Joseph Bazelgette was the engineer who constructed the sewers of London saving literally hundreds of thousands of people’s lives. He was born in 1819 in Enfield, his ancestors had been Protestant immigrants from France, but Joseph began his career as an engineer for the burgeoning railways of England. Cholera was at the time a devastating and deadly disease, and in 1848 alone nearly 15,000 Londoners died from it; it was not understood at that time that contaminated water was the cause of the disease and its’ spread. Most people believed it was an air-born contagion, even though Dr John Snow tried to promote his theory of the true cause.
In 1853 there was another epidemic, and this time a further nearly 1,000 people died; by now Bazalgette was working within the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers, which became the Metropolitan Board of Works. In 1858 there was a very hot summer which caused the sewerage which was being discharged straight into the Thames to give off what was known as The Great Stink; the Houses of Parliament are on the banks of the Thames… the vile stench caused th MPs to actually do something… and Bazalgette was the man they needed.
Bazalgette’s solution was to construct a vast system of drainage tunnels, which would take the sewerage away from the city; up till then it had been running through the streets, into drains, into the rivers and into the Thames. He insisted that the tunnels, pipes and capacity of the system should be huge; apparently he took the suggested figures and doubled them! In 1868, the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, opened the system. It was not complete for another ten years, and it was only in the 1900’s that sewerage treatment plants were developed to actually do something with it all, rather than letting it go, as it was into the sea.
Cholera was virtually eliminated from the city; the environment was radically improved, and the great engineering feat of Bazalgette is still a marvel today. He had married in 1845, and he and his wife had at least eleven children; how proud thy must have been of him when he was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1875. he died in 1891, at the age of seventy-one. He also worked on the new construction of the Albert, Victoria and Chelsea Embankments, various bridges including Maidstone Bridge, Albert Bridge, Putney Bridge, Battersea Bridge and Hammersmith Bridge, and was involved in the early stages of Tower Bridge. He was also involved in the Woolwich Free Ferry and some of the initial plans for the Blackwall Tunnel.
He truly was an amazing man!
Lois Elsden 