History of Civil Enineering

Civil Engineering has evolved over a long period of time. The information below charts the progress of three central tenets of the civil engineering workload undertaken today. The first section looks at road build, the second at the historical development of bridges, and the final section looks at the contribution of civil engineering to the health and welfare of the population and the country as a whole and provides the history of sanitation and water supply.

 

1) From Ridgeways to Motorways

 

Today, roads are part of everyday life. We expect roads to be there, to take us from A to B, to get us to school or work, to transport goods from one part of the country to another. Some of these roads will be modern motorways and most will be smoothly paved and cambered. Every so often, however, when you are in the country, you will find narrow, grassed or rutted ways, winding in apparently haphazard fashion. Or you may find yourself walking on a track high up on the ridge of a hill or puzzling over an old road that stretches ahead as straight and as single-minded as a modern motorway. Who made these rutted paths, these ridgeways, these long, straight roads? And why?

The first paths - in the still-cold, post-Ice Age life of Britain - were made by Stone Age man wearing tracks to hunting grounds or to stone outcrops in search of flint for spearheads. The animals he hunted probably marked out their own paths, too, from resting place to watering place, for example.

 

Some thousands of years later, but still before the arrival of the wheel, warmer weather made it possible for people to live in settlements and they walked from one to another along the high ridgeways of the hills where the undergrowth was less dense.

 

The Bronze Age people of around 2000 BC weren't limited to travel on foot: they had the wheel. So, with their carts loaded with raw materials like tin and lead, they beat out tracks to south coast ports.

 

Then the Romans invaded Britain in AD43. Like all invading forces, they met resistance. So they built military roads, studded with forts, and permitting easy trading between forts and garrison towns.

 

They were splendid roads, too. Some, with modern surfacing, we still use - like the Fosse Way which runs from Lincoln through the Cotswolds to Exeter. Modern maps also tell of Watling Street, Ermine Street and Akeman Street and there are stretches of Roman road which you can walk along, like the section of Blackpool Bridge, near Blakeney, in Gloucestershire.

 

Roman roads were intensely practical. For instance, they were between 14ft and 16ft wide, which enabled two Roman legions to pass each other comfortably. Two heavy wagons could also pass each other.

 

Every Roman legion had its own skilled road engineer, the Roman equivalent of the civil engineer of today. Whenever possible, the engineers ensured that Roman roads were straight. This was done for two reasons: to obtain the shortest distances between their forts and to avoid too many bends so that their fixed-axle (non-pivoting) carts and chariots could be used without too much difficulty.

 

In AD 410 the Romans left Britain. Though people went on using their roads for a while, the Saxons and others had neither the skill nor the will to repair them and keep them in good order. Men - like the pedlar illustrated below - went back to their old, winding tracks and most travelled on foot or on horseback, using 'packhorse' bridges or the stone slab 'clapper' bridges to span the streams.

 

Roads got a new lease of life in the Middle Ages. The monasteries were flourishing and there was a lot of trading between them Monks collected alms and used some of the money to repair roads. This was the time, too, of pilgrimages: the Pilgrims' Way was the road used by pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. All these roads, though improved, were still rough, pitted with holes and liable to become extremely muddy and even impassable.

  

Sheep farming and the wool trade were features of the Middle Ages and sheep were often driven south from the far west of Scotland. These long journeys meant there had to be places where men and beasts could rest - which is why many a farm on the drove roads became an inn. Some of these drove roads still exist.

Then, in 1537, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and that was the end of the monks' contribution towards maintaining British Roads. By 1555, the roads were so bad that people were ordered to spend days a year repairing their local roads.

 

Yet, in spite of it all, people still travelled. Wealthy Elizabethan merchants and nobles set off in their elaborate, unsprung coaches and endured great discomfort. One is not surprised to hear that travellers complained. The carts got stuck in the mud, loads fell off into streams, coaches toppled over; wagons stubbed their wheels against rocks.

 

By 1663 Parliament realised that roads had to be improved, for trade was being severely hampered by the state of the highways and winter travel was virtually impossible.

 

The idea behind the first Turnpike Act was to make people using the roads pay for their upkeep. The turnpike itself was a spiked wooden barrier set across the road. When a cart or coach arrived, the toll-keeper raised the barrier and collected the fees, the 'tolls'. Payment was on a sliding scale: a coach was charged sixpence, twenty sheep went through for a penny and so on.

 

However; though the British wanted better roads, they disliked having pay for their upkeep (particularly as 'upkeep' appears to have limited to filling in the ruts made by heavy vehicles with the wet, displaced material). So, right on into the 18th century, toll-gates were often damaged and toll-keepers manhandled.

 

There was one visible and lasting benefit from the turnpike system. People reckoned that if they had to pay tolls, they should be told how many miles they were travelling for their money. So toll-keepers erected milestone and soon the milestones also bore the name of the next town carved into the stone. There are still plenty of these milestones around, boldly but elegantly carved.

 

Up in Scotland, the first Jacobite rebellion of 1715 revealed to the English the need for military roads to keep order: General George Wade was appointed to build them. Wade and his soldiers built some 250 miles of road in Scotland, using a base of rocks, surfaced with smaller chips of stone and gravel. His efforts are remembered in these two lines:

 

'Had you seen these roads before they were made
You'd hold up your hands and bless General Wade'

 

At least one of his 'made', i.e. stone-built, roads is still in action: the road up the steep and aptly named Best and Be Thankful, in Argyllshire.

 

Between 1750 and 1800 the later Turnpike Trusts coincided with the drive and road-making skills of three men.

 

John Metcalf was the first. He was blind, yet he was a great walker and once even tried to walk from London to York. The roads he met so horrified him that he took matters into his own hands. He became a road contractors. Metcalf realised that the round stones which usually formed the base of previous roads were easily dislodged by horses' hooves and wheels. Sharp-edged stones were the proper foundation, Metcalf decided. The more they were pounded and ridden on, the more firmly they dug into the soil. As a result, his 180 miles of Yorkshire roads were probably the best laid in England since the Romans.

 

It took two engineers, Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and John McAdam (1756-1836), to develop Metcalf's techniques to the point where modern communications became a possibility. Their roads speeded trade, brought the countryside into contact with the town and even made travel a fashionable craze.

 

To Telford we owe not only the London to Holyhead road (still in use as the A5) but also a whole Scottish network of roads and canals (the splendid Caledonian Canal from Inverness to Fort William is his) plus hundreds of harbours and bridges. His work transformed the lives of people living in isolated Scottish crofts and villages.

 

John McAdam was another Scot. His method of using a mixture of broken stone crushed into a variety of sizes so that the spaces between the large stones could be gilled with small ones made a very compact road.

 

Once Telford and McAdam had shown the way, it became possible to speed the mails and in 1784 the first mail-coach from Bath to London did the journey at an average speed of nearly seven miles per hour. Within 30 years our mail service, fast and punctual, was the envy of Europe.

 

Fashionable phaetons, gigs and curricles were raced along these roads, and stage coaches and their necessary companions, the inns, flourished. By 1836, you could catch any one of 70 coaches running daily between London and Brighton.

 

However, the coming of the railway in 1825 was a major blow to the fortunes of the British road. By 1841 the famed mail coach service was no more: the mails now went by train.

 

New invention revived the roads. In 1885, Karl Benz invented the internal combustion engine and, two years later, the Daimler because the first on-the road motor car. Roads became important again and this time they were of interest to almost everyone.

 

Apprehension and disapproval were, of course, the reactions of many people to the new invention. For several years, horseless carriages could only go on the roads of Britain if a man with a red flag walked in front. Another problem was that the stone and gravel surfaces of Telford's and McAdam's roads were not designed to cope with rubber tyres and faster speeds, so great clouds of dust accompanied the progress of the motor car.

 

The solution was found only by accident. In 1901, a barrel of tar was one day upset over a road. It coated the loose stone surface which thereafter stayed dust-free and waterproof. Later, an even better surface was achieved when the smaller stones of a McAdam-type road were mixed with tar before they were laid. We still call this surface 'tar macadam'.

 

The roads cars used were still winding and comparatively narrow and in order to pay for improvements and maintenance of some of these roads a petrol tax and road fund licence were imposed on car owners.

 

Yet car usage boomed. Henry Ford produced the Model T, the first mass-produced car. By 1938 there were three million vehicles in Britain. Predictably, roads became congested. Bypass roads were built around major towns to relieve them of traffic which was only passing through them to other destinations. As the towns expanded and traffic increased (today, the number of licensed vehicles has increased to nearly 18 million) congestion and accidents also increased in many parts of the country.

 

A more successful solution was the motorway. First in Italy and then in Germany (Hitler's Autobahnen were counterparts of the Roman military roads) and in the United States, the '30s saw the development of this kind of road.

 

The motorways carried only motor vehicles on their dual-carriageways, on either side of a central barrier or grassed reservation. Interchanges were built to separate crossroads at different levels.

 

It wasn't until 13 years after the Second World War, in 1958, that work began on the M1, the first of Britain's motorways.

 

Making a modern motorway is a far cry from Roman techniques and those of Telford and McAdam, advanced though these were in their. Today, techniques of roadmaking are constantly being improved and are the result of much research and development and they involve people with all sorts of skills. For instance:

 

The planning stage of a new road brings together teams of highway and traffic engineers and their technicians and similar teams of surveyors, geologists, soil mechanics specialists, economists and landscape architects.

 

Their job is to identify possible routes, whilst bearing in mind the need to keep costs as low as possible and to produce a road that is efficient and safe.

 

When these preliminary plans are completed, they are shown to the general public and often discussed at Public Inquiries.

 

Next, the bridges, embankments, cuttings and landscaping of the road have to be designed in detail. This involves teams of engineers and technicians in calculating (using computers frequently), drawing, testing materials and preparing the contract documents for the Civil Engineering Contractors who will actually build the road.

 

Once all these factors - and many more - have been considered and worked out in detail, the work of construction proper begins. This is when the plant operators, the people trained the handle the great earth-movers that do the work of cutting out the road and shaping it, come into their own. Making a road is a highly mechanised operation and an ability to manage machines is essential.

 

The cross section of various roads built through the ages is shown below:

 

This historical note tells the story of the bridge with particular reference to the bridge builders; first the early landowners, then the Church, then architects and finally the Civil Engineers who have designed and built the tremendous bridges we see and use today.

 

The oldest bridges still standing in the United Kingdom are the simple stone beams such as the 'clapper' bridges that can be found on Dartmoor. Stone and wood were the most commonly used building materials because they were readily available; and they were just placed across the river to form a crossing.

 

The oldest arch bridges are found in the Middle East, Mexico and China. These were originally corbelled, that is, constructed from horizontal rows of bricks, each row projecting beyond the underlying course, although 'true' arches made from identical wedge-shaped stones are to be found in Egyptian monuments.

 

Knotted creepers, slung across obstacles, made up the earliest suspension bridges. Like the previous examples, these required very little in terms of building skills. However, as settlements became more sophisticated, permanent bridges were needed to provide communication links, so more effort was put into their construction.

 

In the days of 'great house' building, some bridges were created more for architectural purposes, such as to embellish a garden, than because of a real need. Architects associated with the projects often imitated classical styles of architecture and liked to incorporate a classical bridge in their designs.

 

Sir John Vanbrugh, a leading architect of the Palladian school was a major influence in formalizing Britain's stately homes. At Blenheim Park, a tiny brook was dammed by Capability Brown just to form a lake for a bridge to be built across. The Grand Bridge should have had a main span of 31m and two subsidiary spans, but was never fully completed.

 

At Wilton House in Wiltshire and on many other estates, a similar approach was used. Even 'ruined' bridges were built.

 

Although bridges were recognised as being vital to trade and communications, they were expensive to build and maintain. During the middle ages, many fell into serious disrepair in spite of the fact that their upkeep was specified as one of the 'three necessary duties' of landowners.

 

Gradually, as the need for longer, heavier load-carrying bridges developed, the task of building became more complex. Consequently, the responsibility for designing and building bridges which had largely rested with the Church and the stonemasons, moved to the emergent professionals: first to architects, then to engineers. There are however many fine mediaeval bridges to be seen such as at Radcot and New Bridge over the Thames and the Brig of Balgownie near Aberdeen.

 

The first professional civil engineering organisation was the Corps des Ingénieurs des Ponts et Chaussées, formed in France in 1716.

 

In 1747 the Corps established its own training school which was directed by Jean-Rodolfe Perronet. He was the designer who first developed the elliptical arch that is used in his Pont de la Concorde in Paris.

 

By the mid-18th century the professional engineer began to emerge; men such as John Smeaton (1724-92), John Rennie (1761-1821) and Thomas Telford (1757-1834). Rennie is famous for his Waterloo, Southwark and new London bridges and he carried the masonry arch to its final development.

Old London Bridge During mediaeval times much of the responsibility for bridge building was assumed by the Church. The first stone bridge built over the Thames at London was supervised by Peter of Colechurch, the Bridge Master, who was also a priest. It was his idea to build the bridge, and although the problems of constructing stone foundations in a tidal river were immense, his enthusiasm carried the project through.

 

The Church donated a lot of money towards the cost of the bridge, but the remainder was raised by the profits of a special tax levied on wool by Henry II. This led to the legend that Old London Bridge rested on foundations of woolpacks.

Begun in 1176, the bridge took 33 years to complete, claiming about a hundred and fifty lives during the building. When finished, it had 21 spans, the longest of which was 21.5m, two gates to allow shipping to pass, and a chapel.

 

The bridge in the middle ages was a social centre as well as a thoroughfare. Old London Bridge had so many shops and houses alongside its roadway that wide traffic could only pass with extreme difficulty. Rent from these buildings was paid to the Church as a contribution toward maintenance of the bridge.

 

The bridge was built on artificial islands called starlings which narrowed the channel considerably. During the winter 1683-1684, the frost was so severe that blocks of ice jammed between the starlings causing the river to freeze up. Fairs were held on the ice and proved to be a great attraction.

 

The bridge was London's only crossing until the Old Westminster bridge was completed in 1750. It was eventually replaced in 1831, after 655 years of use, when it could no longer carry the volume of traffic. John Rennie's masonry bridge, which took its place had 5 spans. This in turn was replaced by the present day bridge of 3 spans.

 

Before the industrial revolution, transport was primarily horse-drawn vehicles, canal boats or sailing boats. The materials available for bridge building were wood or stone. The industrial revolution brought iron, steel and the development of the railways. Britain's supremacy in bridge building began with a group of great engineers who emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Thomas Telford was the first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers and played an important part in establishing the profession in Britain. Although most famous for his roads and canals, he designed many considerable bridges and was a pioneer in the use of iron. In the six years following 1790 he designed and supervised over forty different examples, including a fine cast iron bridge at Buildwas, which was only the third to be built in the country and lasted for over 100 years and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct that crosses the river Dee.

 

Telford's report on communications in the Scottish Highlands led to the construction or renovation of over 1,000 miles of road and 1,000 bridges. Whilst carrying out this major project, he was also involved with achieving a fast route between Holyhead and London. Crossing the Menai Straits was a major obstacle because of the Admiralty's insistence that a clearance of 30.5m be left to enable all ships to pass. The problem was eventually solved the Menai Suspension Bridge with its 177m span was opened in 1826.

 

The rail link to Holyhead was tackled by another great 19th century engineer, Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) who was the son of George, the inventor of the steam locomotive. The Britannia Railway Bridge was built in the form of a rectangular tube, made from specially refined, wrought iron pieces (plates and other structural sections). The bridge had four continuous spans, the longest of which was 140m. Previously, the longest wrought iron girder had been 4m long so the increase in length represented a notable design achievement. The bridge was destroyed by fire in 1970 and has now been rebuilt to a different design.

 

Stephenson is also remembered for his design for the High Level Bridge at Newcastle. This was a double deck bridge with a railway above and a roadway below, passing between the main girders. During the construction of this bridge, a steam hammer was used to drive piles for the first time.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) was a contemporary and friend of Stephenson. He was an engineer with great flair who produced many innovative designs. His two most famous bridges are probably the Clifton Suspension bridge and the Royal Albert railway bridge at Saltash.

 

One of the most important 19th century bridges, the Forth Railway bridge was designed and built by Benjamin Baker (1840-1907) and John Fowler (1817-1898). It was the first large railway bridge to be built of open hearth steel and incorporated a clever cantilever design. Until 1917 it was the longest bridge of its kind in existence as each of its two main spans is 521m long.

 

Many of the great bridges described here are still in use today and stand as monuments to the tremendous skill and dedication of these talented engineers.

 

The outcome of many battles and wars has depended on the successful defence of, or attack on a bridge and many bridges were built primarily to enable armies to advance.

 

An early example of a war bridge was devised by King Xerxes of Persia and his armies who crossed the Hellespont on a floating bridge of 674 boars, tied together to make two parallel bridges, each with a length of 1.4km.

 

In many cases developments in bridge design were accelerated because war created an urgent need for a new type of bridge. The Romans' pioneering work on developing new roads and bridges was almost wholly the result of their need to extend communication routes as their armies advanced. A fine example of their work is Alcantara in Spain, built by Caius Julius Lancer for Emperor Trajan.

 

During mediaeval times, many stone bridges were fortified. National and county boundaries were often marked by bridges which consequently had a very strategic role. Such a war bridge at Monmouth is still standing today. Built in 1272, it is defended by a gateway although in some instances the bridges had their own drawbridges.

 

In 1297, the Earl of Surrey was defeated at the battle of Stirling by William Wallace because of the narrow width of the bridge there. Surrey's troops were divided by the bridge so Wallace attacked. It was a short-lived victory for him since he was later executed as a traitor and his head impaled on London Bridge.

 

From 1727-1740 General Wade built about 250 miles of road and 40 bridges in the Highlands of Scotland, mainly for military purposes.

 

The battles for the Rhine bridges were crucial in the final stages of World War II. During 1944, in an airborne operation involving 35,000 soldiers, a series of bridges behind Germany lines were captured, but that over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem was not. Had success been achieved, it would probably have shortened the war by several months.

 

 

Wood has been widely used in bridge building since the early days. Its popularity was partly due to its availability, but increased significantly following the discovery that small pieces could be tied together to form a trussed framework.

 

The true stone arch, constructed of individual blocks was developed to such a high standard by the Roman engineers that very little improvement on this techniques has been possible since.

 

It was long felt that stone was the only 'proper' material for bridges. Even in the late 18th and 19th centuries many new bridges were built of stone.

 

Steel is widely used in bridge building, both by itself and in conjunction with concrete.

 

As the quality of steel improved and its cost dropped it became possible to build longer span bridges. There was initial scepticism about its qualities but the Board of Trade gave it their approval for use in bridge building in 1877.

 

Modern steel is often combined with other metals to increase its resistance to fatigue and corrosion. This is particularly the case when it is used for the cables of suspension bridges which have to be very strong and workable.

 

The discovery of Portland cement in the 19th century led to the emergence of the concrete bridge. Concrete and mass-produced steel sparked off a revolution in bridge building and enabled great design developments to take place. Concrete can be used in bulk for the construction of piers, abutments and arches. The advantage of concrete is that it is very strong in compression but the disadvantage is that it is weak in tension.

 

Reinforced concrete was patented by Joseph Monier in 1867. The concrete is case around a framework of steel bars which take the tension stresses that the concrete cannot tolerate.

 

This enables a very wide range of beam, cantilever and arch bridges to be constructed. However, because of the presence of tension stresses, a large part of the concrete does not contribute to the strength, but it adds to the dead load. This is a disadvantage for longer spans.

 

Pre-stressed concrete overcomes this problem by the creation of high compressive stresses in the concrete before the dead and live loads act. The tension stresses are cancelled by these compressive stresses. The compressive stresses are created by passing high tensile steel cables through the concrete, stretching them and then allowing them to contract in position.

 

The process is similar to that whereby a row of books, forming a beam, can be lifted by squeezing the ends together. Without this "pre-stress" the book beam would collapse.

 

For maximum benefit, high quality concrete is needed, Pre-stressed concrete bridges an be very slender and pleasing in appearance.

 

 

Certain basic information is needed before the engineer can decide on the most appropriate type of bridge.

load - What the bridge will be carrying, rail, road or water.

obstacle - What the bridge will be crossing, river or gradient in the land.

span - The length and angle of the bridge

geography and geology - The physical conditions of the planned location.

Selection of form

With this information the engineer can then decide on a suitable form for the bridge. He produces tentative details taking into account the likely cost, aesthetic factors and his estimate of the probably loadings including dead load (self weight) and live loads (traffic, wind, snow and earthquake).

Finalisation of design

 

Calculation of loading on and stress in all parts of the bridge provides precise details of the complete structure. These are set out on drawings which are used by the construction company to build the bridge. Sometimes a scale model of the bridge is produced to test its behaviour.

 

 

The simplest beam consists of a straight girder supported at its ends. Under load it bends downwards producing tension in the lower parts and compression in the upper parts. Beams can also be continuous over several supports and may have a variety of shapes, for example, a hollow box, an open frame or truss.

 

A cantilever is a beam that is anchored at one end only. Under load it bends downwards producing tension in the upper parts and compression in the lower parts. Large clear spans are made using two cantilevers, one from each side, with a gap between, bridged by a simple beam. Cantilevers are used in bascule bridges.

Arch An arch is a beam curved in elevation which is prevented from spreading by strong abutments. The inward force provided by the abutments reduces the bending effect on the beam. Tension effects can be eliminated.

 

A suspension bridge is made by providing a cable, or chain, from which a beam is suspended at many points. The cable, which passes over towers, is all in tension. A strong anchorage has to be provided.

 

Built during the 8th century BC, the bridge was designed to connect the old city with a new residential settlement on the west bank of the Euphrates. Piles of stones were dropped onto the river bed and a wooden roadway was dropped over the piers, which were boat-shaped to minimise resistance to river flow.

Alcantara

 

This great stone, Roman bridge was built in Spain in AD 109. The Romans' skill at building stone arches was so great that it was centuries before major advances were made in masonry bridge design. Alcantara is 204m long with six semi-circular 'Romanesque' arches rising 52m above the water. All the stones were cut to exact shapes and no cement was used in its construction.

 

 

 

William Edwards' bridge at Pont-y-Prydd was built at the time when professionalism in bridge building was just beginning. It is an example of the elliptical stone arch that followed on from the Romanesque arch. Built in 1750, the bridge had the then unprecedented span of 46m and was Edwards' third attempt to bridge the Taff.

 

 

The first bridge to be built of iron crosses the river Severn at Coalbrookdale. The Act of Parliament ordering the bridge did not specify the material, just that it should be chosen from cast-iron, stone, brick or timber. The bridge has a span of 30.5m and although built in iron, joinery techniques were used in its construction as though it had been built of wood. It was quickly followed by other metal bridges, first cast and wrought iron, then steel.

 

The Humber suspension bridge

At the time it was completed it had the world's longest span of 1410m. The overall length is about 2.25km. Every bridge with a main span of 600m or over, is of the suspension type. They show the importance of light-weight and high strength materials in developing long spans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grateful thanks are also extended to the following:

 

 

Today most of us don’t give a second thought to what life would be like without a constant supply of pure water, efficient sanitation, sewage disposal, refuse collection and so on. Yet a lot less than 100 years ago these services were far from universal. This history tells how people came to associate disease with contaminated water and unsatisfactory sanitation and how doctors and civil engineers, scientists and administrators together made the civilised world a considerably sweeter, healthier place to live in.

One of Queen Elizabeth I's favourites was her godson, Sir John Harington. He wrote a book on the subject of water-closets. It included a plan of a lavatory which flushed, and the Queen actually had this Harington WC built at Richmond Palace. It was not unlike the one Henry Doulton patented 200 years later.

 

The "works" of a modern lavatory are contained in the cistern. In the past, this was high above your head in order to add force to the flush of water and was activated by pulling a chain. Now, the cistern is virtually a companion piece to the lavatory pan.

Until not so long ago, many, many homes in Britain were built parallel to one another, their back gardens or "yards" facing and divided by a lane. At the end of each yard, close to the gate, was the outside lavatory. It was placed there for two reasons: first, it prevented the odour from entering the house and second, it made the "nightman's" job easier. He simply went down the lane, opened each gate and removed the waste from each privy. Many of these houses still exist, of course, but nowadays only a very few don't have an indoor water-closet, connected to sewers or sewerage systems. Pumping Stations

Where the ground was too low lying to allow sewage to flow into the main or interceptor sewers by gravity, the civil engineers built pumping stations. Some of the 19th-century ones are still to be seen, marvellous examples of the Victorian discovery of, and enthusiasm for, creating functional works of art in cast iron -and making them very efficient, too.

 

 

 

 

 

By the late Middle Ages, however, some attempts were being made to set up an organised system of waste disposal. Family privies or shared, communal lavatories were supposed to be cleaned out at regular intervals (but often weren't). If you were fairly well off, the most popular solution was to site your house or castle near or over a stream - or surround it with a moat - and build your own privy or "garderobe" jutting out over the water.

 

 

 

 

The work of the civil engineers makes them an arm of the preventive health service and it is no exaggeration to say that, in sheer numbers of people who enjoy vastly better health today than in previous centuries, the contribution of the civil engineer is as important as that of the doctor. The Industrial Revolution

 

Country people surged into towns to swell the number of factory workers, and populations multiplied almost overnight. Naturally, living conditions went from bad to worse. Houses and cities became grossly overcrowded and the strain on both domestic and communal water supplies and sanitary systems - which were sketchy, to say the least - can be imagined. And as the new factories were also producing their own industrial waste, the situation was made even worse.

 

New Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers were appointed in 1843. With the best of intentions, they did away with about 200,000 of the offending cesspools and instead connected houses to the main sewers. As the main sewers flowed straight into the Thames this only made life unpleasant for people living by the river and the foulness of the water effectively killed off the fish population. Similar conditions existed in all our major cities. A verse from a copy of Punch of 1847 puts the consequent problems of foulness and disease vividly:

 

 

 

 

 

 

While these civilian forms were evolving, Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert were crusading in the years after the Crimean War (1854-56) in the cause of better sanitation for the Army. They brought about dramatic improvements in hospital and barrack buildings, together with more efficient hospital administration.

 

 

 

 

 

Snow’s discovery is still remembered in the Golden Square district of London, and if you visit Broadwick Street you’ll see a pub there named after him.  Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Thames

 

Chief among the civil engineers was Sir Joseph Bazalgette, another energetic, far-sighted Victorian. He presented a major sewerage scheme to the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1856, and in 1858 when a particularly hot summer made the state of the Thames unbearable, he got approval for it.

 

 

Astonishingly, this ambitious scheme was opened within eight years and Bazalgette's sewers were so carefully and well constructed that almost all are still in use today. A contemporary report says that the facing bricks of one outfall sewer were laid to a standard of finish that would have been thought unnecessary on the outside of a mansion.

In major cities and towns all over the country the remarkable Victorians then set about installing the sewers which still serve us. However, since these sewers were built we have done little to maintain or renew them - and even the most solidly built Victorian sewers needed some attention. This lack of upkeep means that today there is a quite considerable deterioration in our sewer systems. New problems

 

 

 

Now we realise that the improper disposal of effluents of any kind (solid, liquid, or gaseous) can be anti-social and short sighted. Pollution-control legislation has been passed and is being implemented and so matters are improving. Industry is required to take preventive (and often ingenious) action to ensure that problems are not created in sewerage systems, the river or the atmosphere: the environment is being protected more and more. Overseas opportunities

 

 

 

 

 

How sewage is treated today Biological treatment of sewage

 

Mr. Dibdin's ideas were not to be spurned for long, however, and towards the end of the century large-scale treatment of sewage by micro-organisms began to be a possibility. The first city to put it into practice was Manchester, just before the First World War. Inevitably, the war held up rapid development but afterwards there was much research into the process of kt activated" sludge treatment. Then the Second World War slowed things down once again. Today, however, the treatment of sewage is countrywide and highly efficient and London's two major outfalls at Beckton and Crossness are among the world's large treatment plants.

 

 

It was produced by JWT Corporate and Community Communications with the co-operation of James R. Simpson, BSc, SM, CEng, FlnstWPC, FIPHE, MIWES, professional engineer and consultant in public health engineering and pollution control. We also extend our thanks to the following.. 

Frank Graham Publishing