Turning on the waterworks: Navigating the industrial architecture of the Victorian sanitary crisis

Recent discharges of raw sewage into the UK’s rivers and streams are a reminder of the sanitary crisis of the 1840s to 1860s, when water pollution was identified as the major cause of rising mortality rates from ‘fever’. The response – albeit slow – involved a huge investment in waterworks that transformed public health. As revealed in a book by James Douet on water and sewage architecture, it also resulted in distinctive new building types, as Chris Catling reports.

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Current Archaeology

March 3, 2025

It is difficult to recapture now what it must have been like to witness the rapid changes to the environment that occurred during the latter half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th as a consequence of industrialisation. Small settlements, such as Manchester and Birmingham, were transformed into large towns and cities. Only 27.5% of the population lived in urban settlements in 1800; by 1851 this had risen to 43.5%, and by 1900 it reached 77% (today it is around 89%). Not only was the infrastructure lacking for the supply of clean water and the disposal of waste to cope with this change, but there were no institutions to take responsibility. Many rapidly growing towns were s

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