Why You Wouldn't Survive Flushing London's Sewers (1858)

It's 1858 and you've been paid three shillings and sixpence to walk London's brick sewers by lantern for six hours, before the tide turns. You have four men, one hoe, and a flame that turns blue where the gas gathers. Two hundred thousand cesspools have been emptied into the water above you, the Thames has reached ninety four degrees in the shade, and nearly three million people share one river with no true drain. The smell has already driven Parliament behind curtains soaked in lime, and that smell is harmless, so why is it about to save the city? 00:00 Six Hours and One Lantern 03:10 The Tide Table and the Flame 06:40 Toshers, Rats and the Buried Fleet 10:20 The Great Stink Above Your Head 13:30 The Water Coming Down the Reach 17:00 Eighteen Days to a New Sewer 20:30 What the Brick Actually Bought Aeon History: live one night in another century. Subscribe for the next one:    / @historyaeon   Sources and further reading: Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor Stephen Halliday, The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis John Snow, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera #AeonHistory #London #GreatStink #WhatLifeWasLike #HistoryDocumentary ART DIRECTION, STYLE A: classical oil painting with bold high contrast and visible brushstrokes, saturated warm amber against deep indigo night. A huge close-up of a terrified ordinary person of Victorian London in 1858, a sewer flusher in a long greasy velveteen coat, wide eyes, mouth open in horror, lit by the torch or lamp they hold, face filling half the image height on one side. On the other side, in darkness, the egg shaped brick sewer tunnel filling with black water, a seven foot iron hoe half submerged in it. Text in bright yellow.