ABSTRACT
Edmund Spenser sweet thames that ran softly was known throughout Europe in 1858 as the Great Stink. The sickly inhabitants of London had put up with a putrid river for many years, but in the hot, rainless summer of 1858 the Houses of Parliament found the Great Stink altogether overpowering and a Select Committee was appointed. The windows of Parliament were hung with curtains soaked in chloride of lime and chloride of zinc, while the Select Committee considered the practicality of pouring barrow-loads of slaked lime into the sewers at the point where they disgorged their contents into the river. Mr. Gurney joined a coal stove to the pipe in the Clock Tower and lit it, and with great self-satisfaction informed the Select Committee that the gases were being burned off. He had a pipe built from the Victoria Sewer through New Palace Yard and up into the Clock Tower.
