“ . . . private individuals are apt to look after their own interests first, and to forget the general effect upon the public, and it is necessary that there should be somebody to watch the public interests” (1874, Select Committee on the Metropolitan Buildings and Management Bill)

To what extent did social class dictate the solution for the Great Stink of London in 1858?

Social class dictated the solution to the so-called Great Stink of London in 1858 to a large extent. By 1858 the overwhelming smell arising from the Thames, which was used as a water source from medieval and Tudor periods, had affected most of London and became a pressing issue in the House of Parliament. London’s class system of the 1800s consisted of seven classes , …show more content…
At the highest level of 1800s London’s social class was the Royal family and aristocracy, then land owning gentlemen and significant income earners. The third class included doctors, lawyers, bankers and other high-earning ‘white collar’ jobs. The lower and poorer classes of London were the most affected by the cholera epidemics, as the Thames River was their only ‘local’ source of water. The higher classes were barely affected by cholera; but in 1858 all classes were affected by the odour emanating from the River Thames. The bacterium-based disease, cholera, is a small intestine infection, which originates from the bacteria Vibrio cholera. Causing severe vomiting and diarrhoea, cholera leads to dehydration, kidney failure and death in some cases, ‘often within a few hours of the onset of the disease’ . The bacteria uses water as a transport medium and transmission occurs when one consumes water or food contaminated by infected feces. In the 1854 cholera outbreak, 10, 738 people dies in London , this prompted the development and production of a new and updated sewerage system of London. As the poor did not have political representation to present their complaints to the House of Parliament, the only public issues addressed were those affecting the higher classes. In 1825, thirty-three years before the Great Stink of London, the water quality had become so poor ‘that it prompted complaints from the royal palaces’ . From these complaints, the water company’s engineer, James Simpson, in 1829, created one of the earliest filtration processes, with water drained through a bed of sand before being used or consumed. This action suggests the societal power of the higher classes in creating infrastructural change. With no representation to further their claims, the poor had little opportunity to improve their unhygienic circumstances. When the Health of Towns Association issued a 1848