Joseph Bazalgette

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (28 March 1819 – 15 March 1891) was one of the great Victorian civil engineers. As the chief engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation of a sewer network for central London that helped relieve the city from cholera epidemics, while beginning the clean-up of the River Thames that had reached a nadir with "The Great Stink" of 1858.

Sewer works

At the time, the Thames was little more than an open sewer, devoid of any fish or other wildlife, and an obvious hazard to Londoners' health. Bazalgette's solution (similar to a proposal made by painter John Martin 25 years earlier) was to construct 83 miles of brick-built sewers to intercept sewage outflows, and 1100 miles of street sewers, to prevent raw sewage flowing through London's streets and into the river. The outflows were diverted downstream where they were dumped, untreated, into the Thames. Extensive sewage treatment faciities were later built.

Related Topics:
Thames - John Martin - Brick - Sewer - Sewage treatment

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The scheme involved major pumping stations at Deptford (1864) and at Crossness (1865) on the Erith marshes, both on the south side of the Thames, and at Abbey Mills (in the River Lea valley, 1868) and on the Chelsea Embankment (close to Grosvenor Bridge; 1875), north of the river.

Related Topics:
Pump - Deptford - 1864 - Crossness - 1865 - Erith - Abbey Mills - River Lea - 1868 - Chelsea Embankment - Grosvenor Bridge - 1875

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The system was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1865, although the whole project was not actually completed for another ten years.

Related Topics:
Prince of Wales - 1865

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The effect of the sewers was to reduce cholera not only in places which no longer stank, but wherever water supplies ceased to be contaminated by sewage. The basic premise of this expensive project was wrong, as so often happens; but the end result was much better than expected, which is a rare occurrence.

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