User menu
Main menu

Metropolitan Board of Works

60 second histories

This video covers:  The opposition Bazalgette faced in getting started with the project and the great stink.

In eighteen fifty five the Metropolitan Board of Works was created. Its task was to make sure that London had the right roads, lighting, tunnels, bridges and of course sewers in place to cope with the rapidly growing city. I was elected as Chief Engineer and ready to transform London. It wasn’t without its problems, there was so much bureaucracy and financial foul ups as any of the mess under London and there were opponents to my scheme too. Some people objected believing the scheme was too small and didn’t go far enough and there were those who would rather have sent the waste inland to be used as fertiliser on the land. But to be honest, my scheme was more realistic and we only had one shot at disrupting London on such a huge scale. Building London’s sewers was going to be the biggest civil engineering project in the world at that time, but first I needed permission, which wasn’t to come until 1858 after the Great Stink.
Eras: 
Medicine & Health
Victorian Reformers
Victorian
Topics: 
Key people
Victorian Reformers
Medicine & health
Character: 
Joseph Bazalgette
Key words: 
Short history video, history resource, school history, history video, history clip, Medicine through Time, Medicine through the ages, medicine, health, reform, Victorian reform, reformist, reformer, GCSE, AQA, Edexcel, OCR, EDUQAS, cholera, sewer, sewers, London, Joseph William Bazalgette, Bazalgette, Joseph Bazalgette, Northern Ireland, Thames, Metropolitan Board of Works, Great stink, the great stink, 1858, KS4, key stage 4, key stage 4 history, secondary, KS4 videos, KS4 clips, KS4 history, KS4 videos, KS4 history film, KS4 history clip, Victorian, Victorian Reformer, Victorian reformers, Y9, Y10, Y11, Year 9, year 10, year 11, 1855,