The Great London Stink of 1858 and the World's First Environmental Movement
The date is July 30, 1858 and the gentlemen and ladies of London’s upper class are walking through the streets with heads bowed and perfumed handkerchiefs held to their noses. A massive cloud, an opaque yellowish mist with the consistency of a thick soup, is hanging in the air. This cloudy mist has been rising up from the river Thames for the past month and now, by the middle of the Summer, it has enveloped the entire city in its miasmic haze. The river Thames cuts through all of central London. It is the main artery of transport for the entire city through which the commerce of almost the whole English speaking world flows. The Thames is the center of maritime world trade, and in many ways in conjunction with the greater Atlantic Ocean itself into which it flows, the Thames is the primary reason that the sun is said to never set on her majesty Queen Victoria’s British Empire. But during this stinking summer of 1858 London’s all i...