The Home Fires

By 1900, coal smoke from Britain’s home fires was widely acknowledged to be a major urban environmental problem. In providing warmth indoors, the family hearth—closely associated with the very idea of ‘home’—simultaneously polluted the atmosphere outdoors. ¹ Doctors, architects, anti-smoke activists, and others all drew attention to the damaging effects of domestic air pollution, which included blackened buildings, stunted vegetation, begrimed belongings, wasted fuel, diminished sunlight, and high death rates from respiratory diseases. In 1908 the British Medical Journal charged that house, rather than factory, chimneys were the ‘greatest offenders’ in polluting city air. Its report on smoke abatement concluded: ‘The prevention of smoke nuisances must inevitably tend to a higher hygienic standard, to brighter cities, cleaner homes, and happier dwellers, and … the general improvement of the nation.’ ² Yet in spite of growing knowledge and concern, the traditional open coal fire remained unregulated and the public’s preferred form of home heating throughout the first half of the twentieth century.