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‘A monument to defective administration’? The London Commissions of Sewers in the early nineteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 1999

David Sunderland
Affiliation:
Faculty of the Built Environment, South Bank University, London SW8 2JZ

Abstract

The paper investigates the activities of the eight London Commissions of Sewers during the period 1800–47. It is argued that the criticisms of the Commissions made by Edwin Chadwick and later historians are undeserved. The Commissions were efficient, innovative and honest, and successfully kept pace with the ever-changing sanitary needs of the capital. Although they operated under severe statutory constraints, they constructed many miles of sewer and can be seen as the true instigators of the nineteenth-century sanitary revolution.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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