Summary of Liza Picard's Victorian London

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Sample Book Insights:

#1 The Thames stank. The main ingredient was human waste. In previous centuries, the Thames run sweetly, and salmon and swans thrived in it. But by 1841, the census counted 1,945,000 people in London, and probably more if you include the shadowy ones who always evade officialdom.

#2 The bouquet of London’s streets was made up of animal dung, human excrement, and decaying brickwork. The sewers were old, and could not be enlarged to cope with the increased flow.

#3 The Victorians were proud that they had made a breakthrough in cleaning up London, when water closets became a normal part of a house in 1857. But the Great Stink of 1858 proved that their efforts were futile.

#4 Thinking Londoners began to realize that government through medieval parochial boards was not viable in the nineteenth century, and in 1845 London’s first Metropolitan Board of Works was set up.