1 (Pollution and Control, Bill Luckin) The brewers’ unease with polluted Thames water described by the historian Bill Luckin marked the specific shift in public attitude towards the river that occurred in the 1820s. It was in that decade that the sharp decline in the river’s stock of fish also had an impact on the fishing economy in central London.2 The culprit was obvious. A prohibition on household drainage connection to public sewers flowing straight into the Thames had been lifted in 1815.3 Unfortunately, this coincided with the rise in purchases of the flush water closet and improved water supplies to these facilities, at least for those who could afford both luxuries. Prior to the 1820s, as James Graham Leigh comments in his account of London’s water companies’ machinations, ‘water quality does not seem to have been considered so important’.4 Population growth precipitated a rising demand for water for domestic and industrial uses. More labouring Londoners meant more call for refreshing beers and, consequently, that all-essential raw material.
