Joseph Bazalgette's Bexley pumping station restored (UK) - BBC London News - 28th March 2019

To mark Joseph Bazalgette's 200th anniversary of his birth on this day in 1819, the Bexley pumping station is opened after being restored. It was first opened in 1865 (CE).

Once the proof of how Cholera was proven to be in dirty water and after incidents like 'The Great Stink' 1858 which had MPs fleeing from the Houses of Parliament, the London sewer system was built under Joseph Bazalgette (1819 - 1891) and the use of things like the new Portland cement (the wetter it got, the harder it became). It revolutionised world cities as we know it as well as farther afield like the building industry.

If you would to know more on a very good story, check out the BBC's 'Seven Wonders of the Industrial World' (2003), episode five 'The Sewer King', interestingly this episode was directed by his descendant Edward Bazalgette (who has worked as a director, in the sound department and a producer). Two of the cast playing 'mudlarks' were Bazalgette's descendants as well.

For more on that program, see here:

[patandderry]

Probably saved more people's lives than anyone else in history.