ABSTRACT
Between 1560 and 1700, the area of local government which today is known as public hygiene was, then as now, crucial to successful cohabitation in urban settlements. Throughout this period, townspeople across Britain developed more sophisticated and efficient methods of disposing of waste, they suppressed and regulated insanitary nuisances increasingly rigorously and they cleaned the streets more frequently, often using innovative and imaginative methods. Most twenty-first-century British people take for granted teams of street cleaners, weekly rubbish collections and the underground sewerage network to which their flushing toilet is connected. Today, these systems are maintained largely behind the scenes, and their effective functioning requires minimal effort from householders. But even now lapses in adequate public hygiene provision can occur, during strike action by local council waste-collection operatives, for example. It is true that maintaining an acceptable standard of outdoor cleanliness was far more a part of inhabitants’ daily lives, far more hands-on and far more beholden to householders’ compliance and efforts than it is in a modern-day context. This element of urban life required significant amounts of physical labour – shovelling, sweeping, scouring, carrying and hauling – which was often performed by paid servants and labourers on householders’ behalves. Pre-industrial British towns lacked flushing toilets and comprehensive networks of underground sewers; waste disposal was largely householders’ responsibility and it often involed dealing with the bulky byproduct of manure from urban agricultural activity or horse-drawn transportation in which many engaged heavily on or near to their properties. On the other hand, certain elements of the sanitation infrastructure required minimal effort from householders. For example, many townspeople could take for granted the efficient functioning of the civic-funded main street open sewers which drained their streets and the maintenance of some public areas such as marketplaces and gates which were repaired and swept by civic employees.
