July 29, 2025 • 8 mins
It’s amazing how we beg for the heat of summer when we’re freezing in the dead of winter. And then the heatwaves hit. Once again this summer, we’re all sweltering from the heat… air so thick and hot you can feel it go down your throat as you breathe. But heatwaves are nothing new. They killed thousands in 1898 and thousands more in the early 1900s. But the one that hit London 167 years ago changed the city forever. It’s time to revisit “The Great Stink of 1858.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh man, it seems like no matter where you live,
there have been days and weeks this summer that have
been absolutely sweltering. Am I right? But imagine a time
when there was no escaping it, no fans, no air conditioning,
heat waves that killed thousands of people and livestock. Now
add to that a primitive public sewer system that made
(00:21):
just breathing hell on earth. I'm Patty Steele. Welcome to
London's Great Stink of eighteen fifty eight. That's next on
the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Our summers really
seemed to be getting a whole lot hotter. Right. If
you have air conditioning at home and at work, you
(00:42):
find yourself kind of darting from place to place to
stay out of the heat. It's really not even pleasant
to sit by a pool or at the beach in
this sultry, steamy heat. Right, But imagine a time when
nobody anywhere had any air conditioning at home or work,
none in store, restaurants, theaters to escape for just a
(01:03):
little while into public ac and not even any electric fans.
Just heat, relentless heat, with no cooling breezes for relief
or even to blow away a bit of the Great
Stink which battered London in eighteen fifty eight. Now, heat
waves have tortured us for centuries. Talk about a rough patch.
(01:25):
The nineteen thirty six North American heat wave had followed
a bitterly cold winter, so nobody was prepared for that
kind of heat. We were in the thick of the
Great Depression. There'd been years of drought and endless blinding
dust storms, but there was even more to endure when
we were hit with all time high temperatures throughout the
entire middle of the country, almost from coast to coast.
(01:48):
Some areas, including as far north as North Dakota, hit
one hundred and twenty degrees, and the heat swept up
into Canada as well. Add to it, the Midwest seat
years long grasshopper infestation, which meant those broiled lifeless bug
bodies started raining down from the sky. In New York City,
(02:08):
which hit a record high of one hundred and six degrees,
hundreds of seamstresses at clothing factories, which were already notorious
for terrible working conditions, fainted right onto their sewing machines. Detroit,
one of the worst hit cities, saw doctors and nurses
literally collapsing while treating patients, and the morgues were overrun
(02:29):
with bodies by summer's and more than six thousand people
had died from heat. Now let's go back even further.
It's New York City and the Great New York heat
Wave of eighteen ninety six. Now, by that time, New
York already had three million residents, and a lot of
them were living in the misery of the notoriously cramped
(02:50):
and stifling tenements of the Lower East Side and other
poor neighborhoods. During a ten day heat wave, almost fifteen
hundred New Yorkers died after roasting in their jam packed,
dark and dirty rooms. A city had banned folks from
sleeping in the public parks, so those living in tenements
tried to find a breath of fresh air by hanging
(03:12):
out and even sleeping on rooftops, fire escapes, and piers
along the river. But get this, A lot of the
heat wave casualties happened when people fell asleep and rolled
off the side of the building or the peer and
plummeted to their deaths. Others died from heatstroke. More than
a thousand horses also died in the streets, adding to
(03:32):
the misery. Now, the problem is the city government wasn't
really addressing the disaster, but one relatively unknown official became
a hero, and what he did launched his political career.
Theodore Roosevelt was the city's police commissioner, and he had
his police force begin to distribute free ice into tenement
neighborhoods and also to provide ambulance service for the sick.
(03:56):
Some historians believe that the heat wave and his response
helped propel him to the White House. Then another East
Coast heat wave hid in nineteen eleven, and it literally
drove people crazy. In New York City, one young guy
leaped off a pier and into the water after hours
of trying to nap but getting no rest. As he jumped,
(04:17):
he yelled, I can't stand this any longer. Meantime, up
in Harlem, an overheated worker tried to throw himself in
front of a train. Cops had to force him into
a straight jacket. Up and down the East Coast railways
buckled in the heat, horses collapsed in the streets and
rotted in the sun, and one Connecticut newspaper said the
(04:38):
tar surface on some streets is boiling like syrup in
the sun. They said people went mad in the heat,
with the New York Tribune reporting one drunken fool, crazed
by the heat, attacked a policeman with a meat cleaver.
And finally we get to a heat wave for the ages,
and the one with the most evocative name London's Great
(04:59):
Stink of eighteen fifty eight. Ew, what is that about? Well,
it was July of eighteen fifty eight and the heat
was turned up to historic levels in London one hundred
degrees in the shade and out in direct sun. Temperatures
hit as high as one hundred and eighteen degrees in London.
But it wasn't just the horrific heat. It was also
(05:21):
the notorious stench that filled the air. It seems most
Londoners had recently given up their chamber pots for those
brand new water closets or flushing toilets. Now, the problem
is the antiquated sewer system couldn't handle all the extra
water and what went with it. Three million Londoners were
serviced by just two hundred thousand ancient cesspits, and they
(05:45):
were overflowing straight into the city's main river, the Thames.
As well as its tributaries. No rain, all that heat
and all that Effluvian's nice name for it encouraged the
growth of tons of bacteria. And the smell was god awful.
It was so noxious that in the House of Commons,
in order to get any work done, they had to
(06:07):
hang sheets soaked in chloride of lime from the windows
to try to blunt some of the smell. On top
of that, poor neighborhoods still that they're drinking water from
the Thames, and thousands died that summer from cholera, typhoid
and other diseases. In fact, one newspaper said, gentility of
speech is at an end. It stinks, and whosoever Inhales
(06:30):
this stink can never forget it, and can count himself
lucky if he even lives to remember it. Finally, the
public outcry convinced Parliament to overhaul the city's antiquated sewer system.
Joseph Baziljet, a brilliant civil engineer, designed a network of
drains and actually spectacularly beautiful pumping stations that were a
(06:52):
technological marvel, able to handle four hundred and twenty million
gallons of liquid waste a day. As the system was
put into place neighborhood by neighborhood cholera in those areas
that got them first saw a huge drop in the disease,
finally convincing the scientific world that filthy water, not air
(07:13):
or miasma as they called it, was to blame for
the spread. It took almost twenty years to finish the
new system, but it virtually ended cholera epidemics in London
and it's still in use today. Coincidentally, cholera is probably
what killed Abe Lincoln's little boy Willie in eighteen sixty
two because he too used to play in the river,
(07:35):
the Potomac River in that case, which also overflowed the
dead bodies of animals and the effluvians of the sewer
system in Washington. So at the end of the day,
what's really interesting is you can see that these disasters
actually propelled forward thinking and the development of new technology
to deal with what Mother Nature delivers, including a great stink.
(07:59):
I hope you're in enjoying the Backstory with Patty Steele.
Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
and feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
(08:22):
Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history
(08:44):
you didn't know you needed to know.
Oh man, it seems like no matter where you live,
there have been days and weeks this summer that have
been absolutely sweltering. Am I right? But imagine a time
when there was no escaping it, no fans, no air conditioning,
heat waves that killed thousands of people and livestock. Now
add to that a primitive public sewer system that made
(00:21):
just breathing hell on earth. I'm Patty Steele. Welcome to
London's Great Stink of eighteen fifty eight. That's next on
the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Our summers really
seemed to be getting a whole lot hotter. Right. If
you have air conditioning at home and at work, you
(00:42):
find yourself kind of darting from place to place to
stay out of the heat. It's really not even pleasant
to sit by a pool or at the beach in
this sultry, steamy heat. Right, But imagine a time when
nobody anywhere had any air conditioning at home or work,
none in store, restaurants, theaters to escape for just a
(01:03):
little while into public ac and not even any electric fans.
Just heat, relentless heat, with no cooling breezes for relief
or even to blow away a bit of the Great
Stink which battered London in eighteen fifty eight. Now, heat
waves have tortured us for centuries. Talk about a rough patch.
(01:25):
The nineteen thirty six North American heat wave had followed
a bitterly cold winter, so nobody was prepared for that
kind of heat. We were in the thick of the
Great Depression. There'd been years of drought and endless blinding
dust storms, but there was even more to endure when
we were hit with all time high temperatures throughout the
entire middle of the country, almost from coast to coast.
(01:48):
Some areas, including as far north as North Dakota, hit
one hundred and twenty degrees, and the heat swept up
into Canada as well. Add to it, the Midwest seat
years long grasshopper infestation, which meant those broiled lifeless bug
bodies started raining down from the sky. In New York City,
(02:08):
which hit a record high of one hundred and six degrees,
hundreds of seamstresses at clothing factories, which were already notorious
for terrible working conditions, fainted right onto their sewing machines. Detroit,
one of the worst hit cities, saw doctors and nurses
literally collapsing while treating patients, and the morgues were overrun
(02:29):
with bodies by summer's and more than six thousand people
had died from heat. Now let's go back even further.
It's New York City and the Great New York heat
Wave of eighteen ninety six. Now, by that time, New
York already had three million residents, and a lot of
them were living in the misery of the notoriously cramped
(02:50):
and stifling tenements of the Lower East Side and other
poor neighborhoods. During a ten day heat wave, almost fifteen
hundred New Yorkers died after roasting in their jam packed,
dark and dirty rooms. A city had banned folks from
sleeping in the public parks, so those living in tenements
tried to find a breath of fresh air by hanging
(03:12):
out and even sleeping on rooftops, fire escapes, and piers
along the river. But get this, A lot of the
heat wave casualties happened when people fell asleep and rolled
off the side of the building or the peer and
plummeted to their deaths. Others died from heatstroke. More than
a thousand horses also died in the streets, adding to
(03:32):
the misery. Now, the problem is the city government wasn't
really addressing the disaster, but one relatively unknown official became
a hero, and what he did launched his political career.
Theodore Roosevelt was the city's police commissioner, and he had
his police force begin to distribute free ice into tenement
neighborhoods and also to provide ambulance service for the sick.
(03:56):
Some historians believe that the heat wave and his response
helped propel him to the White House. Then another East
Coast heat wave hid in nineteen eleven, and it literally
drove people crazy. In New York City, one young guy
leaped off a pier and into the water after hours
of trying to nap but getting no rest. As he jumped,
(04:17):
he yelled, I can't stand this any longer. Meantime, up
in Harlem, an overheated worker tried to throw himself in
front of a train. Cops had to force him into
a straight jacket. Up and down the East Coast railways
buckled in the heat, horses collapsed in the streets and
rotted in the sun, and one Connecticut newspaper said the
(04:38):
tar surface on some streets is boiling like syrup in
the sun. They said people went mad in the heat,
with the New York Tribune reporting one drunken fool, crazed
by the heat, attacked a policeman with a meat cleaver.
And finally we get to a heat wave for the ages,
and the one with the most evocative name London's Great
(04:59):
Stink of eighteen fifty eight. Ew, what is that about? Well,
it was July of eighteen fifty eight and the heat
was turned up to historic levels in London one hundred
degrees in the shade and out in direct sun. Temperatures
hit as high as one hundred and eighteen degrees in London.
But it wasn't just the horrific heat. It was also
(05:21):
the notorious stench that filled the air. It seems most
Londoners had recently given up their chamber pots for those
brand new water closets or flushing toilets. Now, the problem
is the antiquated sewer system couldn't handle all the extra
water and what went with it. Three million Londoners were
serviced by just two hundred thousand ancient cesspits, and they
(05:45):
were overflowing straight into the city's main river, the Thames.
As well as its tributaries. No rain, all that heat
and all that Effluvian's nice name for it encouraged the
growth of tons of bacteria. And the smell was god awful.
It was so noxious that in the House of Commons,
in order to get any work done, they had to
(06:07):
hang sheets soaked in chloride of lime from the windows
to try to blunt some of the smell. On top
of that, poor neighborhoods still that they're drinking water from
the Thames, and thousands died that summer from cholera, typhoid
and other diseases. In fact, one newspaper said, gentility of
speech is at an end. It stinks, and whosoever Inhales
(06:30):
this stink can never forget it, and can count himself
lucky if he even lives to remember it. Finally, the
public outcry convinced Parliament to overhaul the city's antiquated sewer system.
Joseph Baziljet, a brilliant civil engineer, designed a network of
drains and actually spectacularly beautiful pumping stations that were a
(06:52):
technological marvel, able to handle four hundred and twenty million
gallons of liquid waste a day. As the system was
put into place neighborhood by neighborhood cholera in those areas
that got them first saw a huge drop in the disease,
finally convincing the scientific world that filthy water, not air
(07:13):
or miasma as they called it, was to blame for
the spread. It took almost twenty years to finish the
new system, but it virtually ended cholera epidemics in London
and it's still in use today. Coincidentally, cholera is probably
what killed Abe Lincoln's little boy Willie in eighteen sixty
two because he too used to play in the river,
(07:35):
the Potomac River in that case, which also overflowed the
dead bodies of animals and the effluvians of the sewer
system in Washington. So at the end of the day,
what's really interesting is you can see that these disasters
actually propelled forward thinking and the development of new technology
to deal with what Mother Nature delivers, including a great stink.
(07:59):
I hope you're in enjoying the Backstory with Patty Steele.
Follow or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
and feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
(08:22):
Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history
(08:44):
you didn't know you needed to know.
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