Victoria Embankment from Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge, and the Chelsea Embankment from Millbank to Cadogan Pier at Chelsea. The southern side featured the Albert Embankment from the Lambeth end of Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall. Sewers were laid along riverbanks with walls on foreshore, pipes installed inside, and space filled in. The project took over 52 acres from the Thames. Victoria Embankment also reduced traffic congestion between Westminster and the City. Total cost was estimated at £1.71 million, with £450,000 spent on river-front properties mostly used for light industry. Albert Embankment finished November 1869, while Chelsea Embankment opened July 1874. Victoria Embankment opened by Prince of Wales in July 1870, as Queen was too ill to attend.
Bazalgette called the Embankment project "one of the most difficult and intricate things the ... [MBW] have had to do," and soon after the Chelsea Embankment opened, he was knighted. In 1875, work on the western drainage was finished, and the system became operational. The construction used 318 million bricks and 880,000 cubic yards of concrete and mortar; the total cost came to about £6.5 million.
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In 1866, another cholera outbreak struck London, killing 5,596 people, mostly in the East End between Aldgate and Bow. That area had not yet been connected to Bazalgette’s sewer system. The cause was traced to the East London Water Company, which dumped sewage half a mile downriver from their reservoir. During incoming tides, the sewage flowed back into the water supply, contaminating drinking water. Dr William Farr investigated and concluded that the water supply had caused the epidemic. The Lancet reported that his findings would make it clear cholera was spread through water, not by miasma. That outbreak was the last in London.
In 1878, the SS Princess Alice sank after colliding with the collier Bywell Castle, killing over 650 people near the Thames outfalls, sparking press questions about sewage contributing to deaths. A royal commission reported in February 1884 that while the MBW's system helped the city, problems remained—like sewage not being flushed out to sea quickly enough and fish disappearing for 15 miles downstream. In the 1880s, further health concerns led the MBW to begin purifying sewage at Crossness and Beckton, using six sludge boats to dump effluent in the North Sea. The first, commissioned in 1887, was named the SS Bazalgette. That practice lasted until December 1998, when dumping stopped and incineration took over. The sewer system was expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and as of 2015, it was managed by Thames Water, serving up to eight million people daily. The company said in 2014 that "the system is struggling to cope with the demands of 21st-century London."
Crossness Pumping Station kept operating until the mid-1950s, when it was finally replaced. The large engines were too heavy to remove, so they were left in place, falling into disrepair over time. The building itself became a grade I listed structure in June 1970, under the Ministry of Public Building and Works—now succeeded by English Heritage. As of 2015, the site was being restored by the Crossness Engines Trust. Peter Bazalgette, the trust’s president and great-great-grandson of Joseph Bazalgette, helps lead that effort. Part of the Abbey Mill facility still functions as a sewage pumping station today. During the Second World War, the building's large double chimneys were taken down due to fears they might help the Luftwaffe navigate. In November 1974, the structure was reclassified as grade II* listed under the Ministry of Works.
Bazalgette’s sewer system saved countless lives and transformed London, leading historian John Doxat to say he “probably did more good, and saved more lives, than any single Victorian official.” He worked at the MBW until 1889, replacing three bridges—Putney in 1886, Hammersmith in 1887, and Battersea in 1890. Appointed president of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1884, he was honored in 1901 with a monument on the Victoria Embankment. When he died in March 1891, The Illustrated London News called him the man who “beautified London and drained it.” Sir John Coode said his work would remain “as monuments to his skill and professional ability.” The Times obituarist added that “the great sewer that runs beneath Londoners” had added some 20 years to their lives. Historian Peter Ackroyd placed Bazalgette among London’s heroes, alongside Nash and Wren.
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