Great Smog of London
Date | 5–9 December 1952 |
---|---|
Location | London, England |
Coordinates | 51°30′25″N 0°07′37″W / 51.507°N 0.127°W |
Casualties | |
100,000 injured (1952 government estimate)[1] | |
Unknown number affected by breathing difficulties, lung cancer and bronchitis | |
Deaths |
The Great Smog of London, or Great Smog of 1952, was a severe air pollution event that affected London, England, in December 1952. A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.[3][4]
The smog caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severely than previous smog events, called "pea-soupers".[5] Government medical reports in the weeks following the event estimated that up to 4,000 people had died as a direct result of the smog[1] and 100,000 more were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably greater, with estimates of between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths.[1][2]
London's poor air quality had been a problem since at least the 13th century.[6][7] The diarist John Evelyn had written about "the inconveniencie of the aer and smoak of London [sic]" in Fumifugium, the first book written about air pollution, in 1661.[8] However, the Great Smog was many times worse than anything the city had ever experienced before: it is thought to be the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom,[9] and the most significant for its effects on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health.[1][8] It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956.[10][11]
Background
Sources of pollution
A period of unusually cold weather preceding and during the Great Smog led Londoners to burn much more coal than usual to keep themselves warm. While better-quality "hard" coals (such as
Research suggests that additional pollution-prevention systems fitted at Battersea worsened the air quality. Flue gas washing reduced the temperature of the flue gases so they did not rise, but instead slumped to ground level, causing a local nuisance.[17]
Additionally, there was pollution and smoke from vehicle exhaust, particularly from steam locomotives and diesel-fuelled buses which had replaced the recently abandoned electric tram system.[18] Other industrial and commercial sources also contributed to the air pollution.
Weather
On 4 December 1952, an anticyclone settled over a windless London, causing a
Although the event is now widely described as the "London" smog, air pollution, in fact, extended far beyond the capital. According to E.T. Wilkins (of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, whose measurements would make clear the connection between smoke, sulphur dioxide, and rising deaths), fog, white mist, or grimy smog covered "many parts of the British Isles", while "In London and the Thames Valley, fog or smog covered upwards of 1000 square miles".[21] However, it was in London that the smog's effects were the greatest.
Effects
Effect on London
There was no panic, as London was infamous for its fog.[22] However, this one was denser and longer-lasting than any previous "pea-souper".[23] Visibility was reduced to a few metres, with one visitor stating that it was "like you were blind",[24] rendering driving difficult or at times impossible.[5]
Public transport ceased, apart from the London Underground, and the ambulance service stopped, forcing individuals to transport themselves to hospitals. The smog was so dense that it even seeped indoors, resulting in the cancellation or abandonment of concerts and film screenings, as visibility decreased in large enclosed spaces, and stages and screens became harder to see from the seats.[11][25] Outdoor sports events were also cancelled.[26]
In the inner London suburbs and away from town centres, there was no disturbance by moving traffic to thin out dense fog in the back streets. As a result, visibility could be down to a metre or so in the daytime. Walking out of doors became a matter of shuffling to feel for potential obstacles such as kerbs.[27] This was made even worse at night since each back street lamp was fitted with an incandescent light bulb, which gave no penetrating light onto the pavement for pedestrians to see their feet or even a lamp post. Fog-penetrating fluorescent lamps did not become widely available until later in the 1950s. "Smog masks" were worn by those who were able to purchase them from chemists.[28]
Health effects
In the weeks that ensued, statistics compiled by medical services found that the fog had killed 4,000 people.
Mortality remained elevated for months after the fog.
Research published in 2004 suggests that the number of fatalities was about 12,000, around three to four times greater than the official government total at the time, but very close to the figure Wilkins had originally estimated.[1][2][34] In the long term, individuals who were foetuses or infants at the time of the smog ended up having lower intelligence and worse respiratory health than their peers.[41]
Environmental impact
Environmental legislation since 1952, such as the City of London (Various Powers) Act 1954 and the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968, led to a reduction in air pollution.[11] Financial incentives were offered to householders to replace open coal fires with alternatives (such as gas fires), or to burn coke instead, which produces minimal smoke. Central heating (using gas, electricity, oil, or permitted solid fuel) was rare in most dwellings at that time, not finding favour until the late 1960s onwards. Despite improvements, insufficient progress had been made to prevent one further smog event approximately ten years later, in early December 1962.[42]
In Media
The Great Smog is the central focus of
An episode of The Goon Show entitled 'Forog', broadcast on the BBC Home Service 21 December 1954 was a thinly veiled satire on the killer fog crisis. The script by Eric Sykes and Spike Milligan concerned the statues of London's monuments, who could get up and move about the city undisturbed only at times when it was enveloped in a characteristic smog. Government-sponsored scientific research sought to dispense with the choking fog, to the annoyance of the statues.[44]
The Great Smog is the setting of the
The Boris Starling novel Visibility is set in the 1952 smog event.[47]
The D. E. Stevenson novel The Tall Stranger (1957) opens with a dense "fog" that penetrates indoors and endangers hospital patients, in an apparent reference to the 1952 smog event.[48]
Kate Winkler Dawson's book Death in the Air (2017) interweaves the story of the Great Smog of London with that of serial killer John Christie.[13][49]
See also
References
- ^ PMID 14698923.
- ^ S2CID 32721947.
- ^ a b "The Great Smog of 1952". metoffice.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
- ^ "1952: London fog clears after days of chaos". BBC News. 9 December 1952. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- ^ a b "Days of toxic darkness". BBC News. 5 December 2002. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- PMID 789426.
- ISBN 1136703292. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
- ^ ISBN 9780904617061. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
- ^ McKie, Robin & Townsend, Mark. Great Smog is history, but foul air still kills (The Observer, 24 November 2002).
- ^ Excell, John (22 December 2015). "The lethal effects of London fog". BBC News. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
- ^ S2CID 123552841.
- ^ Matthew Wills (24 August 2015). "Old Smoke: London's Famous Fog". JSTOR Daily.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-316-50685-4.
- ^ Domonoske, Camila (23 November 2016). "Research On Chinese Haze Helps Crack Mystery of London's Deadly 1952 Fog". NPR. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- PMID 27849598.
- ^ Martin, Alan (18 November 2016). "Scientists finally know what caused a mysterious fog to kill 12,000 people in London in 1952". Business Insider.
- ISBN 0-19-854673-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0748407651.
- ^ "Atmosphere, Climate & Environment Information Programme". Ace.mmu.ac.uk. 4 December 1952. Archived from the original on 25 February 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
- ^ "The Great Smog of 1952". UK MetOffice. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
- ^ S2CID 41107395.
- ISBN 978-0-316-50685-4.
These [death toll] numbers were startling, but they still caused no panic... A city hardened by war still believed the fog was simply a prolonged peasouper, just another byproduct of living in London.
- ISBN 1852614285. Archived from the original(PDF) on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- ^ Nielson, John. "The Killer Fog of '52". NPR. Retrieved 14 December 2013.
- ^ "London fog clears after days of chaos". BBC News. 9 December 1952. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
- ^ "Busy Time for Thieves: Traffic Disrupted". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
- ^ "Death by smog: London's fatal four-day pea-souper: Interview with Dr Brian Commins". BBC News. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
- )
- ^ a b c Beaver, Hugh (December 1953). "Great Britain Committee on Air Pollution: Interim Report". London: HMSO. pp. 17–18. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
- ^ "The Great Smog of 1952". metoffice.gov.uk. Retrieved 17 August 2008.
- ^ "Death by smog: London's fatal four-day pea-souper: Interview with Dr Brian Commins". BBC News. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
As many as 100,000 people in London were made ill by the pollution at the time, particularly people with asthma and cardiovascular problems. The very young and the elderly also suffered.
- ^ "Coal: Nutty slack". Commons Sitting of 16 February 1953. hansard.millbanksystems.com.
- ISBN 978-0-465-01522-1. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-61219-783-8.
- ^ Beaver, Hugh (December 1953). "Great Britain Committee on Air Pollution: Interim Report". London: HMSO. p. 19. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
- S2CID 30012028.
- PMID 12842775.
- PMID 11427388.
- ISBN 0-7236-0310-3. p. 236.
- PMID 12842775.
- PMID 37866291.
- ^ "Choking fog spreads across Britain". BBC News. 6 December 1962. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
- ^ Fullerton, Huw (26 March 2019). "The Crown: Discover the real Great Smog that brought London to a standstill". Radio Times. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
- ^ Sykes, Eric; Milligan, Spike. "Goon Show Script: Forog: Series 5 Episode 13". The Goon Show Site. Archived from the original on 29 March 2023. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "3.3 Doctor Who: The Creeping Death - Doctor Who - The Tenth Doctor Adventures - Big Finish". Big Finish. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
- ^ Doctor Who: Amorality Tale. 12 February 2015.
- ^ Boris Starling, London, 2007 ISBN 978-0-525-94996-1
- ^ Stevenson, D.E. (1957). The Tall Stranger. London: Collins. p. 7. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
For nearly a week London had been shrouded in fog. Today it had lifted a little (just enough for the half-choked inhabitants to see that there was a sun, still shining in the sky) but now it was settling down thicker than ever; it was for all the world like a dirty grey blanket.
- ^ Potenza, Alessandra (16 December 2017). "In 1952 London, 12,000 people died from smog — here's why that matters now". The Verge.
Further reading
- Bates, DV (December 2002). "Recollections of the London Fog". Environmental Health Perspectives. 110 (12): A735. PMID 12501844.
- Berridge, Virginia; Taylor, Suzanne, eds. (2005). The Big Smoke: Fifty years after the 1952 London Smog (PDF). Centre for History in Public Health: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. ISBN 1-905165-02-1. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- Brimblecombe, Peter (1987). "8: The Great Smog and After". The Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London Since Medieval Times. Methuen. pp. 161–177. ISBN 1136703292. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
- Davis, Devra (December 2002). "A Look Back at the London Smog of 1952 and the Half Century Since". Environmental Health Perspectives. 110 (12): A734-5. PMID 12501843.
- Davis, Devra (December 2002). "The Great Smog". History Today. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- Fuller, Gary (2018). "3: The Great Smog". The Invisible Killer: The Rising Global Threat of Air Pollution- and How We Can Fight Back. Melville House. pp. 39–52. ISBN 978-1-61219-783-8.
- Hardy, Anne (3 March 2020). "3: Death and the Environment in London:1800-2000". In Luckin, Bill; Thorsheim, Peter (eds.). A Mighty Capital under Threat: The Environmental History of London, 1800-2000. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-8744-4.
- Nagourney, Eric (12 August 2003). "Why the Great Smog of London Was Anything but Great". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
- Thorsheim, Peter (2006). "10: Death Comes from the Air". Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain Since 1800. Ohio University Press. p. 159-172. ISBN 9780821442104. Retrieved 28 March 2023.