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Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History

magazine. Why in the 1850s was the excrement of thousands of people being deposited straight

into the River Thames? How lethal were Victorian Britain's cholera outbreaks? And why is Joseph Basilgett,

one of the most heroic figures in London's history? Here in conversation with Spencer Mizzin,

Rosemary Ashton answers the most pressing questions on an infamous pollution event, caused by

soaring temperatures and huge amounts of human waste.

The Great Stink of 1858, it's certainly a distinctive name for a historical event, but of course

it wasn't particularly pleasant to live through. So I wonder if you could start by, given our listeners, an introduction

to the Great Stink. What exactly was going on here? Well, what was going on was that you had,

in the summer of 1858, the hottest summer yet recorded, the hot weather and above the 75

or, you know, Fahrenheit, would be quite hot.

And the whole of June and into July was in those temperatures and above. And one day, it's the 16th of

...