London's Great Stink stopped government work

Great Stink nearly closed Parliament.

The Great Stink was a terrible smell on the Thames.

The Great Stink forced Parliament to consider moving out of London.

Workers constructing brick sewers in 19th-century London.

More flushing toilets increased waste flushed into the Thames.

The smell was so bad MPs wanted to leave London.

Disraeli called the river "a stygian pool reeking with horrors".

Lime was spread to reduce the stench at the Thames sewer mouths.

Joseph Bazalgette proposed new sewers to carry waste away from London.

Workers constructing brick sewer tunnels in 19th-century London.

Pumping stations like Crossness lifted sewage to higher sewers.

Crossness pumping station has some of the largest beam engines ever.

Bazalgette’s sewers ended sewage dumping and stopped cholera outbreaks.

Caricature of Joseph Bazalgette as a pipe on Thames Embankment.

The Great Stink made London’s Parliament almost unusable.