Who flushed first? What characterised the early adoption patterns of private drainage in London, 1812-1847?

Hall, Ursula (2025) Who flushed first? What characterised the early adoption patterns of private drainage in London, 1812-1847? Economic History Student Working Papers (40). Department of Economic History, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

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Abstract

In order to push back against the narrative that the sanitary revolution in early 19th-century England was primarily an initiative of the government, this study investigates the characteristics of drainage adoption before it was legislated under state-provision after 1848. Whilst it finds that drainage adoption during 1812-1847 was both substantial and characterised by a sanitary impulse, it also uses Mokyr’s model of Household health and knowledge consumption to hypothesise that its provision on the commodity market resulted in an adoption pattern described by an inverse relationship between drainage adoption year and income, for which servant number is used as a proxy. Whilst an inconclusive correlation between average adoption year and average servant number rejects this hypothesis, it finds that this is in large part explained by a redistributive characteristic of adoption that occurred outside the model of household consumption. More specifically, the finding that those in the wealthiest income percentile were the primary remunerators for drainage adoption amongst the poorest members of the distribution supports the cautious conclusion that drainage adoption gave rise to a ‘learning’ process amongst this group, which resulted in the increased dissipation of drainage technologies across the period and potentially provided a productive impulse for later reform.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Official URL:	https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Working-Pap...
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author
Divisions:	Economic History
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions T Technology > TD Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
JEL classification:	N - Economic History > N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income, and Wealth > N33 - Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income and Wealth: Europe: Pre-1913 N - Economic History > N5 - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries > N53 - Europe: Pre-1913
Date Deposited:	03 Feb 2025 10:36
Last Modified:	08 Feb 2025 00:21
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127145

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