ABSTRACT
The influential and productive work of the smoke abatement societies and the activities of a few enlightened parliamentary committees in the last century promised rapid improvement in the control of air pollution. It is evident that the air over London did become less polluted in some particular localities, but the advances were considerably slower than any of the Victorian activists would have hoped. It was more than just administrative apathy: two great wars and an economic depression helped to keep clean air from becoming a reality.
