97: The Great Stink of 1858
An Old Timey Podcast
An Old Timey Podcast
4.9 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By the mid-1800’s, the River Thames was essentially a massive sewer. People poured their waste into it. They also drank from it. That combination resulted in thousands of deaths. People weren’t sure what caused the deaths, but in the summer of 1858, when the temperatures rose and the water levels dropped, London stunk to high heaven.
It took a lot of money, creativity, and an incredible act of civil engineering from Sir Joseph Bazalgette to fix the Great Stink.
Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Norm pulled from:
Ackroyd, Peter. London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012.
“Cesspools and Sewers: Toilets in Dirty Old London.” Yale University Press, November 19, 2014. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2014/11/19/cesspools-and-sewers-toilets-in-dirty-old-london/.
“Cholera in Victorian London | Science Museum.” https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/cholera-victorian-london.
Contagion - CURIOSity Digital Exhibits. “Cholera Epidemics in the 19th Century.” March 26, 2020. https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/contagion/feature/cholera-epidemics-in-the-19th-century.
Halliday, Stephen. The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Metropolis. The History Press, 2020.
Historic UK. “The Victorian Workhouse.” https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Victorian-Workhouse/.
“Joseph Bazalgette | The History of London.” December 21, 2024. https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/joseph-bazalgette/.
“The Great Stink | The History of London.” January 20, 2025. https://www.thehistoryoflondon.co.uk/the-great-stink/.
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered, dir. History and Sewage: The Great Stink of 1858. 2018. 11:44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7nRrSH_VE.
“The Smithsonian and the 19th Century Guano Trade: This Poop Is Crap.” May 25, 2017. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/smithsonian-and-19th-century-guano-trade-poop-crap.
Tulchinsky, Theodore H. “John Snow, Cholera, the Broad Street Pump; Waterborne Diseases Then and Now.” Case Studies in Public Health, 2018, 77–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-804571-8.00017-2.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you're fascinated by true crime, then join us in October 26 for CrimeCon |
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| 0:24.2 | CrimeCon London, partnered by True Crime Channel 3rd and 4th of October, 2026. |
| 0:31.5 | Hear ye, you are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Norman Caruso. |
| 0:37.2 | And I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Kristen Caruso. |
| 0:39.0 | And in this episode, I'll be talking about the Great Stink of London. |
| 0:44.1 | Okay. Very good. Very good. |
| 0:48.4 | Okay. I wasn't expecting this reaction. No, I can't say anything. This is a topic that I know one sentence about |
| 0:56.9 | because I was like, should I do this for a future episode? And now I am so glad I didn't do any |
| 1:01.7 | research because you are about to take this story and tell it like a pro. Like a pro, baby. |
| 1:08.3 | That should be our slogan for an old-timey podcast. Like a pro, baby? Like a pro. that should be our uh slogan for an old-timey podcast like a pro like a pro oh you're |
| 1:15.2 | thinking we're kind of sexy and rugged and like we're driving our trucks through mud while we tell |
| 1:19.5 | this podcast that was an old that was an old truck slogan like i think Chevy silverado like |
| 1:24.3 | a rock yeah yeah it really made me feel things. |
| 1:49.3 | Oh, yeah. We're going to talk about pickup trucks full of poop in this episode, Kristen. I don't think there will be... Okay, well, I'm not going to tell the story for you. Okay, tell me all about... Oh, wait, wait, wait. What am I saying? Yeah, you got a job to do? I do have a job to do. Folks, I did not prepare a Patreon plug, which is how the best plugs go. |
| 1:51.5 | So let's go on this journey together. |
| 1:53.2 | Hey there, history ho. |
| 1:57.5 | Why not support our small, sexy, independent podcast on Patreon? |
| 2:03.9 | For just $5 a month, you'll get our beefy back catalog of bonus episodes with video. |
| 2:10.0 | They're ad-free and amusing. We've got a weirdly funny episode about the man who inspired D.B. Cooper. We've got one about a man who murdered Confederate pirates. Yarg! And outch. And we've got an episode where my dad tells us about a sexy |
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