Cold Open

It’s late evening on July 5th, 1952, in London, England.

A tired banker stands in an unusually long and animated line at a tram stop. He’s had a long day at work and is eager to get home.

For as long as he’s worked in London’s financial district, the banker has used the city’s electric-powered trams to commute between his office and home. But this evening, the banker has been joined by a throng of cheerful Londoners who want to mark the end of an era and it's making his commute home difficult.

Today is the last day before London’s trams are withdrawn from service. Three years ago, the city’s transport bosses announced that the expensive tram network would be scrapped, opening up London’s roads to a fast-growing alternative mode of transportation: the automobile. But tonight, many Londoners have abandoned their cars and flocked to the city’s tram stops instead, hoping to take one last ride before the tram is consigned to history.

A cheer ripples through the crowd as one of the trams appears in the distance, ringing its bell as it approaches. As it nears, the banker sees that the tram is jam-packed. Passengers wave out of windows and hang off the platform at the back. And when the tram pulls up to the stop, nobody gets off—they’re all too busy enjoying their very last ride.

The banker realizes there’s no chance he and the rest of the waiting line are going to get on board… but that doesn’t stop them from breaking into applause as the tram moves away.

The tram is followed by a convoy of slow-moving cars whose drivers join the carnival atmosphere by honking their horns. The banker turns away from the festivities and strolls down the street to a different public transport stop. Rather than face a long walk home, the banker will take what's been designated as the trams’ successor: the iconic red double-decker bus.

When the withdrawal of London’s trams were announced, the city’s commuters came together to give them a celebratory send-off. But the decision to retire the trams will have unforeseen and deadly consequences for public health. Removing the environmentally friendly trams in favor of diesel-powered buses will increase air pollution in London. And when winter comes, traffic fumes will contribute to the English capital’s worst-ever episode of lethal fog, which will begin on December 5th, 1952.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is December 5th, 1952: The Great Smog of London.

Act One

It’s mid-afternoon on December 5th, 1952, in London’s financial district, five months after the city’s last tram was withdrawn from service.

Sixteen-year-old Irene Harris wraps a scarf around her neck as she walks through the lobby of a stockbroker’s office. Irene is a junior secretary here and has spent most of the day typing up letters and documents. But a few minutes ago, her father unexpectedly arrived at the office. He told her to pack up for the day—the weather’s turning bad and he wants to get home while they still can.

And as Irene pushes open the door to the street, she sees that her father wasn’t kidding—a thick curtain of fog has descended on the city. Irene can’t even see the other side of the street.

Fog isn’t an unusual occurrence in London. The English capital is infamous for regular outbreaks of thick, yellowish mist that locals have nicknamed “pea-soupers.” But over the last few years, these bouts of extreme smog have become more frequent. Some experts have suggested that coal fires are polluting the air. Others claim that exhaust fumes from London’s ever-growing number of motor vehicles are to blame. But whatever the case, today’s outbreak of smog is worse than anything Irene has seen before.

She holds her father’s arm as they begin a slow walk home. The smog has an unpleasant smell, like rotten eggs, which makes Irene light-headed. She asks to catch a bus, but her father shakes his head. All the city’s buses have already stopped for the day because drivers can’t see far enough to drive safely. But that doesn’t stop other Londoners from trying to drive their cars home, but with visibility so poor, their vehicles move even slower than pedestrians on the sidewalk.

Irene herself can only see a few yards ahead. She stumbles over curbs and bumps into people walking the other way. Her two-mile journey takes over an hour. And by the time she finally makes it home, she and her father take off their coats to find them coated in a slick layer of oily grime.

Both Irene and her father cough as the air irritates their throats and lungs. And it becomes apparent that Irene cannot escape the smog even in her own home. It seeps through the gaps in window and door frames, coating surfaces in the same oily grime and leaving the air hazy.

The following day is a Saturday, and the city is deserted as Londoners shelter indoors. Sporting events are postponed. Film and theater shows are canceled—not only because patrons can’t travel to the venues, but because the smog has breached the auditoriums too, making it impossible to see the stage or screen from the seats.

Newspapers name this unprecedented pea souper “the Great Smog.” And scientists declare that it's the result of a perfect storm of weather conditions. Not only is London experiencing calm outdoor conditions with no wind, but a layer of warmer air has settled in the upper atmosphere, trapping cold air at ground level. This means chimney smoke and vehicle exhausts is unable to rise and dissipate as it normally would—and after twenty-four hours, there’s no sign of these conditions coming to an end.

But while Londoners choke on the Great Smog, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is 40 miles away, breathing the clean air at Chequers, a countryhouse in Buckinghamshire that’s used by British Prime Ministers as a weekend retreat. Still, Churchill is well aware of the smog that coats the capital. He receives regular updates from ministers and officials on the developing emergency. He’s told that the ambulance service has been pulled from the road and that crime levels are rocketing as thieves take advantage of the murky air to break into shops and loot their contents.

Several advisers ask Churchill to impose a temporary ban on burning coal in London homes until the air clears. But Churchill disagrees. He argues that there’s no way to enforce the ban in the middle of the current crisis. And more importantly, Londoners who heed his call would risk freezing to death as temperatures plummet. Instead, Churchill declares there’s nothing else to do but wait until the smog lifts on its own.

And after a weekend in which Londoners barely get a glimpse of the sun, the Great Smog will eventually dissipate on Tuesday, December 9th. But the public health impact of the smog will persist for weeks to come. Only when visibility improves will the scale of the crisis emerge, and efforts will begin to ensure that London’s air never becomes this dangerous again.

Act Two

It’s December 10th, 1952, at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, the day after the Great Smog subsided.

A doctor walks through the hospital’s respiratory ward. Its beds and even halls are filled with patients. Many have oxygen masks on, and the doctor notices with satisfaction that color is slowly returning to their faces as they breathe in clean air. But other patients cough and wheeze as they wait their turn for a dose of lifesaving oxygen.

Over the past few days, the respiratory ward has been inundated with patients suffering breathing difficulties. With no ambulances allowed to drive in the murky conditions, most patients were forced to brave the smoggy streets and walk to the hospital. By the time they arrived, their symptoms had only worsened. But yesterday, the Great Smog suddenly lifted as the weather changed and wind finally returned to London’s streets. But as the air cleared, a new wave of ill residents emerged from hiding and headed to the hospital.

And when the doctor enters the emergency room, a chaotic scene greets him. He thought the respiratory ward was busy—but the emergency room is overwhelmed. The doctor approaches the first patient waiting to be seen. It’s an older woman with a gray face and blue lips. She says she’s been struggling to breathe for days but was unable to get to hospital while the smog filled the streets.

The doctor takes his stethoscope from around his neck and listens to her chest as she breathes. Her lungs crackle and pop, a sure sign of infection. His new patient needs oxygen as soon as possible, but she’ll have to wait until the equipment becomes available. Hours later, when her turn comes, it’s too late. The older woman has died.

In the weeks after the Great Smog lifts, disturbing data emerges from statisticians examining the effects of the smog on public health. According to figures compiled by London’s hospitals, around 4,000 excess deaths occurred in London during the Great Smog—and the city’s death rate remains elevated for months. Additionally, around 25,000 new claims for welfare payments are made by people unable to work thanks to breathing difficulties they blame on the bad air.

It’s clear that the government needs to take action.

Two months after the Great Smog, Marcus Lipton raises the issue of air quality before the country’s officials. Lipton is a Member of Parliament for Brixton, a district in South London that was hard-hit by the pollution, thanks to its poor-quality slum housing with drafts that allowed the smog to seep indoors. Lipton wants the government to commit to improving air quality so his constituents don’t suffer the next time a pea souper smothers London.

So, inside the House of Commons, Lipton stands and directs a question to the Minister for Fuel and Power, asking whether the government will ban the burning of a particular fuel called nutty slack. Nutty slack is a mixture of small coal lumps and coal dust. It’s a cheap form of fuel, popular in working-class districts like Brixton. But it’s also inefficient and produces a lot of thick black smoke.

The minister responds to Lipton’s question by downplaying the effects of nutty slack. Although he admits that burning it adds smoke to the atmosphere, the minister argues that its negative effects are outweighed by the ability of Londoners to heat their homes with affordable fuel. Lipton slumps back into his seat, frustrated the government isn’t taking the public health impact of air pollution seriously.

And over the next few months, Winston Churchill’s government continues to defend its response to the Great Smog. But further statistical analysis reveals that an additional 8,000 excess deaths occurred in the two months following the Great Smog, meaning a total of 12,000 extra Londoners died compared to the usual winter. But government ministers claim that many of those deaths were not due to the Great Smog. Instead, they suggest that London had been hit by an influenza outbreak. Medical practitioners push back, pointing out that the deaths were caused by symptoms that can only result from bad air.

Unable to refute the evidence, Prime Minister Churchill will have to accept that the Great Smog caused the public health catastrophe. And to address the issue, he’ll appoint a special commission to investigate air pollution. Eventually, the government will pass legislation to prevent a similar episode of deadly smog—but it will take the intervention of another Member of Parliament to make pea soupers a thing of the past.

Act Three

It’s the morning of February 4th, 1955, in the House of Commons, three years after the Great Smog wreaked havoc on London.

Gerald Nabarro stands before a handful of Members of Parliament and reads a prepared speech. The House of Commons is quiet today. It’s a Friday and routine government business has been dealt with, so most Members of Parliament have already left for the weekend. But Nabarro has stayed behind to make a stand on what he thinks is an important issue.

Once concerns were raised in Parliament in the aftermath of the Great Smog, Prime Minister Winston Churchill appointed a commission to investigate the causes and effects of air pollution in London. Last year, this commission reported back with several recommendations. Among them were the replacement of dirty fuel like nutty slack with more efficient forms of coal. But Churchill’s government largely ignored the Air Pollution Commission’s proposals. So today, Nabarro wants to pressure the government into a change of policy.

Nabarro reads from his notes and declares his intention to introduce a private member’s bill to adopt the recommendations of the Air Pollution Commission. A private member’s bill allows any Member of Parliament to propose a change to law. Most fail, but a lucky few manage to work their way through Parliament and are signed into law by the monarch.

Nabarro’s private member’s bill receives support from across the political spectrum and is greeted with almost universal acclaim in the media. After seeing that clean air is a vote-winner, Prime Minister Churchill orders the government to back Nabarro’s bill as official policy. And thanks to Nabarro’s efforts, the Clean Air Act passes through Parliament and is signed into law by the Queen in July of 1956.

But the British government still faces an uphill battle in its newly adopted quest to improve London’s air quality. Although the Clean Air Act reduces air pollution from coal fires, it does nothing to combat dirty air caused by the increasing number of motor vehicles on the road. Further outbreaks of smog in 1957, and 1962, will cause more deaths in London, but eventually, lethal air pollution will become a thing of the past, after causing havoc and costing lives when the Great Smog descended on London on December 5th, 1952.

Outro

Next on History Daily. December 6th, 1976. After evading punishment for decades, Pieter Menten, one of the Netherlands’ most notorious Nazi war criminals, is arrested.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mischa Stanton.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.