The smell that built London's sewers

In the summer of 1858, a heatwave turned the sewage-choked River Thames into a stench so overpowering that Parliament, sitting right beside it, considered relocating. MPs soaked the curtains in chloride of lime and, within eighteen days, rushed through funding for engineer Joseph Bazalgette's plan for a citywide sewer network. The resulting system, over 1,000 miles of new sewers, still underlies London's drainage today.

— Stephen Halliday, The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Capital — The History Press, 1999
Go deeper: get the book →