A Sewer is the Best Medicine. Through Plague, Wars, Famine and Flood. Sir Robert Rawlinson and the Nineteenth Century Public Health Revolution

Most readers of this journal will be familiar with the name and works of Sir Joseph Bazalgette (1819-1891) in the field of public health civil engineering. The subject of this book, Sir Robert Rawlinson (1810-1898), almost Bazalgette’s exact contemporary, worked in the same field but, whereas we remember Bazalgette for his bridges and famous London sewage system, Rawlinson’s extensive (and intensive) career included waste disposal schemes the length and breadth of the UK (Chapters 1–6), as well as in the Crimean theatre of war (Chapters 7–9), a fatal dam disaster (Chapters 12–15) and unexpectedly ghastly river pollution (Chapters 16–17) resulting from the various sewage schemes. Rawlinson’s family were from a very modest, upper working class background, such that his father (a building contractor) could only afford the most basic of schooling for his son. However, Rawlinson made the most of an early job as a masonry measurer in the INT. J. FOR THE HISTORY OF ENG. & TECH.,, Vol. 92 No. 1, January 2022, 74–91