My friend is an engineer for a large international construction company that builds SEWERS. He is often greeted as a HERO when he arrives in a developing country to begin constructing the sewers. You can't fully appreciate the importance and value of sewers until you live in a city without them.
Everyone thinks that modern medicine cut the death rate and reduced suffering, and with antibiotics that is in part true. But when sewer systems and city water systems began to use chlorine to disinfect the water, their was a huge drop in waterborne diseases almost overnight. Now in the US and other modern country's that use modern three-stage sewage treatment systems these diseases are virtually non-exitant .
Craig Thompson: An interesting idea. Has such a concept ever been successfully fielded ? If it hasn't, then a research grant/PhD thesis/academic plum in general lies waiting for some bright and energetic spark. I am not mocking you. I believe in this concept of local government/community action, but hear so little on its implementation.
It is practical in rural settings as people use septic sewage systems. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septic_tank It requires a 100' leech field to allow the septic drainage to seep down into the earth. Not possible in urban settings. We live in the country and use this system. About every 6 years you have the septic tank sucked out to prevent accumulation of solids in the system. You also add bacteria monthly to the system via your toilet (Ridex or similar products).
Craig F Thompson - It gets down to economies of scale and maintenance its far to expensive to recycle water at that scale, it can be done on regional level.
Had a social studies teacher in high school who gave me a love for our country's history. Didn't agree with him a lot, but respected his love of country amd the fact that we needed to learn it. Wish we had teachers loke him today.
Remember he's mashing a video, not managing a class with these videos. He's also making more money on this channel than a teacher makes, based on his views and general knowledge on CPM. Nothing against him at all, I love this channel, but comparing these videos to what teachers do on a regular basis during grade school is night and day.
The Aztecs and their cities and the way they delt with sanitation is history that absolutely needs to be remembered!I hope "The History Guy"can shine some light on THIS subject!!!
I work as a maintenance engineer for a North of England water company on the sewage pumping stations and overflow screens, after ten years I tend to forget the importance of what it is I’m doing! Thanks for the perspective!
@Jim Alley --- Too late! Jerry Brown has decriminalized shitting in public. History is effectively moving backwards in California. Jerry thinks it's progress; I suggest all concerned citizens shit on his doorstep. I hate what he and his kind have done to this once-great state.
@IngLouisSchreurs because it's san franfestershithole,a truely disgusting place, ..i live about 50 miles away... if wind blows just right you can smell the stench .... shit,piss, puke , used needles,used condoms,ect......never go there....health hazard.( thanx gavin newscum..ex mayor,peloski's nephew)
I wasn't such a good student of history when I was in school & I regret that. Now that I'm an adult I truly appreciate history & have become a fine student. Thank you,history guy,this is the channel I've been looking for.
Thank you, History Guy. Sewers and sewage treatment is critical to human life. In 1912 Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever because Dayton, Ohio, didn't have water treatment.
My grandfather flew an aged Orville around in a B-25 once during the war. He was a captain at Wright field at the time. I suspect it was for publicity - maybe war bonds. I remember when i asked about Wilbur when i learned of this as a child, i was sad to hear he had died so early.
No profit in history and knowledge. Corporations laugh at us because society predictably choose superficial value over learning history and evolving, so they come crawling back as consumers ready to throw money at any new product that claims to clean, helpful, revolutionary. Thats some history you need to learn and put a stop to.
This is such a great historical piece. This was the greatest public works project in the history of mankind up until then. One of the ways they started to discover the cause of disease was a doctor who started sterilizing his equipment and room for childbirth. Another was none of the men who worked at a brewery got cholora. They only drank ale which of course is distilled. Awesome video.
Good video. I once took a tour of our local waste water treatment plant. It was awesome (not kidding). The people there really gave a ... well they cared about what they did. And it was good to see people enthused about such an often maligned, yet so very important task. If you get a chance, tour your local sewage plant, it's worth it.
Mr. History Guy: I especially value the fact that you try to do this in ≈ 10 minutes. I'm curious about a _lot_ of things, and with the relatively short vid, I can watch and decide if I want to know more or not. THANK YOU for that.
Waste management is a problem we are likely to be dealing with for a long time to come. Fascinating treatment of the subject for such a short presentation. Well done.
Polluted river water has been theorized as the cause for the death of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willie, and the grave illness of Tad, Lincoln's other son, from typhoid fever. Tad survived his bout with the fever. The White House where the Lincoln family resided had a plumbing system that was considered "state of the art" in that it drew water directly from the Potomac River. Unfortunately, this water was not purified and contained many of the contaminants that were characteristic of the Thames River around the same time, early 1860s.
They always knew what to do, The issue was HOW TO PAY FOR IT. Who would pay? As they said during the space race; "without the bucks, there wouldn't be any Buck Rodgers".
Many of the rich, influential people of London fled the city for the summer. Maybe the decision would have been quicker if they were there to lean on the politicians...
@@patmcgroin4me Climate change has been occurring for millions of years. Actual climate change scientist who disagree with current theory are being blackballed by universities all over the first world. It's a political issue, created to generate wealth.
I love watching these videos. I enjoy history when it's presented as a story. and The History guy is a unique and engaging presenter. Thanks for making these videos.
Once again, an entertaining and concise history lesson on an overlooked subject. Westminster, even today, will only act when the problem knocks at the palace door. Hey ho !
This is the most unusual video I think you have ever done History Guy. I was not aware of these issues but I'm sure it is and was a world wide problem and until you pointed it out I never thought of it. Thank You
Hi History Guy, l’m so proud you talked about this as a London myself. Crossness pumping station is a magnificent example of steam age engineering at the end of Bazaljette epic project. It was the final pumping station that lifted the waste, flowing via sewers into huge underground reservoirs that were pumped into the river when the tide turned to flow out. Later it was pumped into the barges you mentioned. It’s been the subject of gradual refurbishment by volunteers and retired engineers and they have one of the 4 machines fully working. A great day out, it’s as big as it is beautiful- three floors of hissing, heaving beam steam engine with wonderful decorative Victorian ironwork throughout. www.crossness.org.uk/
I knew about the Great Stink because of a video I ran across about a pumping station built for the new sewage system, I expect it was the Crossness station. What an amazing, beautiful piece of Victorian engineering.
Can you see modern plant being so decorated or put in a building with such architecture? Bearing in mind that most of the decoration was only seen by the Nobs opening Crossness and those running it.
A story I read somewhere, which I cannot verify it. Funny though. Queen Victoria was walking beside the Thames with some advisors. She asked one, "What's the paper in the river?" The answer, whether real or imagined is great: "Your Majesty, they are notices that swimming is forbidden." (I wonder what the mudlarks would have thought of that.)
Bazalgette's great-great grandson is Peter Bazalgette, a TV producer formerly of Endemol, of Big Brother and Deal or No Deal fame. His third cousin Edward once presented a TV programme based on his famous grandfather's work.
Gladly. Wikipedia has articles on both modern-day Bazalgettes. Additionally, the sewer programme was part of a very interesting series produced for the BBC, "Seven Wonders of The Industrial World". It also covered the Hoover Dam, and the Panama Canal. Here is some info: www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/seven_wonders_01.shtml I know you have BBC America over there, who may have shown the series, and/or have DVDs available. I also found it for sale on Amazon UK, and more expensively on the USA site: www.amazon.com/Seven-Wonders-Industrial-World-DVD/dp/B0013D8LJ0
The mention of soldiers carrying cholera around the world is still true: It was UN troops posted to Haiti after the earthquake who started the outbreak there. Also, sometimes technology backfires. Reduced-flush toilets (1.2 gal) have been blamed in San Francisco with reducing the flow in its sewers so much that in the summer with no rain to help move feces through the system it stagnates, sending odor up through the street drains.
Fact is that rain water should never flow in sanitary sewers. Heavy rain can result in flow rates that sewage treatment plants can't handle, so the excess goes direct into waterways. There have been many federally-mandated projects across the US to fully separate storm drains and sanitary sewers. This was done in my town decades ago, at significant expense, but some folks are still dragging their feet.
Jaques Blaque, The other option that some cities take if it is cheaper than separating sewage from rain runoff is to build holding capacity for when flow exceeds treatment rates during heavy rain. This is what SF did, building a giant tunnel all the way around the waterfront from the Marina District to Hunters Point, as a linear underground tank. If I remember right the project was over a billion dollars.
That's commonly called a "kludge"- an expedient that's seldom a good idea, for a variety of reasons. I'm thinking of Boston's "Peripheral Drains", their result, and what it took to finally do things right and stop ocean dumping of raw sewage. Of course, the EPA used to work for protection of the environment. It costs to separate storm drains from sanitary sewers; understandable how some cheap-out, and pay later.
My small town is gearing up for its 4th phase of sewage separation by installing huge holding tanks under the road. It’s very expensive, my utility bill has doubled in the last year to supposedly pay for the job.
Hs Hs: From what I understand in the news, San Francisco has a lot of trouble with feces ... in the streets. How can people live like that in a modern city? and perhaps more importantly, how can local governement allow that to continue? I understand that local government is finally starting to take some action but this has been going on for some time.
Sort of like here in Providence RI - we'd been seeing red tide, fish kills etc. Then they decided to build 4 miles worth of sewage storage tunnels under the city. That stopped all of the bad effects in Narragansett Bay.
Nobody appreciates waste disposal systems until they fail. I just had to have some cleaning an repair work done on my Septic system. Gives you a real perspective on what it takes to deal with the waste of just ONE house. It boggles my mind to think of the scale necessary to deal with a major city.
That still won't stop them from throwing dead people in the river, shit in it, piss in it, drop waste in it ... and then bathe in it. It's a cultural problem rather than a waste disposal problem.
There is a book called “Ghost Map” about the cholera epidemic in London, in one chapter it talks about how the guys who worked at the London brewery never got cholera because they never drank city water just beer. The book also talks about what’s mentioned in this video and how no one really understood what was going on because they didn’t understand bacteria just that the smell and people dying was bad.
There was a doctor who, partly because he noticed that the guys at the brewery did not get Cholera, tracked the outbreak down to specific pump. That should have been enough to confirm germ theory versus miasma theory. But his findings were not widely accepted at the time.
In America during the westward movement everyone drank fermented cider to avoid the waterborne illnesses... The history of apples is actually very interesting.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel The pump was in the west end of London, John Snow noticed that many local people were catching cholera. He was a statistician who mapped the streets and houses around the pump were cases of cholera were reported, there was one abnormally a single case had been reported in the leafy suburb of Highgate several miles from the pump. John Snow followed this up and discovered the woman who contracted the disease had previously lived in the area of the pump and deemed it the 'sweetest water in London ' she would regularly send her maid down to the pump to fill bottles with the 'sweet water' John Snow knew he was on to something, but the authorities were slow to act. Solution focused John Snow removed the handle from the pump and within weeks no more cases of cholera were reported in that area. There's a pub The John Snow and The contaminated pump is located at the intersection of Broad Street and Cambridge Street (now Lexington Street), running into Little Windmill Street.
Prostitutes were the smelliest and unhygienic people. The low live who used them didn't care about the smell as most of the time they were drunk anyway.
EVERY fact was correct, to the best of my knowledge. On a historical, contemporary and analytical basis. On this basis, this is a TH-cam site to trust!
Yes cuz let's make it about you... How is that degree doing? How long did it take you to find a job? What percentage of history majors get a job within the first year? What do they do in the mean time? Anyone can brag about sitting in a classroom, paying money, and getting over 50 percent of questions right... It's what u do with that piece of crap after. Riddle me that me joker.... I'll wait
Hi history guy! This is an excellent video. I really appreciate you're taking the time to cover this little known fact of history that deserves to be remembered! If you haven't ever had the opportunity, I encourage you to watch The Great Stink a documentary about Father Thames sickly History!
Funny how when a problem touches POLITICIANS LIVE not just the common people you know the expendable citizens! Thing get fixed in days rather then years if ever.
Cities depend upon two things to grow safely. A clean reliable supply of drinking water, and a way to dispose of sewage. It is no accident that among the most iconic and earliest of the pubic works of ancient Rome were the aqueducts and the cloaca maxima - either or both of these would be a great topic for you. I'm enjoying your channel.
Sadly Joseph Bazalgette's great grandson Peter is now filling our airwaves/television sets with the sort of content that his ancestor was disposing of.
Very informative, thanks. Have you ever heard of the "Oil Patch Warriors" from WWII? A book "The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil Production in England During World War II" written by Guy Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward was published in 1973, and tells the obscure story of the American oil men who went to England to bore wells in a top secret mission in March 1943.
Joseph Bazalgette's great-great-grandson (Sir Peter Bazalgette) was the creative director of Endemol Group who made Big Brother (reality TV). Therefore Joseph pumped sh1t out of houses and then 150 years later his descendent decided to undo all of his good work and pump sh!t back into people's living rooms.
Just so you know; libraries are full of history books. You know, those things made of paper with printing that you actually hold in your hands and READ? However, the reading and learning requires more than a ten minute attention span. Some books don't even have...wait for it... PICTURES!!
Gives me an idea of how to address the political sewage that stinks up our country today. Another great video on a subject history that has failed to be remembered in most history books and history classrooms. Thanks and please continue your great work.
I always thought my name Lynn Was boring, but now between this and the Kings Lynn video I think it’s pretty cool. I knew it was British for water, but the fact that it’s Celtic, and it’s that old makes it not so boring👍🏻
I’ve been enjoying your channel for a few months now. Your ending to all your videos have brought me to ask a request. My great uncle was a submariner at the end of WWII. I can’t remember what submarine it was that he traveled but I do remember a couple of stories about it that I think may give clues to a good story that’s been forgotten. My uncle’s name was Paul Lawhorn. The one story that sticks with me was how after WWII the submarine had undergone upgrades removing the aa gun, they were practicing with their sister ship in the English Channel with a few civilians aboard. They were doing some maneuvers when her batteries shorted causing her to surface. It was in rough seas at the time and as they were boarding her sister ship across a plank, a couple of men were lost overboard. He had never seen combat at the start of his tour as the war was ending as they crossed the Atlantic. He was also the oldest living survivor of his submarine. There was a documentary on pbs on their sub as well. If you have already done this video, I haven’t found it yet. If not, maybe it will find it’s way to your great library of forgotten history.
The Bazalgette sewers are so large that some have been turned into walking and cycling paths like the Greenway from Stratford to Becton (north London outflow) and the Ridgeway from Woolwich to Crossness (south London). At Crossness the old pumping station is undergoing restoration by volunteers. It is a remarkable building with four huge, original beam engines (named Victoria, Prince Consort, Albert Edward and Alexandra) and fabulous wrought ironwork. Well worth checking photos on google maps etc. The Thames is now clean enough to be home to 125 species of fish and much other wildlife, including seals in winter.
The thing I like best about the Luddites is that their movement led to the bullshit story about where the word "sabotage" comes from. It's complete hooey, but Kim Cattrall told it so well (and, Oh. My. God... *was she ever a biscuit* back then. (mmm, mm, mm).
A good example of how a civilized society solves its problems. Go to Brazil, Africa, India, when they have a problem like this everyone sits and waits for someone else to fix the problem, all while continuing to individually contribute to the problem.
John Snow's investigation of how an outbreak of Cholera happened, is one of the really remarkable turning points, that IMHO ought to get its own few minutes.
The reason that I left out Doctor Snow and the Broad Street pump is that his work was not accepted at the time. In fact, the impulse behind the new sewer system was that miasma theory still held sway.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm a water and sewer guy. I love this. shows how important what we do is.
Hats off to you!
A rare occasion that I can legit say "Everyone gives a shit".
Thats for what you doo doo
Thanks frank, very nice! 👍
Craig F. Thompson I think they’ll be pretty expensive plus they’ll still need people to install them and work on them so he’ll still have work
My friend is an engineer for a large international construction company that builds SEWERS. He is often greeted as a HERO when he arrives in a developing country to begin constructing the sewers. You can't fully appreciate the importance and value of sewers until you live in a city without them.
Everyone thinks that modern medicine cut the death rate and reduced suffering, and with antibiotics that is in part true. But when sewer systems and city water systems began to use chlorine to disinfect the water, their was a huge drop in waterborne diseases almost overnight. Now in the US and other modern country's that use modern three-stage sewage treatment systems these diseases are virtually non-exitant .
Sewage systems are the dividing line between a real civilization and too many people in the same place.
Craig Thompson: An interesting idea. Has such a concept ever been successfully fielded ? If it hasn't, then a research grant/PhD thesis/academic plum in general lies waiting for some bright and energetic spark. I am not mocking you. I believe in this concept of local government/community action, but hear so little on its implementation.
It is practical in rural settings as people use septic sewage systems. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septic_tank
It requires a 100' leech field to allow the septic drainage to seep down into the earth. Not possible in urban settings.
We live in the country and use this system. About every 6 years you have the septic tank sucked out to prevent accumulation of solids in the system. You also add bacteria monthly to the system via your toilet (Ridex or similar products).
Craig F Thompson - It gets down to economies of scale and maintenance its far to expensive to recycle water at that scale, it can be done on regional level.
This guy is so good - I'm learning a ton of history, 10 minutes at a time
His historical accuracy is on point too, unlike most of these kinds of channels.
Yep.
@@jimjambananaslam3596 I think he is a university history professor in Illinois. I remember him saying something about it in an older video.
I sincerely wish that I’d have had such an enthusiastic and engaging individual as a history teacher when I was a child.
Please consider the Newhall Hotel disaster in Michigan.
Had a social studies teacher in high school who gave me a love for our country's history. Didn't agree with him a lot, but respected his love of country amd the fact that we needed to learn it. Wish we had teachers loke him today.
Remember he's mashing a video, not managing a class with these videos. He's also making more money on this channel than a teacher makes, based on his views and general knowledge on CPM. Nothing against him at all, I love this channel, but comparing these videos to what teachers do on a regular basis during grade school is night and day.
The Aztecs and their cities and the way they delt with sanitation is history that absolutely needs to be remembered!I hope "The History Guy"can shine some light on THIS subject!!!
I work as a maintenance engineer for a North of England water company on the sewage pumping stations and overflow screens, after ten years I tend to forget the importance of what it is I’m doing! Thanks for the perspective!
"If you want to have a human civilization, then you have to deal with human waist"
True on many levels
Waist? So the human ribcage is still in there?
It’s waste not waist
Waste *
San Francisco: The Great Stink Of 2018, can't wait for that episode....
San franshithole,Kommiefornia
Modern sewer system and yet people shit on the street.
@Jim Alley --- Too late! Jerry Brown has decriminalized shitting in public. History is effectively moving backwards in California. Jerry thinks it's progress; I suggest all concerned citizens shit on his doorstep. I hate what he and his kind have done to this once-great state.
I lived there in the 90's in SOMA on a street where a detox center was. On summer days the stench on that street was just ungodly.
@IngLouisSchreurs because it's san franfestershithole,a truely disgusting place, ..i live about 50 miles away... if wind blows just right you can smell the stench .... shit,piss, puke , used needles,used condoms,ect......never go there....health hazard.( thanx gavin newscum..ex mayor,peloski's nephew)
I wasn't such a good student of history when I was in school & I regret that. Now that I'm an adult I truly appreciate history & have become a fine student. Thank you,history guy,this is the channel I've been looking for.
Thank you, History Guy. Sewers and sewage treatment is critical to human life. In 1912 Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever because Dayton, Ohio, didn't have water treatment.
My grandfather flew an aged Orville around in a B-25 once during the war. He was a captain at Wright field at the time. I suspect it was for publicity - maybe war bonds. I remember when i asked about Wilbur when i learned of this as a child, i was sad to hear he had died so early.
It was Boston, where he had to testify in a patent trial, and made the mistake of eating oysters from Boston Harbor.
And this past Sunday August 4th in Dayton, Ohio 9 people died because they were at a bar and a "bad guy had a gun."
Knowing history is some powerful S*it.
Know shit (geddit?)
tony
Good one.
Literally, Right?
I've laughed a few times today, but that one caught me off guard. Good poo!
No profit in history and knowledge. Corporations laugh at us because society predictably choose superficial value over learning history and evolving, so they come crawling back as consumers ready to throw money at any new product that claims to clean, helpful, revolutionary.
Thats some history you need to learn and put a stop to.
This is such a great historical piece. This was the greatest public works project in the history of mankind up until then.
One of the ways they started to discover the cause of disease was a doctor who started sterilizing his equipment and room for childbirth. Another was none of the men who worked at a brewery got cholora. They only drank ale which of course is distilled. Awesome video.
Good video. I once took a tour of our local waste water treatment plant. It was awesome (not kidding). The people there really gave a ... well they cared about what they did. And it was good to see people enthused about such an often maligned, yet so very important task. If you get a chance, tour your local sewage plant, it's worth it.
I’m good tho
I never thought of touring but I will now
It's an interesting and important process
Sounds like a shit job.....
Mr. History Guy: I especially value the fact that you try to do this in ≈ 10 minutes. I'm curious about a _lot_ of things, and with the relatively short vid, I can watch and decide if I want to know more or not.
THANK YOU for that.
I like how the British had to be almost covered in shit in order to act and fix it.
@Barry Ellis it doesn't matter for the USA. Their economy is in such a sinkhole, chances are the country will dissolve by the end of 2020.
@@jintarokensei3308 that's an absolutely laughable sentiment.
They only acted because the big nosed pricks in Parliament had to smell it too.
I mean, see no further than climate change and see history repeat itself.
@@thetman0068 I disagree.
Waste management is a problem we are likely to be dealing with for a long time to come. Fascinating treatment of the subject for such a short presentation.
Well done.
Craig F. Thompson true. However that is not the only waste management challenge..
“The Ghost Map” was an amazing and insightful book about these historic issues. Thanks for the video.
Polluted river water has been theorized as the cause for the death of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willie, and the grave illness of Tad, Lincoln's other son, from typhoid fever. Tad survived his bout with the fever. The White House where the Lincoln family resided had a plumbing system that was considered "state of the art" in that it drew water directly from the Potomac River. Unfortunately, this water was not purified and contained many of the contaminants that were characteristic of the Thames River around the same time, early 1860s.
Only took Parliament 18 days to decide what to do? Considering the stench it's a wonder it didn't take only 18 minutes!
They always knew what to do, The issue was HOW TO PAY FOR IT. Who would pay?
As they said during the space race; "without the bucks, there wouldn't be any Buck Rodgers".
Many of the rich, influential people of London fled the city for the summer. Maybe the decision would have been quicker if they were there to lean on the politicians...
Kind of reminds me of my country's politicians and climate change action.
Harrison _ not all of it is but saying none of climate change is caused by humans is just denial
@@patmcgroin4me Climate change has been occurring for millions of years. Actual climate change scientist who disagree with current theory are being blackballed by universities all over the first world. It's a political issue, created to generate wealth.
Please don’t change a thing and keep teaching history! Your sincerity and love of history is infectious (pun intended)!
Oh man, you posted this right before lunch. Granted, it's always right before lunch somewhere in the world.
I love watching these videos. I enjoy history when it's presented as a story. and The History guy is a unique and engaging presenter. Thanks for making these videos.
Politics won't act against pollution, unless you depose a ton of shit in front of their door huh
It’s true. Politicians won’t act until it affects them personally.
That happens after every election and they just take their seats in congress...
Not true, San Fran deals with this daily.. and nothing gets done.
Well presented Mr.History Guy. I have had my time cleaning blocked sewers, never ever doing it again.
The most entertaining history based channel on TH-cam. I even watched the Three and a half minute Mormon ad!
LOL sorry- I have little control over what Google throws up for ads.
Those (very nice) Bastards!
Once again, an entertaining and concise history lesson on an overlooked subject.
Westminster, even today, will only act when the problem knocks at the palace door. Hey ho !
I've known this story for some time, but I really enjoy your telling of it.
This channel deserves a lot more subscribers
No sh*t Sherlock!
I think this video makes it official. BEST history channel ever. History Guy even makes poop interesting!
History Guy is definitely the shit (in a good way)!
Fascinating! I love how you included all sorts of vocabulary trying to explain the extent and nature of the--problem. Well done!
This is the most unusual video I think you have ever done History Guy. I was not aware of these issues but I'm sure it is and was a world wide problem and until you pointed it out I never thought of it. Thank You
Hunt'n Wabbits up up
Bet there's lots more social and environmental issues we should know more about!
Joseph Bazalgette deserves to be remembered as a great benefactor of mankind.
Hi History Guy, l’m so proud you talked about this as a London myself.
Crossness pumping station is a magnificent example of steam age engineering at the end of Bazaljette epic project. It was the final pumping station that lifted the waste, flowing via sewers into huge underground reservoirs that were pumped into the river when the tide turned to flow out. Later it was pumped into the barges you mentioned. It’s been the subject of gradual refurbishment by volunteers and retired engineers and they have one of the 4 machines fully working.
A great day out, it’s as big as it is beautiful- three floors of hissing, heaving beam steam engine with wonderful decorative Victorian ironwork throughout.
www.crossness.org.uk/
I knew about the Great Stink because of a video I ran across about a pumping station built for the new sewage system, I expect it was the Crossness station. What an amazing, beautiful piece of Victorian engineering.
Can you see modern plant being so decorated or put in a building with such architecture? Bearing in mind that most of the decoration was only seen by the Nobs opening Crossness and those running it.
A story I read somewhere, which I cannot verify it. Funny though. Queen Victoria was walking beside the Thames with some advisors. She asked one, "What's the paper in the river?" The answer, whether real or imagined is great: "Your Majesty, they are notices that swimming is forbidden." (I wonder what the mudlarks would have thought of that.)
Bazalgette's great-great grandson is Peter Bazalgette, a TV producer formerly of Endemol, of Big Brother and Deal or No Deal fame. His third cousin Edward once presented a TV programme based on his famous grandfather's work.
Gladly. Wikipedia has articles on both modern-day Bazalgettes. Additionally, the sewer programme was part of a very interesting series produced for the BBC, "Seven Wonders of The Industrial World". It also covered the Hoover Dam, and the Panama Canal.
Here is some info: www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/seven_wonders_01.shtml
I know you have BBC America over there, who may have shown the series, and/or have DVDs available. I also found it for sale on Amazon UK, and more expensively on the USA site: www.amazon.com/Seven-Wonders-Industrial-World-DVD/dp/B0013D8LJ0
BRAVO!!
Expertly delivered!!
Great Voice over!!
Thanks for this!
The mention of soldiers carrying cholera around the world is still true: It was UN troops posted to Haiti after the earthquake who started the outbreak there. Also, sometimes technology backfires. Reduced-flush toilets (1.2 gal) have been blamed in San Francisco with reducing the flow in its sewers so much that in the summer with no rain to help move feces through the system it stagnates, sending odor up through the street drains.
Fact is that rain water should never flow in sanitary sewers. Heavy rain can result in flow rates that sewage treatment plants can't handle, so the excess goes direct into waterways. There have been many federally-mandated projects across the US to fully separate storm drains and sanitary sewers. This was done in my town decades ago, at significant expense, but some folks are still dragging their feet.
Jaques Blaque, The other option that some cities take if it is cheaper than separating sewage from rain runoff is to build holding capacity for when flow exceeds treatment rates during heavy rain. This is what SF did, building a giant tunnel all the way around the waterfront from the Marina District to Hunters Point, as a linear underground tank. If I remember right the project was over a billion dollars.
That's commonly called a "kludge"- an expedient that's seldom a good idea, for a variety of reasons. I'm thinking of Boston's "Peripheral Drains", their result, and what it took to finally do things right and stop ocean dumping of raw sewage. Of course, the EPA used to work for protection of the environment. It costs to separate storm drains from sanitary sewers; understandable how some cheap-out, and pay later.
My small town is gearing up for its 4th phase of sewage separation by installing huge holding tanks under the road. It’s very expensive, my utility bill has doubled in the last year to supposedly pay for the job.
Hs Hs: From what I understand in the news, San Francisco has a lot of trouble with feces ... in the streets. How can people live like that in a modern city? and perhaps more importantly, how can local governement allow that to continue? I understand that local government is finally starting to take some action but this has been going on for some time.
Sort of like here in Providence RI - we'd been seeing red tide, fish kills etc. Then they decided to build 4 miles worth of sewage storage tunnels under the city. That stopped all of the bad effects in Narragansett Bay.
Over fishing menhaden could be another cause of red tide. Do a little research on menhaden. It is enlightening.
Sounds like chemical runoff was wreaking havoc on the local environment!
This was actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be
Nobody appreciates waste disposal systems until they fail. I just had to have some cleaning an repair work done on my Septic system. Gives you a real perspective on what it takes to deal with the waste of just ONE house. It boggles my mind to think of the scale necessary to deal with a major city.
How long before India can do the same with the Ganges river?
That still won't stop them from throwing dead people in the river, shit in it, piss in it, drop waste in it ... and then bathe in it. It's a cultural problem rather than a waste disposal problem.
WHY , ? THE GANGES HAS HEALTHY WATER .LOOK HOW THEY CLEAN THEYRE THEETH AT THE RIVER GANGES ! NOTHING HAPPEN TO THEM ! .
@@blackbelttroll4008 That's a Jim joke, right?
@@chrmez not to mention drinking the water too as it is considered "holy".
@Zio Oren Daaaang. Super edgy bro. I know you were cool in school.
Thank you for sharing great history again.
There is a book called “Ghost Map” about the cholera epidemic in London, in one chapter it talks about how the guys who worked at the London brewery never got cholera because they never drank city water just beer.
The book also talks about what’s mentioned in this video and how no one really understood what was going on because they didn’t understand bacteria just that the smell and people dying was bad.
There was a doctor who, partly because he noticed that the guys at the brewery did not get Cholera, tracked the outbreak down to specific pump. That should have been enough to confirm germ theory versus miasma theory. But his findings were not widely accepted at the time.
In America during the westward movement everyone drank fermented cider to avoid the waterborne illnesses... The history of apples is actually very interesting.
digiprez77 th-cam.com/video/Isq1-htLiEk/w-d-xo.html
Art Curious probably made tea drinking a significant source of clean water for most Londoners
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel The pump was in the west end of London, John Snow noticed that many local people were catching cholera. He was a statistician who mapped the streets and houses around the pump were cases of cholera were reported, there was one abnormally a single case had been reported in the leafy suburb of Highgate several miles from the pump. John Snow followed this up and discovered the woman who contracted the disease had previously lived in the area of the pump and deemed it the 'sweetest water in London ' she would regularly send her maid down to the pump to fill bottles with the 'sweet water' John Snow knew he was on to something, but the authorities were slow to act. Solution focused John Snow removed the handle from the pump and within weeks no more cases of cholera were reported in that area. There's a pub The John Snow and The contaminated pump is located at the intersection of Broad Street and Cambridge Street (now Lexington Street), running into Little Windmill Street.
always great content. I am a treasure hunter and I love to listen to his history.
Fascinating and slightly nauseating. Thank you!
Only when the rich are affected is change made. This shit was cool to watch! Well done!👍👍👍
The rich funded by tax payers...
That was absolutely fascinating~!
Thank you~!
Outstanding history guy!!! Where were you when I was going to school 65 years ago!!
Henry Doulton and his ceramic water filter. Louis Pasteur and germ theory science are worth lookking into.
Excellent commentary on a vital issue in the Empire and its capital.
Thank goodness smell-o-vision never took off!
Yes, this video is really full of sh!t! ;-)
StahlBlitz spaceship
Yes, it did. It was very popular in the 1950s.
Prostitutes were the smelliest and unhygienic people. The low live who used them didn't care about the smell as most of the time they were drunk anyway.
I think the closest we ever got to that was those Scratch N' Sniff stickers that were popular in the 80's.
EVERY fact was correct, to the best of my knowledge. On a historical, contemporary and analytical basis. On this basis, this is a TH-cam site to trust!
I do make errors. When I do, i try call them out in the notes.
Just found out about the channel and a new video pops up!
Cheers!
New video poops up. Ha ha
Real glad for the update on current matters, albeit succinct. The context builds for a great understanding of our modern needs.
You should do a story about the fire plug. That's a story that deserves to be told.
Another would be the great fire of London or the great fire of Chicago.
Wes Johnston , I think he touched briefly in his video on the Great Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin (same night, just not as famous).
Ahhh...history does repeat...when its lessons are forgotten! GREAT channel Sir!😎
HG- I have heard of the old sewer project, but the new "super sewer" is news to me. Awesome video!
Thanks for another great vid, Lance. Always a great story that I’ve never heard of before.
I’ve got a MA in History myself- wish I’d thought of this. You do a fantastic job, really good content! 👍👍👍
Yes cuz let's make it about you... How is that degree doing? How long did it take you to find a job? What percentage of history majors get a job within the first year? What do they do in the mean time? Anyone can brag about sitting in a classroom, paying money, and getting over 50 percent of questions right... It's what u do with that piece of crap after. Riddle me that me joker.... I'll wait
@@joeydoink-doink742 Better a history degree than sitting on youtube trolling people.
Love this channel! Always something interesting!
Hey, we've come up with a solution to Congress dragging their feet. Just flood the halls with sewage.
Won't work. They're already full of it. They'll think they're among friends, lol.
Heru- deshet I was going to type just about the same comment! Great minds think alike you know!!!!😂
Verily I say unto thee, we is genasses, lol.@@williamschutz4982
Would they even notice? Politicians are known to be full of shit and imune to the stink of corruption.
@@heru-deshet359 Just seen your reply, we know them all too well!
Hi history guy! This is an excellent video. I really appreciate you're taking the time to cover this little known fact of history that deserves to be remembered! If you haven't ever had the opportunity, I encourage you to watch The Great Stink a documentary about Father Thames sickly History!
Funny how when a problem touches POLITICIANS LIVE not just the common people you know the expendable citizens! Thing get fixed in days rather then years if ever.
So very glad I found this channel! Thank you :-)
Very Interesting.
Mike
I agree
Man
Yes.
Nikola.
Cities depend upon two things to grow safely. A clean reliable supply of drinking water, and a way to dispose of sewage.
It is no accident that among the most iconic and earliest of the pubic works of ancient Rome were the aqueducts and the cloaca maxima - either or both of these would be a great topic for you.
I'm enjoying your channel.
Sadly Joseph Bazalgette's great grandson Peter is now filling our airwaves/television sets with the sort of content that his ancestor was disposing of.
LOL I did see in a biography that he had a grandson that was in television.
Yes, his name is Peter Bazalgette. He makes dreadful trash TV programmes.
what a great channel !!!!! thanks so much!!
Very informative, thanks. Have you ever heard of the "Oil Patch Warriors" from WWII? A book "The Secret of Sherwood Forest: Oil Production in England During World War II" written by Guy Woodward and Grace Steele Woodward was published in 1973, and tells the obscure story of the American oil men who went to England to bore wells in a top secret mission in March 1943.
this is my favourite channel now
Bazalgette for the win! Actually he was knighted in 1875, so Sir Bazalgette for the win!
Joseph Bazalgette's great-great-grandson (Sir Peter Bazalgette) was the creative director of Endemol Group who made Big Brother (reality TV). Therefore Joseph pumped sh1t out of houses and then 150 years later his descendent decided to undo all of his good work and pump sh!t back into people's living rooms.
I share your opinion of reality TV!
Fascinating history. Thank you.
Just long and detailed enough for my AADD to let me enjoy. 🧠
Love your channel as I am a lover of forgotten history myself. Great job on Robert Todd Lincoln, btw. You have a fan!!
The things we take for granted until they stop working properly...
San Francisco has a great stink of 2015 -2019 and so on
History repeats it self
Awesome! And the way you explain it is gripping, thank you!
Great video..
I love history so am subscribed to your channel.
Rosanne Coffman
nobody cares
Just so you know; libraries are full of history books. You know, those things made of paper with printing that you actually hold in your hands and READ? However, the reading and learning requires more than a ten minute attention span. Some books don't even have...wait for it...
PICTURES!!
Subscribed about two to three weeks ago and your subs were around 48K. Now at 73K. Nice job and hope the trend continues. Be well, sir.
Gives me an idea of how to address the political sewage that stinks up our country today. Another great video on a subject history that has failed to be remembered in most history books and history classrooms. Thanks and please continue your great work.
I always thought my name Lynn Was boring, but now between this and the Kings Lynn video I think it’s pretty cool. I knew it was British for water, but the fact that it’s Celtic, and it’s that old makes it not so boring👍🏻
There are 318 million bricks in the London sewage system it was one of topics of a series called The seven wonders of the industrial world
I wonder who counted them ?
Yes, that TV series is well worth watching, the sewer one is episode 4 I think - entitled "The Sewer King". Quite an engineering marvel.
The people who sold them to them I guess.
@@thefacelessmen2101 or the guy who paid for them.
I know. I spent a summer counting them. Actually 3,489
I’ve been enjoying your channel for a few months now. Your ending to all your videos have brought me to ask a request. My great uncle was a submariner at the end of WWII. I can’t remember what submarine it was that he traveled but I do remember a couple of stories about it that I think may give clues to a good story that’s been forgotten. My uncle’s name was Paul Lawhorn. The one story that sticks with me was how after WWII the submarine had undergone upgrades removing the aa gun, they were practicing with their sister ship in the English Channel with a few civilians aboard. They were doing some maneuvers when her batteries shorted causing her to surface. It was in rough seas at the time and as they were boarding her sister ship across a plank, a couple of men were lost overboard.
He had never seen combat at the start of his tour as the war was ending as they crossed the Atlantic. He was also the oldest living survivor of his submarine.
There was a documentary on pbs on their sub as well.
If you have already done this video, I haven’t found it yet. If not, maybe it will find it’s way to your great library of forgotten history.
Liked the intro
I love your history lessons. Keep up the great work :-) it's not just entertaining but educational at the same time.
Great video, as always. Just goes to show that even the shittiest situations have a silver lining.
Great collection in the background, artfully displayed. Your taste is impeccable, sir.
Interesting quip (Brag) by sewerage firms: Being #1 in the #2 business.
The Bazalgette sewers are so large that some have been turned into walking and cycling paths like the Greenway from Stratford to Becton (north London outflow) and the Ridgeway from Woolwich to Crossness (south London). At Crossness the old pumping station is undergoing restoration by volunteers. It is a remarkable building with four huge, original beam engines (named Victoria, Prince Consort, Albert Edward and Alexandra) and fabulous wrought ironwork. Well worth checking photos on google maps etc.
The Thames is now clean enough to be home to 125 species of fish and much other wildlife, including seals in winter.
The early to middle 1800s in England was a truly interesting time. Have you considered a video on the Luddite movement of 1811-1816?
I talk about the Luddites in this episode: th-cam.com/video/zqL8EolZMZU/w-d-xo.html
The thing I like best about the Luddites is that their movement led to the bullshit story about where the word "sabotage" comes from. It's complete hooey, but Kim Cattrall told it so well (and, Oh. My. God... *was she ever a biscuit* back then. (mmm, mm, mm).
The smartest thing Europeans were doing in the 1800s was migrating to America from the shithole Europe
@@boostjunkie2320 Nd created a bigger shithole, called the United States of America!
@@boostjunkie2320 at least we got rid of the religious weirdos, well most of them anyway.
I'm passing this video & your sight on to a friend. Well researched & presented.
You smelt it, you dealt it.
A good example of how a civilized society solves its problems. Go to Brazil, Africa, India, when they have a problem like this everyone sits and waits for someone else to fix the problem, all while continuing to individually contribute to the problem.
This is cosmic, somehow I believe everything you say Sir, unlike CNN.
Thank you! youv'e restored my faith in humanity.
John Snow's investigation of how an outbreak of Cholera happened, is one of the really remarkable turning points, that IMHO ought to get its own few minutes.
The reason that I left out Doctor Snow and the Broad Street pump is that his work was not accepted at the time. In fact, the impulse behind the new sewer system was that miasma theory still held sway.
Have you done a video on the Spanish Flu epidemic?
Amazing how educational this ....
is! Thank you.
Great idea. Lets put the law makers right next to where the stink is!
As a Plumber, I really like this! Thanks History Guy!
Have you ever done a video on the sinking of DD-245 Reuben James? If not could you?