Riviera Heritage claiming to be the richest in England where women in sumptuous flowing gowns and men in tailored suits carved a path through people dressed in rags. Visitors to the town had guidebooks giving information on which places to visit and which places to avoid. Other clues would be found in local names. Clearly, Belgravia would be suitable for the wealthy visitor, while Pimlico less so. The aroma of a neighbourhood would further inform of the social standing of its inhabitants. The night Several developments soil men made local folk accept that change had to be made. The most important was the realisation that poor sanitation caused disease. In 1849 sixty-six people died from cholera and dysentery. Many of the dead were buried in Cholera Corner in the churchyard of what is now the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Andrew. As was to be expected, the cases occurred mainly in those oldest and poorest districts. In response, Torquay adopted the Public Health Act and the first meeting of the Local Board of Health took place in September 1850. Conditions then gradually began to improve. In 1865 the Local Board of Health made “a good wide street between the bottom of Union Street and the Strand.” This replaced the narrow alleyways on both sides of the River Fleet. At the same time, the odoriferous Fleet was confined to a tunnel - and it’s still there. In 1848 the Public Health Act began waste regulation, while a second act in 1875 put an end to scavenging.
Households were then obliged to store their waste in ‘a movable receptacle’. And so the modern dustbin was born. Though the authorities were taking action to tackle overcrowding and disease, it still took decades for people to accept that local government had a role in how they managed their household, their rubbish, and their toilet facilities. Progress was nonetheless being made. One technological advance was the invention of the water closet with its wallmounted cistern. Becoming popular in the 1870s, these were initially connected to the old cesspools. However, the extra volume of flushing water was overwhelming and caused an escalating stench in the home. New sewer systems were already in place but were designed just for rainwater. The need to remove human waste from the household quickly gave them a new function. The upper classes were first to install elegant baths in their villas. However, even after indoor plumbing became a necessity instead of a novelty, it still took some time before people thought of bathing as something to do every day. Motorcars replaced horses, and we adopted new cleaning devices such as showers and toothbrushes. As better hygiene took hold, strong perfumes for both men and women were no longer essential to combat personal aromas, and so the industry aligned itself more with fashion and with women. And gradually, the stench would diminish, and there would be new fragrances in Torquay’s streets.
