Joseph Bazalgette

Sir Joseph William Bazalgette CB (/ˈbæzəldʒɛt/; 28 March 1819 – 15 March 1891) was a British civil engineer. As Chief Engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works, his major achievement was the creation of the London Main Drainage, the sewerage system for central London, in response to the Great Stink of 1858, which was instrumental in relieving the city of cholera epidemics, while beginning to clean the River Thames.

According to the BBC, "Bazalgette drove himself to the limits in realising his subterranean dream". The first modern sewage system, which began construction in 1859, was described by The Guardian as "a wonder of the industrial world". With only minor modifications, Bazalgette's engineering achievement remains the basis for sewerage design up into the present day.

Bazalgette was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1875, and he was elected President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1883. He later designed the second and current Hammersmith Bridge, which opened in 1887.

Bazalgette was born at Hill Lodge, Clay Hill, Enfield, the son of Joseph William Bazalgette (1783–1849), a retired Royal Navy captain, and Theresa Philo née Pilton (1796–1850). His grandfather, Louis Bazalgette, a tailor and financier, was an economic migrant from Ispagnac in Lozère, France, who became principal tailor to the Prince of Wales, the future George IV, and subsequently became wealthy.

In 1827, when Joseph was eight years old, the family moved into a newly built house in Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood, London. He spent his early career articled to the noted engineer Sir John Macneill, working on railway projects, and amassed sufficient experience (partly in China and Ireland) in land drainage and reclamation to enable him to set up his own London consulting practice in 1842.

In 1845 the house in Hamilton Terrace was sold and Joseph married Maria Kough, from County Kilkenny in Ireland. At the time he was working so hard on expanding the railway network that two years later, in 1847, he suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1847, while he was recovering, London's Metropolitan Commission of Sewers ordered that all cesspits should be closed and that house drains should connect to sewers and empty into the Thames. A cholera epidemic ensued, killing 14,137 Londoners in 1849.

Bazalgette was appointed Assistant Surveyor to the Metropolitan Commission in 1849, taking over as Engineer in 1852 after his predecessor died of "harassing fatigues and anxieties." Soon after, another cholera epidemic struck in 1853, killing 10,738. Medical opinion at the time held that cholera was caused by foul air: a so-called "miasma". Physician John Snow had earlier advanced a different explanation, which is now known to be correct: cholera was spread by contaminated water, but his view was not then generally accepted.