In 1810 Peter Durand of England patented the use of tin-coated iron cans instead of bottles, and by 1820 he was supplying canned food to the Royal Navy in large quantities. Durand did not pursue food canning, but, in 1812, sold his patent to two Englishmen, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, who refined the process…
Health and Morals of Apprentices Act limited the work of children in textile mills to 12 hours per day; prohibited night work; required minimum standards of accommodation; some elementary education to be provided; factories to be periodically lime washed; and infectious diseases attended to and reported. Each apprentice was to be given two sets of…
Chlorination of drinking water was only first suggested around the year 1800 by Louis – Bernard Guyton de Morveau (France) and William Cumberland Cruikshank (England). The use of chlorine was introduced to England by William Cruickshank, who used it to purify water in 1800. These initial successes, however, seem to have been short-lived. Some experiments…
Thomas Henry in England proposed the use of lime for water softening.
John Howard was appointed High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1773, initially for a one-year period. Such was his dedication, rather than delegating his duties to the under-sheriff as was customary, Howard inspected the county prison himself. He was shocked by what he found, and spurred into action to inspect prisons throughout England. Of particular concern…
While working at the University of Glasgow as an instrument maker and repairman in 1759, James Watt was introduced to the power of steam by Professor John Robison. Fascinated, Watt took to reading everything he could on the subject, and independently developed the concept of latent heat, only recently published by Joseph Black at the…
In 1748, Lind retired from the navy and went to Edinburgh University to take professional qualifications. In 1753, he published ‘A Treatise of the Scurvy’ and in 1757 ‘An Essay on the Most Effectual Means of Preserving the Health of Seamen in the Royal Navy’, which threw much light on the appalling living conditions and…
On September 17, 1683, Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society about his observations on the plaque between his own teeth, “a little white matter, which is as thick as if ’twere batter.” He repeated these observations on two ladies (probably his own wife and daughter), and on two old men who had never cleaned their…
Modern toilet design began in 1596, when Sir John Harington invented a device for Queen Elizabeth (his Godmother) that released wastes into cesspools. Harington invented two elements of the modern toilet: a valve at the bottom of the water tank, and a wash-down system. In 1596, Harington wrote a book called A New Discourse upon…
Elizabeth’s 1580 Royal Proclamation against building assumed national scope with an Act of Parliament in 1588, effectively sanctioning a discourse of building founded on the idea that banning any new, subdivided, or multi-occupant buildings would curb London’s skyrocketing population. A series of Elizabethan anti-building proc lamations was based on the premise that the new and…
Richard II was the king responsible for the first ‘urban sanitary act’ in 1388. Before this the cities and towns were responsible for their own hygiene, now there was a centrally legislated act to force them into line. The first English Sanitary Act dealt with offal and slaughter houses; prohibited the casting of animal filth and…
Royal order forbidding slaughtering of animals in London and suburbs.
City of London Regulation required every man to keep clean the front of his own tenement. Regulations for carrying out this edict were made in the reign of Edward I., and in year 1297 with regard to cleaning the streets. It was enacted that everyone should keep clean the front of his own tenement, that…
In 1281 City of London Regulation prohibited pigs wandering in the streets, and a further Regulation in 1297 required the removal of pigsties from the streets. Regulation as to wearing Furs, and clearing the Streets: »It is provided and commanded, that no woman of the City shall from henceforth go to market, or in the…
Actually, however, recorded agitation about smoke began in England. In 1257 when Queen Eleanor moved from Nottingham to Tutbury Castle. As recounted, she told her husband, King Henry III, she could no longer stand the “unendurable smoke of the sea coal.” Translated, that means she couldn’t stand the neighbors’ burning bituminous coal. As a result…
During the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon for those parts of London which were near the Thames to use the river as their main source of culinary water. Away from the river, houses were built chiefly where there were beds of gravel or loam. These beds afforded a good water supply to shallow wells…