BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Great Stink - Dr. Stephen Halliday (
 Pembroke College)
DTSTART:20091102T200000Z
DTEND:20091102T210000Z
UID:TALK21177@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Simon Schlachter
DESCRIPTION:In the long\, hot summer of 1858 Londoners avoided going near 
 the river Thames. The sewage of two and a half million people was flowing 
 into the river and being borne up and down by the tides. Such was the smel
 l that the press called it The Great Stink. They were more worried by the 
 appalling smell than by the fact that some of London’s drinking water wa
 s still drawn from the river. It was widely believed that all diseases wer
 e caused by a “miasma” – a smell borne on polluted air such as they 
 were breathing. It was not yet understood that microbes\, invisible to the
  naked eye\, could be carried in water and thereby transmit dysentery\, ty
 phoid and above all cholera\, four epidemics of which killed 40\,000 peopl
 e in London alone.\n\nThe Great Stink was a blessing\, albeit heavily disg
 uised. Parliamentarians had long been dithering over whether to accept\, a
 nd pay for\, a proposal by the engineer Joseph Bazalgette to construct a n
 ew system of intercepting sewers which would collect London’s sewage fro
 m buildings and streets and conduct it downstream to treatment works well 
 beyond the Metropolis. The mistaken belief that they would be killed by th
 e smells entering the Palace of Westminster from the adjacent river ended 
 the debates and led to them giving Bazalgette the money and the authority 
 to proceed with the greatest civil engineering work of the nineteenth cent
 ury. \n\nFrom 1858 to his retirement in 1889 Bazalgette built the system o
 f intercepting sewers that still serves London\, together with many other 
 amenities: 3 embankments reclaimed 52 acres from the no longer stinking ri
 ver\; new thoroughfares\, bridges and parks enabled Londoners to live in s
 afety and comfort. \n\nStephen Halliday’s research into Bazalgette’s l
 ife and work was the subject of a Ph.D. which he completed as a mature stu
 dent and has led to several books\, articles\, radio and TV programmes. He
  will also offer some ideas\, based on his experience\, on how to enjoy do
 ing a Ph.D.!   
LOCATION:Nihon Room\, Pembroke College
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR