*Please note- This site search does not include the Vic. & Tas. BMD's, Lots o' Links & Worth a Look Books
|
JOSEPH WILLIAM BAZELGETTE
LONDON SEWERS
1819-1891
Joseph William Bazalgette, was born 28 March 1819, at Hill Lodge, Clay Hill, Enfield, London. One of nine children born to Joseph William Bazalgette (senior) (1783–1849) and Theresa Philo, née Pilton (1796–1850) and was the grandson of a French Protestant immigrant. He was the only son born to his parents.
The Bazalgette family is of French Origin. Joseph Bazalgette’s Grandfather, Jean Louis, came to England in 1784 and married several times. Joseph William senior, joined the Royal Navy and participated in the Napoleonic Wars, ending his career with the rank of Commander.
Bazalgette was a small child with a nervous disposition & only expected to live until the age of about 30 years. It is believed that he was privately educated & in 1836 at around 15 years of age, he left London to work in Northern Ireland & by the age of 19, was pursuing a course of study that would allow him to become a civil engineer.
He began his career working on railway projects, articled to renowned Irish civil engineer, Sir John Benjamin MacNeill & gaining experience in land drainage and reclamation works, he set up his own London consulting practice in 1842. On 20 Feb. 1845, Joseph wed Maria Keogh at St. Margaret’s Westminster & they went on to have ten children.
Bazalgette was deeply involved in the expansion of the railway network, working so hard that he suffered a nervous breakdown. While he was recovering, London's (short-lived) Metropolitan Commission of Sewers ordered that all cesspits should be closed and that house drains should connect to sewers and empty into the Thames. As a result, a cholera epidemic (1848–49) killed 14,137 Londoners. Bazalgette was appointed assistant surveyor to the Commission in 1849, his father also dying that year & his mother dying a year later in 1850. In 1852, he took over the job of Engineer, after his predecessor died of "harassing fatigues and anxieties."
Soon after, another cholera epidemic struck in 1853, killing 10,738. Medical opinion at the time held that cholera was caused by foul air: a so-called miasma. Physician Dr John Snow had earlier given a different explanation, which is now known to be correct: that cholera was spread by contaminated water, but this view at the time, was not then generally accepted.
With fellow engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as his mentor, Bazalgette was appointed chief engineer of the Commission's successor, the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1856, a post which he retained until the MBW was abolished and replaced by the London County Council in 1889.
Bazalgette presented his proposal as a solution to London's sewer problems & Parliament passed an enabling act, in spite of the colossal expense of Bazalgette's project to revolutionise London's sewerage system, they quickly gave him the go ahead. The expectation was that enclosed sewers would eliminate the stink and that this would then reduce the incidence of cholera.
The scale of the project was overwhelming. It is the biggest civil engineering project in the world at the time. To avoid digging up half of central London, Bazalgette proposes huge embankments along the Thames that will contain new massive main sewer pipes. These lower level sewers will intercept the foul water from existing sewers and divert it along to treatment works. He demanded that the brick built sewer tunnels were wide at the top, in the shape of an upside down egg, his design and increased diameter, meant the sewers could withstand the weight of the city above, wash away waste even with little rain and accommodate massively increased use.
Bazalgette’s son, Edward, joined him as an engineer on the project & by 1866 most of London was connected to a sewer network. His attention to detail, combined with his every decision being scrutinised and questioned under enormous political pressure, began to affect his health.
The man who single-handedly did more than any other to improve the health of the Victorian capital, was potentially working himself into an early grave.
By 1875, Bazalgette had spent £6.5 million building or upgrading 1,300 miles of sewers in London & in that same year, he was knighted, it wasn't until 1885 that the last sections were completed. In 1888, he was elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers & despite his nervous disposition and short life expectancy, Joseph Bazalgette died on 15 March 1891, in his Wimbledon home, aged 72.
Reference
http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/joseph-bazalgette
The Bazalgette family is of French Origin. Joseph Bazalgette’s Grandfather, Jean Louis, came to England in 1784 and married several times. Joseph William senior, joined the Royal Navy and participated in the Napoleonic Wars, ending his career with the rank of Commander.
Bazalgette was a small child with a nervous disposition & only expected to live until the age of about 30 years. It is believed that he was privately educated & in 1836 at around 15 years of age, he left London to work in Northern Ireland & by the age of 19, was pursuing a course of study that would allow him to become a civil engineer.
He began his career working on railway projects, articled to renowned Irish civil engineer, Sir John Benjamin MacNeill & gaining experience in land drainage and reclamation works, he set up his own London consulting practice in 1842. On 20 Feb. 1845, Joseph wed Maria Keogh at St. Margaret’s Westminster & they went on to have ten children.
Bazalgette was deeply involved in the expansion of the railway network, working so hard that he suffered a nervous breakdown. While he was recovering, London's (short-lived) Metropolitan Commission of Sewers ordered that all cesspits should be closed and that house drains should connect to sewers and empty into the Thames. As a result, a cholera epidemic (1848–49) killed 14,137 Londoners. Bazalgette was appointed assistant surveyor to the Commission in 1849, his father also dying that year & his mother dying a year later in 1850. In 1852, he took over the job of Engineer, after his predecessor died of "harassing fatigues and anxieties."
Soon after, another cholera epidemic struck in 1853, killing 10,738. Medical opinion at the time held that cholera was caused by foul air: a so-called miasma. Physician Dr John Snow had earlier given a different explanation, which is now known to be correct: that cholera was spread by contaminated water, but this view at the time, was not then generally accepted.
With fellow engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as his mentor, Bazalgette was appointed chief engineer of the Commission's successor, the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1856, a post which he retained until the MBW was abolished and replaced by the London County Council in 1889.
Bazalgette presented his proposal as a solution to London's sewer problems & Parliament passed an enabling act, in spite of the colossal expense of Bazalgette's project to revolutionise London's sewerage system, they quickly gave him the go ahead. The expectation was that enclosed sewers would eliminate the stink and that this would then reduce the incidence of cholera.
The scale of the project was overwhelming. It is the biggest civil engineering project in the world at the time. To avoid digging up half of central London, Bazalgette proposes huge embankments along the Thames that will contain new massive main sewer pipes. These lower level sewers will intercept the foul water from existing sewers and divert it along to treatment works. He demanded that the brick built sewer tunnels were wide at the top, in the shape of an upside down egg, his design and increased diameter, meant the sewers could withstand the weight of the city above, wash away waste even with little rain and accommodate massively increased use.
Bazalgette’s son, Edward, joined him as an engineer on the project & by 1866 most of London was connected to a sewer network. His attention to detail, combined with his every decision being scrutinised and questioned under enormous political pressure, began to affect his health.
The man who single-handedly did more than any other to improve the health of the Victorian capital, was potentially working himself into an early grave.
By 1875, Bazalgette had spent £6.5 million building or upgrading 1,300 miles of sewers in London & in that same year, he was knighted, it wasn't until 1885 that the last sections were completed. In 1888, he was elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers & despite his nervous disposition and short life expectancy, Joseph Bazalgette died on 15 March 1891, in his Wimbledon home, aged 72.
Reference
http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/joseph-bazalgette
1. Enfield, London
2. Before Bazelgette- The Great Stink!
3. The Early W.C.
4. Thomas Crapper
5. The Royal Navy & John MacNeill
2. Before Bazelgette- The Great Stink!
3. The Early W.C.
4. Thomas Crapper
5. The Royal Navy & John MacNeill
Enfield, London
Enfield was recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as Enefelde, and as Einefeld in 1214, Enfeld in 1293, and Enfild in 1564: that is 'open land of a man called Eana', or 'where lambs are reared'.
The Enfield Society : pictures http://www.enfieldsociety.org.uk/photographs/index.php Trent Park House, Enfield, once a royal hunting ground
|
Sir Joseph Bazalgette memorial, Thames Embankment. |
The Board of Ordnance was a British government body; established in Tudor times, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its main responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots & forts required for the defence of the realm & its overseas possessions & as the supplier of munitions & equipment to both the Army & the Navy'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Or Enfield Town - Time Machine. No 1
11:00 |
Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield
Built on instructions from the Board of Ordnance near the end of the Napoleonic War.The Royal Small Arms Factory was a UK govt owned rifle factory in the London Borough of Enfield. The factory produced British military rifles, muskets & swords from 1816. It closed in 1988, but some of its work was transferred to other sites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Small_Arms Royal Small Arms Factory: A Short History
6:28 |
Before Bazalgette-
The Great Stink!
The Great Stink!
A Chamber Pot or 'Po' (possibly from the French: pot de chambre (wiki)) Usually kept under the bed
CESSPIT
A Cesspit or Cesspool is an underground tank or brick chamber that captures waste water and sewage, simply collecting it, without processing or treating it. By the early 1700s, nearly every home in London had a cesspit beneath it
http://www.sewerhistory.org/chronos/middle |
Before Bazalgette, chamber pots were emptied directly into thestreet & those with indoor toilets found their waste joining over-flowing cesspools. Human waste ran through the streets contaminating most drinking water. To warn people before they emptied their pot out of the window, they'd shout "Gardez l'eau" (gar-day low) That's French for "watch out for the water".
Cesspools were built to be porous so the liquid part of the waste was meant to seep away into the ground.
http://www.npr.org/2015/03/12/392332431/dirty-old-london |
Said of Bazalgette's invention-
"...the most extensive and wonderful work of modern
times" The Observer, 14 April 1861
"...the most extensive and wonderful work of modern
times" The Observer, 14 April 1861
When Joseph Bazalgette was 12 England had its first recorded case of cholera. British people still needed to take quinine to fight off the ever present threat of malaria. When Queen Victoria came to the throne, only half of London’s infants lived to see their fifth birthday. Life expectancy was only 29 yrs of age.
Reports on epidemic cholera
Authors: William Baly, 1814-1861 ; Sir William Withey Gull, 1816-1890. ; Royal College of Physicians of London. http://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer Cholera outbreaks and pandemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera_outbreaks Cholera Epidemics in the 19th Century http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/cholera.html Cholera is a preventable acute diarrheal disease that leads to severe dehydration due to a massive loss of bodily fluids that can lead to sunken eyes, blue-grey skin and eventually death. 80% of cholera cases today can be prevented by the ingestion of re-hydration salts.
http://www.medicalecology.org/water/cholera History of Medicine https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cholera/intro Cholera and the Thames
http://www.choleraandthethames.co.uk/cholera- |
CHOLERA & THE THAMES The Parliamentarian's first attempt to rid the stench of the Thames, involved dousing the curtains of Parliament in a mixture of chloride and lime. When that didn’t work, they even considered removing the entire government from the Westminster area, despite the newly constructed building they had only recently acquired. That idea was quickly dropped and soon days had passed without the formation of a solid resolution. Eventually, the stench simply began to overpower the staunch sensibilities of many of the Members and Bazalgettes idea became the only solution & it is still servicing London today. http://www.choleraandthethames.co.uk/cholera- |
Metropolitan Board of Works
http://london.wikia.com/wiki/Metropolitan_Board Melbourne Old Treasury Building
Toilets and Sewage http://www.oldtreasurybuilding.org MMBW In 1891, The Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, was set up as a public utility to provide water supply, sewerage & sewage treatment functions for Melb. http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs Melb. & Metropolitan Board of Works https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne Accessing Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) base plans http://prov.vic.gov.au/provguide-45 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 1806-1859
was an English mechanical and civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", http://www.ikbrunel.org.uk/timeline |
The Great Stink Of 1858
1:58 Great Stink- Peter Bazelgette
57:54 The History of Sanitary Sewers
http://www.sewerhistory.org/photosgraphics A Glimpse Into London's Early Sewers
http://www.swopnet.com/engr/lond |
Original map by John Snow
Showing the clusters of cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854. The pump is located at the intersection of Broad Street and Cambridge Street. Mapping the 1854 London Cholera Outbreak
https://www.udel.edu/johnmack/frec682/cholera/
Showing the clusters of cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854. The pump is located at the intersection of Broad Street and Cambridge Street. Mapping the 1854 London Cholera Outbreak
https://www.udel.edu/johnmack/frec682/cholera/
Dr. John Snow and the Broad street pump
Snow didn't accept that cholera was caused by 'bad air'. The germ theory was not established yet, but Snow saw evidence which led him to believe that it was not due to breathing foul air. In 1855, he conducted a second elaborate investigation of the effect of the water-supply in the Soho, London epidemic of 1854, by talking to local residents (with the help of Reverend Henry Whitehead), he identified the source of the outbreak as the public water pump on Broad St. (now Broadwick Street). He persuaded the St James parish authorities to disable the well pump by removing its handle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/snow |
Bazalgette’s great-great-grandson is Sir Peter Bazalgette, the TV tycoon who created ‘The Big Brother’ reality series.
|
Sewage is waste matter carried off by sewer drains & pipes. Sewerage refers to pipes, lift stations, treatment and disposal facilities, that the sewage flows through
|
Sinking of the Princess Alice 1878. A pleasure trip on the River Thames from the London Bridge that turned into a terrible tragedy that shocked a nation.
In a fleeting time span of fewer than 5 mins, the death toll of around 700 was because many who survived drowning, died later from poisoning. To add to the victim's suffering, the surge of the river water brought with it, a screen of foul, black toxic sewage. Queen Victoria expressed her sympathy & a relief Fund was opened by the Lord Mayor of London. |
List of Names onboard the Princess Alice
http://www.alsbury.co.uk/princessalice/alice0.htm Recovering the Bodies
Illustrated London News- 14th Sept 1878 |
The Early W.C.
315 AD, Rome had 144 public toilets (above). The Romans treated going to the toilet as a social event. They met friends, exchanged views, caught up on the news and wiped themselves with a piece of sponge fixed to a short wooden handle.
A Brief History of The Flush Toilet from Neolithic to modern times
The British Association of Neurological Surgeons http://www.baus.org.uk/museum/164/a_brief_history Marie Antoinette's commode
Garderobes & public toilets were eventually replaced by the "commode", a box with a seat & lid covering a porcelain or copper pot to catch the waste
|
Alexander Cumming (1733 –8 March 1814) was a Scottish watchmaker and instrument inventor, who was the first to patent a design of the flush toilet. The S-shaped trap (or bend) was invented by Cumming in 1775 to retain water permanently within the bowl, thus preventing sewer gases from entering buildings. |
A Garderobe is a room in a Medieval Castle, used as a storeroom or as a toilet room, private room, bed-chamber; or privy
Thomas Crapper
The Toilet system we use today
Was designed by Thomas Crapper (B. Sep 28 1836, Yorkshire, D. Jan 27, 1910 London). At 14 yrs of age was apprenticed to a Master Plumber in Chelsea, London. After serving his apprenticeship & then working as a journey-man, he set up in his own right in 1861 as a plumber in Chelsea. Some of his innovativeness included the 'water-waste-preventing cistern syphon', the 'Disconnecting Trap' & the not too successful-spring-loaded toilet seat with automatic flush, which later became popularly known as the 'Bottom Slapper' http://www.thomas-crapper.com/The-Hist |
Thomas Crapper & employees
http://www.thomas-crapper.com/The-History-of-Thomas-Crapper.html |
Obviously, some people had to
be told to 'Let Go'? |
The Royal Navy
& John MacNeill
& John MacNeill
Bazalgette's father was in the Royal Navy, during the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars were the first truly global conflicts. The Royal Navy was a key player in the wider wars and for Britain, the key factor in her eventual emergence as the only naval power capable of sustained global hegemony.
History of the Royal Navy
The King's Ships (1500-1599) 43:31 |
JOHN BENJAMIN MacNEILL
Born 1793 Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland Died 2 March 1880 Irish civil engineer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John Sir John MacNeill Archives
http://archiseek.com/tag/john-macneill/ The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts fought between France under the leadership of Bonaparte and a number of European nations between 1799 & 1815. They followed on from the War of the First Coalition (1793-97) and engaged nearly all European nations in a bloody struggle, a struggle that also spilled over into Egypt, America and South America. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars |