Air pollution from lead can be documented as far back as 6,000 years ago, reaching its first maximum in the time of the Greeks and Romans. As long ago as 500 BC, the lead content of the air above Greenland was four times higher than before the European civilizations began smelting metals (measured in ice cores: see D. Weiss et al., "Archives of Atmospheric Air Pollution," Naturwissenschaften 86 (1999), p. 264). In ancient Rome, the statesman Seneca complained about "the stink, soot and heavy air" in the city (G.T. Miller, Living in the Environment, 1998, p. 466).
In 1257, when the Queen of England visited Nottingham, she found the stench of smoke from coal burning so intolerable that she left for fear of her life. In 1285, London's air was so polluted that King Edward I established the world's first air pollution commission, and 22 years later the king made it illegal to burn coal--a ban that didn't stick, though. (See P. Brimblecombe, "London Air Pollution, 1500-1900," Atmospheric Environment 11 (1977) 1, p. 158; The Big Smoke, 1987, p. 9.)
As early as the fourteenth century, attempts were made to avoid refuse being thrown into the River Thames and the streets of the city with a resulting foul smell, but to no avail (cited in W.J. Baumol and W.E. Oates, "Long-run trends in environmental quality," in J. Simon (ed.) The State of Humanity, 1995, pp. 447-48). In 1661 John Evelyn was still able to assert that "most Londoners breathe nothing but an impure and thick mist, accompanied by a fuliginous and filthy vapour, corrupting the lungs" (cited in D.M. Elsom, "Atmospheric pollution trends in the United Kingdom," in J. Simon (ed.) The State of Humanity, 1995, p. 476). In the eighteenth century, the cities were indescribably dirty. Lawrence Stone tells us that:
the city ditches, now often filled with stagnant water, were commonly used as latrines; butchers killed animals in their shops and threw the offal of the carcasses into the streets; dead animals were left to decay and fester where they lay; latrine pits were dug close to wells, thus contaminating the water supply. Decomposing bodies of the rich in burial vaults beneath the church often stank out parson and congregation...
In 1742 Dr Johnson described London as a city "which abounds with such heaps of filth as a savage would look on with amazement." There is corroborative evidence that indeed great quantities of human excrement were "cast into the streets at night time when the inhabitants shut up their houses." It was then dumped on the surrounding highways and ditches so that visitors to or from the city "are forced to stop their noses to avoid the ill smell occasioned by it" (L. Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800, 1979, pp. 62-3).
The city was so polluted that the poet Shelley wrote: "Hell must be much like London, a smoky and populous city" (G.T. Miller, Living in the Environment, 1998, p. 466).
Much of the pollution was due to cheap coal with a high sulfur content beginning to replace more expensive wood and charcoal for industrial use in the early thirteenth century. Because of deforestation in the London area wood was getting ever more expensive, and from the beginning of the seventeenth century, private households began to burn coal to an increasing extent, causing a 20-fold increase in consumption over the next hundred years (P. Brimblecombe, "London Air Pollution, 1500-1900," Atmospheric Environment 11 (1977) 1, p. 158).
Deteriorating air quality led to much protest towards the end of the seventeenth century. Many people observed that buildings became pitted and iron structures rusted much more quickly and complaints were heard of there being fewer anemones, and other plants not growing as well. Even before restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral was complete, the building was beginning to get dirty again. The heavy smoke caused house paint to lose its luster so fast, many leases stipulated that facades had to be repainted tri-annually (P. Brimblecombe, "London Air Pollution, 1500-1900," Atmospheric Environment 11 (1977) 1, pp. 158, 162; The Big Smoke, 1987, p. 64.)
London has been renowned for centuries for its thick fog, the infamous London smog. One contemporary observed:
By reason likewise of the Smoak it is, that the Air of the City, especially in the Winter time, is rendered very unwholesome: For in case there be no Wind, and especially in Frosty Weather, the City is cover'd with a thick Brovillard or Cloud, which the force of the Winter-Sun is not able to scatter; so that the Inhabitants thereby suffer under a dead benumming Cold, being in a manner totally depriv'd of the warmths and comforts of the Day ... when yet to them who are but a Mile out of Town, the Air is sharp, clear, and healthy, and the Sun most comfortable and reviving. (Cited in W.J. Baumol and W.E. Oates, "Long-run trends in environmental quality," in J. Simon (ed.) The State of Humanity, 1995, p. 448.)
The consequences were many. Whereas throughout the eighteenth century London was foggy 20 days a year, this had increased to almost 60 days by the end of the nineteenth century. Not surprisingly this meant that London got 40 percent less sunshine than the surrounding towns. Equally, thunderstorms had doubled in London from the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth century (P. Brimblecombe, "London Air Pollution, 1500-1900," Atmospheric Environment 11 (1977) 1, p. 159; D.M. Elsom, "Atmospheric pollution trends in the United Kingdom," in J. Simon (ed.) The State of Humanity, 1995, p. 480).
The severe pollution led to an inordinately high loss of human life. Nevertheless, even at the time people were beginning to become aware of a certain connection between the pollution and sicknesses. Not coincidentally, bronchitis was initially known as the "British disease." The last severe smog of December 1952 still killed about 4,000 Londoners in just seven days. (D.M. Elsom, "Atmospheric pollution trends in the United Kingdom," in J. Simon (ed.) The State of Humanity, 1995, p. 477; D.B. Bodkin and E.A. Keller, Environmental Science, 1998, p. 466.)
