Pollution and Public Concern

In Britain, concern about the polluted state of the urban environment and its effects on public health stems from the 1830s and 1840s.1 Rapid urbanisation, epidemics, poverty and pauperism drew attention to the public costs of unregulated industrialism. Fears of social unrest and concern for the stability of institutions galvanised the professional middle-class to evolve new forms of social policy. As O.R. McGregor put it: ‘mounting stacks of inspectorial reports provided a running commentary on the social costs of an industrialising society as they defined new areas of public concern and obligation’.2 Public health was one of these new areas, but, although industrial pollution was a major contemporary concern in regard to health, it was human excrement, and moral pollution amongst the urban masses, which engaged the chief attention of reformers.