05_CRITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS ESSAY

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

The Creation of the First Modern Metropolis This year my unit trip took us to the city of Venice, while our design thesis project is located in the district of Victoria, South West London.

On comparison of the two places their character is entirely different; and therefore the question came, what links can be discovered to join these two very distinct urban environments?

My answer to this question came from not the aesthetic of what occurred above ground, but in what had developed below the surfaces of the streets and buildings to enable their formation.

A realisation was both these urban environments were made possible through the introduction of large-scale urban engineering projects.

Venice is a series of communities, the collective being built on over 100 submerged islands on which are built thousands of compacted wooden pile foundations, vertically driven into the bedrock.

London is a collection of once historically separate communities; with Victoria being constructed on previous marshland, drained in the early Victorian period to aid the further expansion of London to the fashionable south west.

The ‘creation’ of these new districts for cities, due to engineering, presents a critical transformation to the original city.

In this essay I aim to research and consider the role large scale engineering projects have to transforming the urban environment of London throughout the 19th century, and how these developments lead the city and its inhabitants to occupy the modern metropolis we know today.

Works undertaken in this century of progress and industrialisation I believe also developed a change in public attitude. The conscientious view many of us have of city living today is far removed from that of one from previous eras. The experiences learnt, relating to London as not simply a series of separate villages and towns, but as a combined modern Metropolis, lead to the unifying of the inhabitants and an urgent need to accommodate their requirements.

The project which will form the basis of this essay is the construction of London’s Sewerage System under the control of the Metropolitan Board of Works and its Chief Engineer Joseph Bazalgette.

Eighteenth Century London

Nineteenth Century London

Twentieth Century London

The nineteenth century saw the city of London transformed from a typical European port and trade centre into being the capital of a huge empire. London’s unparalleled expansions as a capital city lead to a multitude of unprecedented infrastructural problems. In the 100 years between the two censuses recordings of 1801 and 1901 the city’s population had risen from 1,096,784 to 6,506,889 people1.

1 Demographia 2001: Greater London, Inner London & Outer London Population & Density History http://www.demographia.com/dm-lon31.htm : accessed on 28/12/2007

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

Until Joseph Bazalgette’s intervention in the mid 1800’s this ever expanding urban population continued to rely upon London's antiquated drainage system. In order to understand how this system worked two principles are to be recognised.

Firstly, the network of drains grew around the cities system of natural watercourses, London’s principle rivers and tributaries, shown below.

As London grew, these once open streams and rivers were covered over, creating land for speculative development in the ever denser expanding city. These rivers still continue to flow beneath the metropolis, though their visual connection with the population is now limited to the Serpentine Lake, Hyde Park (the Westbourne); the Boating Lake, Regents Park (the Tyburn) and the Highgate and Hampstead Ponds (the Fleet).

Secondly, this system was only intended to deal with surface water drainage. Domestic foul waste from buildings was diverted into cesspools. These were then emptied at irregular intervals by ‘nightsoil men’.

Indeed, while London continued its relatively informal and direct relationship with the surrounding open countryside the business in excavating foul waste both paid well and provided the opportunity to sell the waste to surrounding farms at profit.

‘At the commencement of the present century it was penal to discharge sewage or other offensive matter into the sewers, which were intended for surface drainage only. The sewage of the Metropolis was collected into cesspools which were emptied from time to time and their contents conveyed into the countryside for application to the land’2

2

The Builder, 19th February 1853, pg 110

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

Up until 1815 it was illegal to discharge effluent into the sewers and as a result of their function following their purpose the Thames remained a relatively clean river up until this time, by 1810 the city’s population of over one million was served by two hundred thousand cesspools.

In 1842 Edwin Chadwick, an active campaigner for reform of the Poor Law, and a advocate of sanitary reform published his ‘Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain’.

The report was concerned with identifying four main themes. The first was the relationship between insanitary living conditions and disease. The second as the economic effects of poor living conditions as manifested in the creation of ‘cholera widows’, orphans and those left by disease incapable of work, all of whom were supported by the ‘Poor Rates’, the Victorian equivalent of social benefits.

Thirdly the report looked into the social effects of poor living conditions under the title of ‘Domestic Mismanagement’ and ‘The Want of Separate Apartments’.

Most importantly to the development of London's sanitary system Chadwick’s fourth theme witnessed and formally commented on the inefficient administration system, highlighting a common distrust of local bodies, with acts and management which varied in quality from place to place throughout the city. ‘...whatever additional force may be needed for the protection of the public health it would everywhere be obtained more economically with unity, and efficiency, and promptitude, by a single securely-qualified and well-appointed responsible local officer than by any new establishment applied in the creation of new local boards.’3

This was a recurring theme in Chadwick’s work, a campaign for politically strong executive bodies that are appointed rather than elected, coupled with the authority and the finance to undertake the massive task of sanitary reform. It would be a further 13 years before the Metropolitan Board of Works was established as the figure to take on this commission.

Chadwick’s report drew much attention to the consequences London's two hundred thousand cesspools and the effect the growth of the capital had on the costs of continuing the traditional method of emptying.

His insight into the economic situation of the poor (the majority of London's occupants) enabled links to be made to define where the old system was failing.

Observations to wages and increased costs to the removal were made (in 1840 the cost of removal would have been roughly one shilling, a large amount considering a workers good day wage was 3 shillings) this combined ‘with a population generally in debt at the end of the week, and whose rents are collected weekly, such an outlay may be considered as practically impossible’4.

As London grew larger, farms became more remote and inaccessible, leading to the transportation and use of human waste as manure to be less economical. The ‘nightsoil men’ charged more for removing the waste to a greater distance and poorer families, unable to afford this increase accumulated it until it became a hazard.

In 1848 the unified Metropolitan Commission of Sewers was created, following the introduction of the flushing water closet. By 1844 the London builder Thomas Cubitt had estimated the increase in water closets in the capital had increased tenfold5. This increase in the introduction of this sanitary amenity was partially due to the experience ‘enjoyed’ by almost 900,000 people at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

This introduced the water closet as the Victorian aspiring middle class’s ‘must-have’ house hold item.

Indeed this adoption of the new sanitary ware in-time attracted negative comments,

3 Chadwick, William (ed.) 1842: Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. Necessity of Attention to the Prevention of disease. pg 356 4 Chadwick, William (ed.) 1842: Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. Removal of the Refuse of Towns. pg 45 5 Parliamentary Papers 1844: First Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Sewage Discharge. Volume 18. Pg. 181

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752 ‘About 1810 an invention was introduced which had a very important effect on the drainage system, namely the water-closet’6

The criticism of the new technology highlighted the increased volume of water required to function the flushing mechanism, compared to the cesspool arrangement. The consequence was medieval and 19th century technology attempting to work together and the result was disastrous, with the new WCs flowing into outdated cesspools, causing them to regularly overflow. The figures for water consumption within average London houses doubled in six years, from 160 gallons a day in 1850 to 244 gallons a day in 18567.

With the figures for the growth in population over this short period, coupled with the populations increase in water consumption the resulting escalation in London's daily water use rose from 43.3 million gallons to 80.8 million gallons six years later.

Ironically the considered ‘improvements’ in the design of the Wc and its subsequent widespread adoption, while undeniably offering the image of progress, was promoting epidemics as the medieval infrastructure which supported them could not support the much greater volume of liquid they generated. The connection between these domestic improvements and outbreaks of a new disease, Cholera, did not go unnoticed, ‘Almost coincidentally with the appearance of epidemic cholera (referring to the 1849 outbreak), and with the striking increase in diarrhoea in England, was the introduction into the general use of the water closet system, which has the advantage of carrying nightsoil out of the house but the incidental and not necessary disadvantage of discharging it into the rivers from which the [water] supply was drawn.’8

As early as 1815, in an attempt to relieve the pressure on the cesspools, the prohibition to connect house drains to the sewers was lifted, a result of lobbying by London's water companies who under the pursuit of profit wished to connect more customers with their supplies.

A new incentive to remedy the situation came with the seriousness of the new cholera disease.

Arriving from India, across Europe its progress had been tracked and documented by the British press before it first struck in Sunderland in 1831. Despite the effect it had on the major cities in England the true understanding of the cause of the disease was to delay the importance of sanitary reform still. A the time it was understood that cholera was associated with unsanitary conditions, though the real cause of contracting the disease remained for decades to be linked with the ‘miasma’ theory, where the illness was contracted through ‘bad air’.

In the mid nineteenth century London suffered four major outbreaks of cholera, the fatalities of these main epidemics are listed below: 1831-2 1848-9 1853-4 1866

6,536 14,137 10,738 5,596

It was the fear of cholera, that affected all classes of society with devastating speed (people would be well in the morning and dead by the evening), which became the major impulse toward reform of the London government before the formation of the Metropolitan Court of Sewers, giving them the authority that they needed to transform the sanitary condition of the capital.

6 7 8

Parliamentary Papers 1844: First Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Sewage Discharge. Volume 41. Pg. ix Dr Strange, J, City Chamberlin, Glasgow (June 1859): ‘On the Water Supply to Great Towns’, Journal of the Statistical Society. Pg 233 Farr, William, Parliamentary Papers 1866: First Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Sewage Discharge. Volume 41. Pg. 53

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

London's growth from the city in the east to the fashionable expansion to the west has always been linked to the directional flow of the Thames, with western districts growing up around the cleaner and fresher waters upstream. While the river operated in its historic way, before the 1815 reform to release effluent into the river, the tidal flow of the river had little effect on the quality of life for the more wealthy occupants of the west. As the Thames is a tidal river, the ebb and flow of the tide moved the water downstream at a reasonable sanitary rate, allowing western water companies to locate inlet pipes along the banks of the river with little compromise on quality.

In 1839 a Bill was passed by the Metropolitan Court of Sewers outlining standards concerning the sewage and importantly to enforce all buildings to be connected to the existing sewage system.

Despite the relative administrative developments concerning standards the Court was still composed of seven separate districts: The City; Western London; Finsbury; Poplar; Southern London; and Tower Hamlets. This general bill was followed in 1843 by ‘A Bill for the Bettering of the Metropolitan Districts, and to provide the drainage thereof’, stating rules on distances from existing sewers where new buildings could be constructed and the materials and dimensions used, stating they ‘...must be built of brick, tile, stone or slate, set in mortar or cement...at least 9 inches in diameter’9. In 1847 this was again amended to specify ‘...all cesspools and privies to be so constructed as to prevent escape save into drain or sewer’10.

The above act of 1843 only affected the construction of new buildings in the capital, and due to this in 1846 ‘The Nuisances Removal and Disease Prevention Act’ commonly known as the Cholera Bill was introduced. This enabled the government to issue any new rules or regulations upon existing buildings where there was a necessary to the public health.

Again, efforts to improve sanitary conditions for the population of the city were misguided, due to the misunderstanding of the causes of the disease, and in the winter of 1848-9 London experienced its worst epidemic, with 14,137 of the population dying from cholera.

The importance of this moment in London's history is the cross section of Victorian classes which were affected by this outbreak. In the first epidemic of 1831-2 the 6,536 deaths were concentrated mainly to the east of the city. By 1848, 33 years had passed where the Thames was being used as a mains sewer drain, and the tidal effects had reached the more respectable water intakes up stream.

The enormity of the situation was realised by 1853, with constant letters representing both the rich and poor published in the Times urging for a remedy to the conditions people were being forced to live in and the consequences that followed. By the end of the year the restructuring of London's departments began. It was acknowledged that the 1839 Bill, and its subsequent division of the city into separate districts was ineffective. In reaction to this the Royal Commission on the Corporation of the City of London offered twenty seven recommendations concerning the internal organisation of the city, followed with two recommendations suggesting further government for London outside the city based on the seven Parliamentary Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Westminster, Finsbury, Lambeth, Southwark, Marylebone and Greenwich. A further and most important recommendation was made, following Chadwick’s aspirations of eleven years earlier, ‘We further suggest the creation of a Metropolitan Board of Works composed of members deputed to it from the Council of each metropolitan municipal body including the Common Council of the City.

The public works in which all have a common interest should be conducted by this body’11

By 1855 London finally had reigning body to control its basic infrastructural needs and the clause which outlined its most important role was that of clause 135 which stated ‘The Metropolitan Board of Works shall make such sewers and works as they think necessary for preventing all and any part of 9 10 11

Parliamentary Papers 1844: Volume 3. Pg. 591 Parliamentary Papers 1847: Volume 2. Pg. 473 Parliamentary Papers 1854: Volume 26. Pg. xxxviii

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

the sewage of the Metropolis from flowing into the River Thames in or near the Metropolis’12. Despite the misunderstanding of the miasma theory to the cause of cholera the un-doubted reaction of clearing the waste from the stinking Thames was accepted as the only solution.

Unfortunately it was the following clause 136, which disabled the potential power of the Board in its first three years in operation, preventing it from taking any active steps to carry out the previous instruction, ‘Before the Metropolitan Board of Works commence any sewers and works for preventing the sewage from passing into the Thames as aforesaid, the plan of the intended sewers and work...shall be submitted by such Board to the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Works and Public Buildings; and in no such plan shall be carried into effect until the same has been approved by such Commissioners’13

Joseph Bazalgette had been appointed as the Assistant Surveyor to the Metropolitan Sewers Commission in 1849 (seven years earlier). Under this role he had witnessed, first hand, the many ideas and concepts with which to relieve the congestion of the sewers with the improvement of public health of the city his main priority. On appointment as the chief of the Metropolitan Board of Works he immediately set about furthering his knowledge and creating a proposal which accumulated all the exemplary elements of previous schemes. It was two years before adverse conditions in London would obtain for him the power to commence with his task.

The three main epidemics (a third in the winter of 1853-4 killing 10,738) proved critical in resolving the problem of London's sanitation, as in July 1858 many months of hot, dry weather reduced the Thames to a condition the press described as ‘The Great Stink’. It is important to remember that at this time the ‘miasma’ theory of contraction was still regarded as truth, with the stench both potentially fatal as well as very unpleasant. The position of the new Houses of Parliament, directly on the banks of the Thames attributed much to the speed in supporting Bazalgette’s proposals.

Due to their close proximity to the river the members of parliament, whom had dismissed Bazalgette’s schemes for two years, found themselves practically face-to-face with the chance of contracting cholera through the ‘miasma’ seeping in off the river, described in the times on the 18th June, ‘Parliament was all but compelled to legislate upon that great London nuisance by the force of sheer stench. The intense heat had driven our legislators from those portions of their buildings which overlook the river. A few members, bent upon Investigating the matter to its very depth, ventured into the library, but they were instantaneously driven to retreat, each man with a handkerchief to his nose. We are heartily glad of it.14

On the 15th July Benjamin Disraeli, as leader of the house introduced the ‘Metropolis Local Management Amendment Act’ which extended the powers of the Metropolitan board of Works to implement the schemes selected by Bazalgette.

Bazalgette’s plan, which was further modified as construction work progressed, proposed a network of mains sewers, running parallel to the Thames, which would be intercept both surface runoff water and foul waste. The effluent would then be routed to two outfalls at Barking on the north bank and Crossness, near Plumstead, on the southern bank. Here the waste would be lifted by two housed pumping stations, released into the Thames at high water, and washed out with the tide. The positions of the main intercepting sewers, relating to the growth of London over the periods are show

12 13 14

Hill, Sir Benjamin 1855: Metropolis Local Management Bill. Clause 135 Hill, Sir Benjamin 1855: Metropolis Local Management Bill. Clause 136 The Times !8th July 1858

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

below.

Eighteenth Century London

Nineteenth Century London

Twentieth Century London

What I find fascinating with the works completed in London over the second half of the nineteenth century are not only how vast and ambitious their goals were, but how these fundamental aspects of human and city life, intended to be ‘faceless’ and hidden from view inadvertently changed the aesthetic and character of the city far beyond that of architectural styles or planning.

Bazalgette's aim concerning the works was simply to rid the Thames of foul waste. His achievements, whether consciously or unconsciously gained, range far beyond that. It is my view that in the year 1858, when the power to this man and his organisation was granted the world gained the foundations to first true modern metropolis.

Under Bazalgette’s memorial, on the Victoria Embankment, is a Latin inscription which reads ‘Flumini Vincula Posuit’ which translated reads, ‘He placed chains on the river’. When I read this and through my research into his works I have come to the realisation that London, since its creation, had been monitored in its growth by the Thames. For centuries the river and the countryside surrounding London existed in a balance of distances, with trade and commerce coming in at the wharfs edges, lining the north and south banks, and the effluent from life on dry land taken out to the country.

In its two thousand years of occupation the hundred years of the Victorian age saw this role reversed, and transformed the city forever.

Grand Panorama of London from the Thames, 1844-1845. Wood engraving by Henry Vizetelly.

The activity on the water, when compared to the emptiness the river experiences today shows the social role the river once had with the city.

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

A major social and aesthetic effect these new works had on Central London was its new relationship with the Thames. Bazalgette commissioned the series of embankment projects, lining the river at its most occupied areas between Battersea and Blackfriars. This serving three purposes: carrying the two low level intercepting sewers of the north and south banks; narrowing the water at strategic points, to increase the rate of flow; and also reducing the risk of flooding to low lying areas of the city (e.g. Victoria).

The formal, separated, relationship the city now has at its riverside echo’s the lack of connection ‘Greater London’ now has with the Thames. Centuries before, development of the city’s boundaries had been limited to the basic constraints of delivery and sanitation using the river, the new system of sewers opened up development potential to engulf surrounding towns and villages (Islington, Hackney, Stamford Hill, to the North, and Clapham, Brixton, and Dulwich to the South). These developments below ground are also connected to the other great work of the Victorian engineering area, the introduction of the underground railway network, which by the end of the century had further pushed the expansion of the city.

Following the years after the construction of the Victoria embankment this area of London undoubtedly underwent the most dramatic change, both aesthetically and commercially.

The loss of building typology previously served from the river limited its use in this part of London to new road access (relieving the congestion of the Strand) and the fashionable new import of the ‘promenade’. Gone was the rich variation of typologies, from grand residential town houses, and government offices down to the once active workers yards and wharfs.

Topographically the relationship with the river was now limited to certain points, due to the dramatic increase in the height of the land at the waters edge to prevent flooding. Where previously the streets of the city stepped down to meet the Thames, the promenade now offered the river as a viewed object, not the transport network it once was; this reduction in river traffic owing much to the new district and circle lines which were accommodated within the embankment, linking the financial city with the west.

Detail from a plan of Georgian London Richard Horewood 1792-99

Detail from a plan of London John Shury 1851

View of the Thames and the Embankment today

These riverside strips of land, the Victoria and Chelsea Embankments to the North and the Albert Embankment to the South reclaimed a total of 52 acres of land from the Thames, a majority of it located along some of London's most expensive property values. Land and buildings framing the Thames on either side located in the development area was bought by the Metropolitan Board of Works in one of the first compulsory purchase orders to take effect in the capital.

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

As the purchased sites bordered the river any land created off the construction of the scheme was assumed to belong to the MBW and therefore the city of London.

Early on Bazalgette conceived these new sites to house a series of parks in the heart of the city, but on completion, and the creation of the 52 acres strong opposition from the Crown estates questioned the ownership of these new valuable pieces of land.

Two acres of land of the new Victoria Embankment had been created adjacent to the Crown Estates, where the MBW had purchased the foreshore to the Thames, at a cost of £26,375. Seeing the development and subsequent revenue potential of this land the Crown estates proposed exercising their right to build offices on the reclaimed land. The legality of this move was unquestioned, though the benefit to the city to create the riverside walks and gardens over that of the Crowns financial interests was bought into question, especially as green open spaces in this part of London was lacking.

Again, public consultation played a major part in obtaining the backing of the government, showing support from all classes of the city. The attitude of the city’s population as a collective was represented in an article in The Times that ‘demanded that all the open land reclaimed from the river shall be devoted to one and the same public purpose, and be laid out as a pleasure ground for the health and recreation of the public’15. Throughout the whole scheme, I feel this, where the general public’s needs challenged the rights of the royal family, displayed a successful and dramatic change in public attitude.

Moves of public initiatives bore a series of new institutions throughout the capital in the Victorian ages, with the rise of the educated middle classes and events such as the Great Exhibition of 1851 fuelling interests in the arts and history, in addition to modern manufacture and enterprise.

The creation of the pumping stations, to the North (Abbey Mills) and the South of the Thames (Crossness) were the final part of the MBW London improvements.

External Architecture of the Pumping Station

Ground floor ‘Octagon’ area, with stairs up to the viewing platform

Today the Crossness building has restricted public access to see the only above ground elements of Bazalgette’s great scheme. What struck me on entering the spaces were the comparisons these buildings, who’s purpose was pumping sewage, had with the institutions of education of central London. The spaces are not only functional; there is an underlying feeling of a grand showpiece, something to be celebrated.

15

The Times !8th July 1858 http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

Architecturally the series of buildings are designed in the Byzantine style. I believe the relevance of this style to be integral to the thinking of the time, when a heated argument behind the benefits of Classical and Gothic architecture were ongoing. The Byzantine to the Victorians must have appeared otherworldly, which I feel appropriate, with the reasons for its being occurring from the underground.

Subsequently therefore preconceived ideas relating to architecture did not matter here as it was the engineering which was to be observed not the buildings themselves.

Further engaging the public the opening ceremony I believe to be incredibly modern in its approach.

The organisers of the projects enlisted the heads of royalty to officially open the works, and in April 1865 the Prince of Wales started the engines to large press attention.

When the history of the opening is considered, with royal patronage and the four main machines being named after members of the royal family, ‘Victoria’, ‘Albert Edward’, ‘Prince Consort’ and ‘Alexandra’ I feel the MBW were trying to change the public attitude of Victorian London further; the association with royalty surely enabled and actively encouraged the attention of the middle classes, who as history has proved were to become a major influence on changing England’s demographic.

On a visit to the pumping station at Crossness at the beginning of my research I was amazed at the level of decoration within the engine rooms. In an age of ‘Cleanliness next to Godliness’ these machines were enabling the Victorian population to live in a city where the conditions were as ‘modern’ as they are today.

Bazalgette did more than improve the sanitary conditions for individual Londoners. He created and envisaged a work which benefited not economics, trade or government but something which spanned across class and location, while offering the population the fundamental right to be acknowledged and represented.

Perhaps it is not a change in the public attitude relating to the city which was altered over this time, but instead a shift in understanding and appreciation of every inhabitant’s basic needs in the metropolis which sets Bazalgette as the true architect of the principles of modern urban living and city life.

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

Bibliography Books: Cadbury, Deborah ed., Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, (Harper Perennial 2004) Chadwick, William ed., Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. (1842) De Maré, Eric ed., London's River, (The Bodley Head 1964) Godfrey, Walter H. & Gater Sir George ed., London City Council, Survey of London, Volume XX Trafalgar Square and Neighbourhood (The Parish of St. Martin-in-the-fields, Part III), (LCC 1940) Jones, Edward & Woodward, Christopher ed., A Guide to the Architecture of London, Third Edition, (Seven Dials, Cassell & Co: 2000) Moore, Rowan & Lloyd, Sampson ed., Panoramas of London, (George Weidenfield & Nicholson Ltd 1993) Halliday, Stephen ed., The Great Stink of London Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis, (Sutton Publishing Limited 1999) Dr Strange, J, City Chamberlin, Glasgow: ‘On the Water Supply to Great Towns’, Journal of the Statistical Society. (June 1859) Weightman, Gavin ed., London River The Thames Story, (Collins & Brown Limited 1990) White, Jerry ed., London in the 19th Century, A Human Awful Wonder of God, (Vintage 2007) Wolmar, Christian ed., The Subterranean Railway, (Atlantic Books 2005) Audio Visual Media: Video The Great Stink, A Television Documentary about a great feat of Victorian Engineering, Uden Associates, Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd., 2002 DVD Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, The Sewer King, Edward Bazalgette, Acorn Media and British Broadcasting Corporation, 2003

General Websites: http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/ www.crossness.org.uk http://books.google.com/ http://www.oldlondonmaps.com/index.html

London Metropolitan University Department of Architecture and Spatial Design ADP044N Critical Transformations Alec Borrill 07027752

Specific Web Pages: Demographia 2001: Greater London, Inner London & Outer London Population & Density History http://www.demographia.com/dm-lon31.htm accessed on 28/12/2007 Many thanks to the following people and organisations for their time and effort in helping me research this paper: Peter Keasley, Tour Organiser,

Crossness Engines Trust