Pod Insights Short History Of... The Great Smog of London About this episode For five days in early December 1952, a smog descended upon London that brought chaos to the city. By its end, it had claimed the lives of thousands, and seriously impacted the health of many more. But though what became known as the Great Smog was just the latest in a long succession of such phenomena, it also proved to be a tipping point, forcing Britain’s reluctant government to take action.
So what were the circumstances that made such a dreadful event possible? How did Londoners cope, and what actions were taken by the authorities? And in a world where poor air quality continues to take the lives of millions across the globe, what lessons does the Great Smog continue to have for us today?
This is a Short History Of The Great Smog of London.
A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalism professor at the University of Texas in Austin, podcaster and the author of several books including Death in the Air.
Written by Dan Smith | Produced by Kate Simants | Assistant Producer: Nicole Edmunds | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Oliver Sanders | Assembly edit by Dorry Macaulay, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact check: Sean Coleman
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1:01 Speaker 02 It's early December 1952, and a middle-aged man, a banker, shuffles in his seat in the famous Sadler's Wells Theatre in North London. Sitting next to his teenage daughter, his eyes are closed as the first act of Verdi's beloved opera La Traviata reaches its climax. But though the music, as ever, has transported him, this evening it's been harder to concentrate. With the final moments of the act approaching, he opens his eyes and discovers that he can barely see the stage. Instead, a dense, yellowy-brown fog is swirling all around, accompanied by an odor like rotten eggs.
1:45 Speaker 02 Though the performers carry on like the consummate professionals they are, the audience is increasingly restless. All around him, people are coughing and spluttering. He impatiently shushes them, but to no avail. Suddenly, the music halts. It seems the orchestra leader is refusing to continue, unable to see his music or fellow musicians through the haze in the orchestra pit. The heavy, red stage curtain drops, as the opera's leading lady hurries into the wings, her hand clutched to her throat, as if to somehow protect her vocal cords from the miasma.
2:26 Speaker 02 A moment or two later, someone walks onto the stage in front of the curtain.
2:31 Speaker 02 Shouting over the rising alarm of the audience, he announces that tonight's performance is to be abandoned. Those assembled accept the decision with resignation, and the man and his daughter gather their belongings and join the rush for the exit.
2:46 Speaker 02 When he grasps for a handrail at the end of his robe, he feels his palms slide through the rapidly accumulating grime.
2:58 Speaker 02 So poor is the visibility, that by the time he at last makes it outside, he realizes with rising panic that he doesn't know where his daughter is. It's bitterly cold out here, and the atmosphere is every bit as dense as inside the theatre, as it has been for several days now.
3:15 Speaker 02 He's seen plenty of smogs over the years, but never one as bad as this. He can hardly see beyond the end of his own arm. He calls out his daughter's name, his voice raspy as the haze scratches at his throat and forces itself into his airways. Someone tells him to watch where he's going when he blindly collides with them, and he narrowly avoids treading on an unfortunate pigeon lying prone on the pavement, overcome by the unbreathable air.
3:46 Speaker 02 He stumbles on until finally there is a tug at his elbow and the welcome sound of his daughter's voice.
3:53 Speaker 02 Now safely reunited, they head to the underground station, bracing themselves for a joyless journey home.
4:03 Speaker 02 Like most other Londoners, the banker is used to the sight of these pee supers, as such dense smogs are known. But though some are beginning to realize that this is a smog quite unlike any other, what they can't yet begin to guess is that by its end it will have exacted an unprecedented toll on the capital's ever-stoic citizens. That it will be so deadly that the law will change in a bid to ensure it can never happen again.
4:39 Speaker 02 For five days in early December 1952, the smog that descended upon London brought chaos to the city.
4:48 Speaker 02 By its end, it had claimed the lives of thousands and seriously impacted the health of many more. But though what became known as the Great Smog was just the latest in the long succession of such phenomena, it also proved to be a tipping point, forcing Britain's reluctant government to take action.
5:10 Speaker 02 So what were the circumstances that made such a dreadful event possible? How did Londoners cope and what actions were taken by the authorities? And in a world where poor air quality continues to take the lives of millions across the globe, what lessons does the Great Smog have for us today? I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is A Short History of the Great Smog of London.
5:42 Speaker 02 There is a certain romance to fog, an almost poetic quality to the idea of, say, lovers walking hand in hand through a fog-bound forest. It is, after all, a natural phenomenon, moisture in the atmosphere that condenses in cool conditions to form droplets light enough to remain suspended in the air. An ethereal spectacle.
6:06 Speaker 02 Smog, though, is a very different beast.
6:11 Speaker 02 A dirty cocktail of fog and a variable combination of pollutants, by the 13th century, it's becoming a notable problem, especially in London. Until recently, the city's main source of fuel has been wood. But amid rapid expansion, the huge amount of timber required for building means there is less to burn. Instead, people turn to coal, both for domestic and commercial purposes. Much of it is what is called sea coal, a particularly noxious variety that washes up on the shores of the English North East. When burned, it releases great clouds of sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, nitric oxide, and soot.
6:56 Speaker 02 As London continues to grow, so too do its problems with air pollution, especially after the Industrial Revolution takes hold in the 18th century. The nation's thriving economy has never been more reliant on coal, which powers many of the vast new factories springing up.
7:14 Speaker 02 By the 1800s, London is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. To heat their homes and cook their food, most residents use the cheapest coal they can find. But it's inevitably also the dirtiest, unlike the cleaner-burning, higher-grade coals like anthracite, which are too expensive for most households. Combined with the smoky output of the factories and the newly emerging railways that have helped make Britain so powerful, it can only herald one thing: the age of the P-Super has arrived.
7:50 Speaker 02 Of course, London is not the only place to suffer from these dense smogs. They are a peril of urban industrial hubs across continents. But as the winter of 1952 rolls in, the British capital is nonetheless a special case.
8:06 Speaker 02 For a start, its population in excess of 8 million is contained within a relatively limited geographical footprint, particularly compared to some of the biggest cities in the United States. On top of that, the coal-consuming population lives alongside a forest of factories and dozens of power plants, all spewing out waste products from the burning of fuels. During the planning and construction of the largest of these, the iconic Battersea Power Station, there was much discussion about the potential risks such pollution could pose to public health. But ultimately, the debate was won by those who argued that London needed the extra power such an installation could generate.
8:47 Speaker 02 Meanwhile, the extensive road and rail network adds to the enormous production of pollutants. And even though wartime coal rationing has recently ended, most Londoners still face shortages of good-quality fuel, and many can only afford the cheap, smoky grades.
9:06 Speaker 02 With the economy still not recovered from the war effort, the government is trying to bring in extra income by exporting its best black coal abroad. Much of the domestic market is left with second-rate alternatives. Indeed, the National Coal Board has just begun a promotional drive for so-called nutty slack or nutty brown, which it offers cheaply and without restriction on how much can be bought.
9:33 Speaker 02 Kate Winkler-Dawson is a journalism professor at the University of Texas in Austin, a podcaster, and the author of several books, including Death in the Air.
9:43 Speaker 03 In the times that we're talking about in 1952, there's C coal and then I guess the best equivalent would be the real cheap, crumbly, brown, unclean coal, which is interesting to call any kind of coal clean versus unclean. But you know, nutty brown, the crumbly coal, had about a quarter of the burn efficiency that the black coal is that we're sort of used to seeing.
10:06 Speaker 02 Little wonder London's air is a toxic cocktail of contaminants.
10:14 Speaker 02 According to some estimates, perhaps as much as 80% of the adult population also smokes, filling their lungs with toxins day after day, year after year. With their respiratory systems weakened, many of them are utterly unprepared for what's coming.
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12:28 Speaker 02 On Thursday, the 4th of December, 1952, an anti-cyclone high-pressure weather system rolls over the windless city. This combination of climatic factors means that a bank of relatively cold air near the ground, hundreds of feet deep, is trapped beneath a layer of warmer air. It's estimated that the coming smog will cover 1,000 square miles over Britain, but its impact will be most keenly felt in central London and its environs. It's as if a divine hand has popped a lid on the city. All those polluting particulates belching out of chimneys and exhausts have nowhere to go.
13:11 Speaker 02 In Westminster, Parliament is in session. Back in post, after a six-year hiatus, Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill has the usual array of business to deal with. Everything from the cost of destroying squirrels on agricultural land to questions about the progress in rebuilding blitzed cities. But outside the chamber, the clock tower that contains the famous bell known as "Big Ben" is gradually disappearing beneath a veil of smog. Its chimes ring out every quarter hour, but its giant face is increasingly obscured from view.
13:46 Speaker 02 Anybody looking down on the city from an elevated spot a distance away from its centre, on Wimbledon Common perhaps, in the southwest reaches of London, will see this great hub of humanity covered by a sea of dark cloud. Yet hardly anyone within it bats an eyelid. Everyone knows smog is just a part of living here, not one of its most appealing aspects, but something that comes and goes. No one thinks about rushing home early from work or calling off a planned night out. After all, not so long ago, millions of them lived through the blitz, or fought overseas, or at least saw their loved ones head off to do so. It would seem almost frivolous to let what many see as a bit of bad weather get you down.
14:31 Speaker 03 When somebody says a smog is coming, they kind of shrug their shoulders because, one, they're used to it, and, two, they've got bigger problems to deal with. This doesn't change anything for anyone because it's a typical pea-super.
14:44 Speaker 02 When the people of London wake up on Friday, the 5th, the smog has taken a still tighter hold. But while they wait for a new weather system to sweep in and break it down, it's business as usual. Workers clock in at the factories, children head off to school, the cars, buses, and trains run as normal, and grates in home after home are stocked with coal to keep the cold at bay. There'll be 4,000 metric tonnes of pollutants released into the atmosphere today, lingering close to the ground in that familiar, stinking-yellow-brown fug. And again tomorrow, and the day after, no doubt.
15:25 Speaker 02 As Friday progresses, grime accumulates on virtually every surface. The white shirts of armies of schoolchildren and office workers turn a dark grey. Those who wear spectacles have to keep cleaning them just to see out. The wastewater from washing one's hands provides evidence of the muck in the air attaching to people's skin. Eyes begin to sting and ache, chests tighten, and throats burn.
15:54 Speaker 02 Over in the giant exhibition centre in Earl's Court in West London, the famous agricultural Smithfield show is in full swing. It attracts tens of thousands of visitors, with large numbers of prize livestock transported into the city to be shown off. But soon, many of the animals are suffering, as the smog seeps its way into the halls. One farmer looks nervously at his prize Angus bull, whose breathing has turned ragged. Following the example of several of his colleagues, the farmer drenches a rag in whisky and forms it into a makeshift mask for his struggling animal, hoping the alcohol-soaked material will act as a barrier to the pollutants in the air.
16:39 Speaker 02 But it is not enough. The distressed creature keels over. When Yvette arrives, he tells the farmer that several other cattle have gone the same way. For those paying attention, these magnificent agricultural specimens are serving as proverbial canaries in the coal mine. Yet precious few are heeding the warnings.
17:02 Speaker 02 There is more evidence over in Regent's Park too, at London's famous zoo, where the usually majestic polar bears are now sporting dismal charcoal-coloured coats. More worryingly, many of the animals are showing symptoms of respiratory distress. The lions, in their rather cramped enclosure, are having a particularly tough time of it.
17:23 Speaker 02 Meanwhile, the meteorologists are doing their best to predict when conditions will shift enough to knock the smog out of the way. And dotted around London, experts test the air quality.
17:36 Speaker 03 So, you know, it's the little machines that would test the amount of pollution in the air at the time. And I read the report, and what it kept saying over and over again after the smog was nil, nil, nil, nil. And I thought, what does that mean? And what it actually meant was, the pollution was so high that it was unreadable by these little machines.
17:58 Speaker 02 Yet, even as conditions on the ground deteriorate, there is little in the way of practical action, except for a few basic attempts to keep the traffic in order.
18:07 Speaker 03 You do have all of these police officers with flashlights and then actual fire and torches trying to get traffic around, and that was the extent of it. They weren't even really warning people to stay inside. If they did, it was because we don't want you to get hit by a car. It was not, we don't want you to trigger your bronchitis, which so many people had in the city because of the smogs. We don't want you to die. It was, you know, we don't want you to get hit and killed or lost or something.
18:36 Speaker 02 And though some are beginning to worry, it's not about to get better anytime soon. It's early evening on Friday the 5th. In a small house in East London, an ambulance driver and his colleague finish settling their elderly patient onto a stretcher before bending their knees and lifting. Straining as they go, they carry her as gently as possible out of her home and into the back of their vehicle. With one last effort, they roll the stricken woman onto their gurney. Leaving the lady fighting for breath as his colleague attends to her as best as he
19:16 Speaker 02 can, the driver hops out, closes the rear door, then climbs back into the cab at the front. He switches on the klaxon, but it has little effect. The short hop up the side road on which the patient lives is traffic-free, but as soon as they hit the main road to the hospital, they crawl along at a snail's pace. The driver grips his steering wheel tightly, peering out through the filthy windscreen. This damned P-Super has reduced visibility to virtually nothing. Another vehicle almost sideswipes him, but he knows there is no point getting angry. No one has a hope of knowing what's around them. Truth is, anyone out on the roads now is either here because of professional duty
20:00 Speaker 02 or because they don't have any other choice.
20:04 Speaker 02 Through the haze, the ambulance driver can just about see a flashlight held aloft by a policeman. His distinctive helmet an unmistakable silhouette even in these conditions. This poor copper has the unenviable job of trying to direct traffic coming at him from all directions.
20:22 Speaker 02 He blows on his whistle, but its high pitch struggles to cut through the cacophony of blaring horns and idling engines.
20:32 Speaker 02 All the while, the ambulance driver hears the labored breathing of his patient behind him.
20:38 Speaker 02 In her seventies and with a history of bronchitis, she's experiencing an especially acute episode brought on by the smog. She says it feels like she has tiny metal shavings in her lungs. It should be a short trip to the nearby Royal London Hospital, but it's taking an age and he can hear her deteriorating with each passing minute. His colleague is reassuring her as best as he can, but her groans and prolonged bouts of rattling wheeziness are testament to her desperation.
21:11 Speaker 02 But then, at last, he sees the Royal London looming ahead.
21:17 Speaker 02 Beyond its gates, banks of ambulances are parked up, all waiting for the nod that there is space inside for the next patient.
21:27 Speaker 02 As he pulls up, he kills the engine and rushes around the back. But by now, the woman's eyes are tightly shut, as if she is imagining herself into a different place altogether. The driver and his colleague lock eyes for a moment. They just have to hope they have got her here in time.
21:50 Speaker 02 By Saturday, the transport network is in disarray, a not uncommon occurrence during particularly heavy smogs. Train services grind to a halt, trapping passengers in stationary carriages by drivers held up on lines where they are unable to see any signals. Many individuals and families make the decision to hunker down for the weekend.
22:12 Speaker 02 Sunday sees life in London come to a virtual standstill. The little transport that is still out on the roads crawls along slower than ever. Those who do have to venture outside shuffle along pavements, feeling for the curb edge as if they are blind. Most public events are cancelled. There's no point going to a football match, for example, if the players are unable to see the ball at their feet. Or go to the dog racing if you can't make out the track.
22:42 Speaker 02 In seventy-two hours, the amount of smoke and sulphur dioxide in London's atmosphere has increased by up to tenfold. Yet still, there is no hint in the newspapers or on the wireless that this is a crisis, or indeed anything more than an inconvenience.
22:58 Speaker 02 There is even a certain jauntiness to much of the coverage, celebrating the famed stiff upper lip in the face of what's presented merely as a bit of bad weather.
23:09 Speaker 02 There is barely any mention of a serious threat to health, although one report focuses on a man who has been struck by an airborne mallard, blinded by the smog. Both suffer minor injuries, but the human is well enough, thankfully, to take the duck to a vet.
23:27 Speaker 02 The overriding message is clear: there is no need to panic. The only issue that seems to cause real anxiety among the press is that the smog might be turned to the advantage of criminals.
23:40 Speaker 02 Many years earlier, that great chronicler of the British criminal mind, Arthur Conan Doyle, popularised the link between smog and the capital's underclass in the writing of his Sherlock Holmes mysteries. These are the conditions in which muggers and burglars may prowl through the night unseen.
23:59 Speaker 02 But in truth, while smog may provide a veil under which criminals can better hide, it also makes the conducting of criminality hard work. An average villain can no more do his job if he cannot see than any other professional.
24:15 Speaker 02 That is not to say, however, that maintaining law and order in the intense gloom isn't challenging.
24:21 Speaker 02 Even for the police to keep track of themselves proves almost impossible.
24:25 Speaker 03 You have first responders, emergency workers, and it was just a complete nightmare. I spoke to a man who was a cadet with the Metropolitan Police at the time, and his job was to be in radio contact with the police officers who were in the cars, driving in the cars. And he would have this big map of London, and each car had a little, kind of like a, I don't know, a little plastic disc. And it would have the number of the car. And he would move the discs around on what locations they were at, and they lost track of everybody. Nobody knew where anybody was.
24:59 Speaker 02 There are a few scattered reports of burglars taking advantage. One thief is said to have shinned up the drainpipes of three adjoining properties in a particularly wealthy neighbourhood without a soul seeing him. There are other anecdotal accounts, too.
25:15 Speaker 03 The police officer who I spoke with, he was in North London, and he was stationed on a little shopping row. And he was so petrified, he found one of the emergency lights for police officers that had a phone, you know, going directly to dispatch. And he had it in front of him, so he backed up and he got into a doorway of a shop. And there was somebody there breaking glass on either side of him. And the guy couldn't see him, and he couldn't see the guy, and there was nothing he could do about it. But the glass was breaking a couple feet away, and the guy was grabbing whatever was on display from this fabric shop.
25:53 Speaker 02 For some, it brings back unwelcome memories of the Blitz, when blackouts and bombed-out buildings prompted a surge in criminal activity. But now, in December 1952, the fear of crime seems to be worse than the criminality itself. And while journalists fill their columns with tales about ailing cattle or wayward mallards, the police are involved in much grislier work, but so far goes mostly unreported.
26:20 Speaker 02 They deal with a host of calls from doctors and worried relatives reporting non-responsive residents in properties.
26:29 Speaker 02 Time after time, the police assist in gaining access to private homes to discover chillingly similar scenes of lone individuals, many of them elderly, who have dropped dead in their domestic settings.
26:43 Speaker 02 And it's not one or two here and there. It is hundreds every day.
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27:57 Speaker 02 It's first thing in the morning on Sunday, December 7, 1952.
28:03 Speaker 02 A nurse in a regulation, short-sleeved, blue dress and starched apron takes a few minutes to compose herself in the bathroom mirror at work. She was not due on shift at the Royal London this weekend, but the call has gone out for anyone who can to come in and help. She rinses her hands in a basin that is dark gray with smuts or tiny flakes of dirt carried in the air. The grime is thick enough to write her name in it, but she accepts that she and her colleagues are facing a losing battle in maintaining their usual impeccable standards of hygiene on the ward. Right now, there are bigger concerns.
28:42 Speaker 02 After smoothing back her hair, she puts on a fresh, hospital-issue muslin face mask. Although, how effective it is, who can be sure? She turns on her heel and steps back into the tumult of the ward. Normally so breezy, now it swirls with the same eddies of dirt, causing harm to the communities that live beyond the hospital walls. Eddies that seem to thicken and swell every time a door opens to let someone in or out of the ward. There is not a free bed inside. The nurse has even heard that they've started using the chapel to accommodate the overspill of patients. Every bay in her ward is occupied. A symphony of coughing and spluttering.
29:24 Speaker 02 Those patients with sufficient strength to do something other than lie still and fight for breath, call out in distress, or demand updates on what's going to happen next. Such are the pressures that the usually strict rules about keeping male and female patients apart are overlooked for now. Most of those coming in are men of a certain age. Some have insisted on going out in the smoke to try to get supplies for their families, or because work has demanded it, or have been stranded when their usual means of transport fail to run. But there are a good number of women too. And as she walks between the beds, it is one such lady whom the nurse now approaches.
30:07 Speaker 02 In her seventies, she was brought in by ambulance a couple of nights ago. She is still and quiet. Her face is ashen grey, not from the muck in the air, but because her body has been unable to get her blood to circulate. As doctors bustle about her, triaging new patients at top speed, the nurse feels the woman's forehead with the back of her hand. She is cold to the touch.
30:35 Speaker 02 Now she tests for a pulse, but she cannot find it.
30:41 Speaker 02 She calls for one of the doctors, but she knows already that there is nothing more to be done.
30:48 Speaker 03 So the progression was, you really started to see the majority of the dying, for lack of a better word, happening by Sunday. A lot of the older folks, the pensioners, people who had bronchitis, just, you know, people who were in poor health.
31:04 Speaker 02 In due course, a doctor will sign off on a death certificate. But smog isn't ever specified as the reason for the demise because it doesn't fit any of the accepted categories demanded by the paperwork. As a result, pre-existing bronchitis is commonly given as the official cause of death, as are pneumonia, heart failure, and tuberculosis. But the people in the hospitals are becoming aware that smog is the real killer at work here.
31:33 Speaker 02 In terms of mortality, Monday proves the most devastating single day. Eventually, it will be found that 900 people lose their lives to the smog in this one 24-hour period. That brings the tally to almost 3,000 since Friday morning.
31:50 Speaker 02 But the government is still resisting highlighting the dangers to health. The last thing they want is public panic. And besides, it's not smog on the death certificates, so who's to say that's what really is behind the surge? Not to put too fine a point on it, many of those who are dying might well have faced their end soon enough anyway.
32:13 Speaker 02 So for now, the true extent of the smog's health impact remains poorly understood, even as many among the population have no doubt that something serious is afoot.
32:25 Speaker 03 The people who knew how horrible this was were the folks who owned all of the flower shops, the funeral wreath makers, and then the undertakers, and the people who owned the cemeteries, graveyards, the churches, because they were running out of space, they were running out of flowers, and they were running out of coffins.
32:43 Speaker 02 As Londoners wake on the morning of Tuesday, the 9th of December, and pull back their curtains, they are greeted by a joyous sight. Finally, the weather has changed, and a cool breeze is blowing through the city. It's still a work in progress, but with each new gust, the smog dissipates. The relief of being able to breathe again is palpable. People return to work, and parents pack their children back off to school. The capital gets on the move again. The residue is significant, but there is no great concerted cleanup. What does another layer of muck matter on a city already full of dirt-scarred buildings? Especially when it's only a matter of time until the next smog.
33:30 Speaker 02 Normal life resumes, and the memory of these challenging few days soon fades for many. Anyway, there is Christmas to look forward to, arrangements to make, presents to buy. It's estimated that each day of the smog has cost London's commercial sector dearly, perhaps as much as 75 million pounds in today's terms. But there are still a couple of weeks to make good on some of those losses.
33:56 Speaker 02 For some, though, simply reverting to normal is not an option. The death toll is contested, but it's safe to say that there are thousands of families mourning loved ones. A process made all the harder because of the difficulties in arranging funerals.
34:13 Speaker 02 One afflicted household is that of 14-year-old Rosemary, whose dad died three days after having to take a long walk home from his job, working in an airline hangar.
34:25 Speaker 03 She said we were having such a hard time trying to find anything, an undertaker, who could even come and take him, that her mom just locked his body in the parlor in the living room at the time. So he was there for a couple of weeks, and this was just a man she, Rosemary, adored. Adored him. So if you can imagine that, that's what it felt like for a lot of these families.
34:51 Speaker 02 After the smog, London is divided between those determined to put it all behind them and those who simply can't. An uncomfortable split.
35:00 Speaker 03 It's unfortunate to be desensitized, but London was desensitized to this, absolutely. And things just sort of moved on. The fog cleared, Underground went back online, taxis went back to puffing out carbon monoxide, and everything just sort of leveled out.
35:16 Speaker 02 With so much else to deal with, the government is keen to move on too. Not least the two ministers most directly in the firing line of questions as to why London has not been better prepared: the Minister of Health, Ian MacLeod, and future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, currently serving as Minister of Housing and Local Government.
35:38 Speaker 02 Macmillan in particular is adamant that it is not in the power, or even in the remit of the government, to do much about the issue.
35:46 Speaker 03 It literally was the cost that you paid for living in the wonderful city of London in the 1950s, and Macmillan absolutely believed that.
35:56 Speaker 02 But as December turns into January, evidence grows of the great death toll the smog has wrought. And it's not as if it came without warning.
36:06 Speaker 02 Back in 1930, for example, the Meuse Valley, a heavily industrialized area of Belgium, suffered a four-day smog. Though the population of the affected area, standing at around 10,000, didn't remotely compare with that of London, some 60 people perished and thousands more became ill.
36:25 Speaker 02 Shocked, the Belgians almost immediately established a public inquiry. By studying autopsy records, it firmly established the link between air pollution and health. What had long been suspected anecdotally now had a solid basis in science. Another event across the Atlantic is even fresher in the mind. In 1948, just four years ago, an industrial Pennsylvanian town called Denora faced its own tragedy. As a result of smog, 20 out of a population of 14,000 died, and not far off, half the rest of the population suffered respiratory difficulties.
37:05 Speaker 02 Whereas London has adopted a stance of stoic acceptance, the response in the US was strikingly more proactive.
37:12 Speaker 03 This smog was treated like, I mean, an emergency, like, almost like September 11th. It was incredible. They had triage centres, they had every police officer you could think of from neighbouring cities there, helping people when they were driving, just trying to get home, to have their wheels kind of get as close as they can to the curb so they could direct traffic. It was treated like a true emergency, and it got the attention of the US government, and this was sort of the beginning of the Clean Air Movement.
37:44 Speaker 02 The job of holding the UK government to account, however, falls disproportionately to a small band of dedicated politicians, many of them low-profile backbenchers. They are supported by a few campaigning groups and civic organisations like the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, founded way back in 1898 by individuals alarmed by growing pollution. But despite their concerns, there is no immediate great push for answers from the government, from either the public or the press, who seem content that the recent smog, like its many predecessors, is little more than an unavoidable nuisance.
38:22 Speaker 02 But when those in charge are forced to acknowledge the scale of excess mortality, pressure starts to build. First, Health Minister MacLeod reports that deaths in London in the week of the smog totaled 4,700, up by almost 3,000 from the previous year. Later, he concedes that fatalities from smog to the end of December are in the region of 6,000, more than the annual deaths from road accidents in the whole of the UK. Such admissions bolster the efforts of those MPs determined to ward off a repeat of the December catastrophe. What they lack in political heft, they make up for in acumen and resolve. The British government, they now insist,
39:05 Speaker 02 has had no excuse for complacency when it comes to air pollution, and something must be done.
39:13 Speaker 03 Winston Churchill had just come into power the year before. You know, and I want to make clear, this is a bipartisan issue. Labour was in charge for six years before that. So it's not like the Tories had all of a sudden invented air pollution. Labour didn't do much about it either.
39:31 Speaker 02 Still, they struggled to harness popular support. And soon, the news cycle moves on, diverting the public's attention elsewhere. At the end of January 1953, for example, northern Europe suffers devastating flooding that leaves over 300 dead in the UK and some 1,800 killed in the Netherlands. Unlike the seeping peril of the smog, the floods exert their harm in a more immediate and obvious manner. There is a concerted emergency response to the rising waters, rather than the call for resilience that the smog has been net with.
40:05 Speaker 02 Then, in March, all eyes turned to a troubling criminal case.
40:11 Speaker 02 An unprepossessing, middle-aged man by the name of John Christie is tracked down and arrested after disappearing from his home, 10 Rillington Place, in a down-at-heel corner of Notting Hill. Subsequently, evidence is uncovered that he has murdered several women there. Among the remains are those of Christie's second wife, Ethel, whom he seemingly killed a little more than a week after the great smog released its grip.
40:39 Speaker 02 His crimes terrorize the popular imagination far more than the silent killer that spilled across the city for five days in December. It is Christie who becomes the greater hate figure, even though his total of victims is lesser by thousands than the smog. Swaths of column inches are devoted to telling the story of the Rillington Place murders, while the smog garners little more than a notice or two here and there, mostly in summaries of parliamentary business.
41:08 Speaker 03 So the crossover between these two stories for me was so strong. And the reason is, when the two stories, the smog and Christie, when they manage to intersect in Parliament, you see so clearly that, you know, in March, when he goes on the run in '53, there is a lot of opportunity for self-reflection for the government, for the people in London, about what happened with all of these deaths. And they know another smog is coming. They come every year around November, December at least. And you have an opportunity to do something, to make a change. And instead, it was clear that the government would rather tackle a clear and present danger, like a serial killer that was capturing the headlines,
41:51 Speaker 03 than an impossible systemic issue like air pollution.
41:59 Speaker 02 Despite these distractions, the diligence of campaigners ensures that the great smog will mark a turning point in Britain's approach to air pollution after all. In May 1953, the government announces the formation of a committee to look into the issue, headed by the engineer and industrialist Sir Hugh Beaver. For the first time, a British government, albeit rather reluctantly, acknowledges smog as a matter of significant public concern, an admission that in turn focuses popular sentiment.
42:32 Speaker 02 Yet even as the committee collects and considers its data, the government continues to minimize its responsibility. In November 1953, for example, Macmillan writes in a private memo that, "Today, everyone expects the government to solve every problem", before adding dismissively, "For some reason or another, smog has captured the imagination of the press and the people."
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43:59 Speaker 02 In 1954, the Beaver Committee releases its report. It includes a series of recommendations, such as increased use of smokeless fuels and smokeless zones in urban areas. The pursuit of clean air, the report suggests, is the modern equivalent of the Victorians' quest to provide the public with clean water. Tucked away in the report is a table recording the number of deaths associated with the smog of December 1952. An early version put the death toll at 12,000, but something curious has happened between that version and the final published one.
44:37 Speaker 03 Then in 54, there was a revised report that came out, and that revised report really played down all of the disaster stuff that happened and played down the deaths. So you've got one chart from the Ministry of Health in the initial report that shows a huge spike in deaths because of the fall. I mean, they literally lay it out day by day by day, and you just hear spike, spike, spike, spike, and then it's normal. And then in the revised report, clearly, you know, the government had gotten to the authors of the report, because then we have this revised report that the chart is much lower with deaths, where they end up at the 4,000.
45:17 Speaker 02 All those extra deaths, according to the official line, were down to an outbreak of influenza, although there is scant evidence for the theory. And the government continues to drag its feet. There are simply too many demands on the public purse and the government's time to undertake such a comprehensive reappraisal of infrastructure that the problem ultimately demands. But Macmillan realizes they must be seen to be doing something. His big gesture is to begin selling masks, even though government research has already shown they will do little to protect wearers in a smog episode.
45:53 Speaker 02 But finally, thanks to persistent pressure from campaigning MPs on all sides of Parliament, in 1956, the Clean Air Act is passed. A landmark piece of legislation, it is the first in the world to look specifically at reducing the volume of harmful smoke pumped into the atmosphere. But it is far from a complete solution. Its principal focus is to reduce levels of pollution and better dissipate what is produced, so as to avoid the kind of deadly build-ups London has seen. So for instance, it encourages the building of power stations with taller chimneys, so as to send pollutants high into the atmosphere. And though that ameliorates the immediate problem, it disperses what is known as acid
46:38 Speaker 02 rain more widely, something that has devastating effects for everything from human, animal, and plant health to built environments.
46:49 Speaker 02 Overall though, the Act is considered a significant step in the right direction. Our modern understanding of the environmental challenges posed by fossil fuel usage, such as global warming, is not the same hot topic in 1952. But the Act at least takes the protection of the atmosphere, as it is then understood, seriously.
47:10 Speaker 03 The Clean Air Act was the blueprint for other countries to follow of ways to move forward, to untether, to ungraft yourself from coal, which was not good. Behind the scenes, you have so many tenacious people who are trying to do the right thing. And I was so proud, from both sides, the lawmakers in 52, and it was just maybe a dozen of them at the time, how hard they were working.
47:36 Speaker 02 It seems to have an almost immediate impact.
47:40 Speaker 02 In 1956, there are 40 smogs reported in London that together claim a thousand lives. The following year, the instances of smog fall by about half and continue on a downward trajectory.
47:55 Speaker 02 Other nations follow suit with their own legislation. In 1963, the USA, the world's largest economy, passes its own Clean Air Act. Even as its population, industries, and car usage all grow, the Act is estimated to cut air pollution by some 70% in the years to come. Back in the UK, there are still blips. In the early 60s, a four-day London P-Super takes 750 lives. But there will never again be anything approaching the Great Smog of 1952. More clean-air legislation follows, in 1968 and then in 1993. The latter comes just two years after another December smog in London is estimated
48:39 Speaker 02 to have killed 150.
48:45 Speaker 02 It is a reminder to avoid complacency against an enemy that continues to pose a formidable threat to public health, not just in London but across the planet. The World Health Organisation, for instance, estimates that air pollution kills some 2 million people a year in rapidly industrialising China. And in 2020, after years of campaigning, the death, seven years earlier, of nine-year-old Londoner Ella Kissy Debra becomes the first in the UK to be officially recorded as caused by air pollution. The work prompted by the Great Smog of 1952 is not only incomplete, but is as urgent as ever. The event, however, continues to hold a curious place in the collective memory.
49:28 Speaker 02 On the one hand, it provoked arguably the first serious long-term response to a long-term problem. Along with the Moos Valley and De Nora incidents before it, the events of December 1952 helped move the debate along. Yet, few Londoners growing up today are aware of what occurred in that distant winter. Even if they have heard of the Great Smog, they rarely realise the extent of suffering that blew in with it. But to forget is surely a dangerous mistake.
50:00 Speaker 03 I think about London, and I think about why there aren't memorials. It's just been brushed under the rug. There just wasn't that response. And so now, my hope is that we understand the impact that pollution has on human life, on your life. And this is one of those incidents. You know, throughout history, we've had these events, and some are forgotten and some aren't. And so, you know, I hope that that is something, because it led to many changes around the world, I still feel like it's just disappeared from what many people know, and it was a landmark. So that is what I hope, is that just because you can't see it, it doesn't mean it's not hurting you. And that's the lesson for me from the small of 1952.
50:52 Speaker 02 Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of the Vatican.
50:57 Speaker 05 In a world of darkness and of fear, of violence and of intemperance, in the heart of Rome, there still is a small little square of 108 acres, still holds out a hand of friendship and a message of trust and a better future.
51:19 Speaker 02 That's next time.
51:24 Speaker 02 If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www-noiser.com/subscriptions for more information.
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