Manure Manufacturers in London
| An email about Manure provoked some interesting research. Manure was a prized item both as fertiliser and in use in some of the manufacturing processes in London 19th Century Industry - they used dog manure for treating leather for example. The Britannia Works, Drummond Road., Southwark was brought to my attention by a descedent of Thomas Knights - proprietor of Knights and Mundy, (proprietors of Salmon's manures) Britannia wks, Drummond Rd, SE. Source: 1895 trades directory The following is an example of a manure manufactory in Spitalfields. (Sanitary Ramblings, Being Sketches and Illustrations of Bethnal Green, by Hector Gavin, 1848) CHARLES-ST., 38.-At the boundary of the parish in this street, and partly within it, and partly in the parish of Whitechapel, is an extensive dairy or cow- shed, in a most offensive state. The soil was collected in a large wooden tank, and the surface of the whole place covered with decomposing refuse. The smell from the place was most offensive and disgusting. It was impossible to walk along this, or the neighbouring streets (the wind blowing from the S.W.) without nausea arising from the sickening and offensive odours wafted from the neighbouring collection of night-soil, and patent manure manufactory. Though they are out of the parish, still, as the health of the inhabitants is affected by them, I introduce the following description of them. "On the western side of Spitalfields workhouse, and entered from a street, called Queen-street, is a nightman's yard. A heap of dung and refuse of every description, about the size of a pretty large house, lies piled to the left of the yard; to the right, is an artificial pond, into which the contents of cesspools are thrown. The contents are allowed to desiccate in the open air; and they are frequently stirred for that purpose. The odour which was given off when the contents were raked up, to give me an assurance that there was nothing so very bad in the alleged nuisance, drove sue from the place with the utmost speed I was master of. On two sides of this horrid collection of excremental matter, was a patent manure manufactory. To the right in this yard, was a large accumulation of dung, &c.; but, to the left, there was an extensive layer of a compost of blood, ashes, and nitric acid, which gave out the most horrid, offensive, and disgusting concentration of putrescent odours it has ever been my lot to be the victim of. The whole place presented a most foul and filthy aspect, and an example of the enormous outrages which are perpetrated in London against society. It is a curious fact, that the parties who had charge of these two premises were each dead to the foulness of their own most pestilential nuisances. The nightman's servant accused the premises of the manure manufacturer as the source of perpetual foul smells, but thought his yard free from any particular cause of complaint; while the servant of the patent manure manufacturer diligently and earnestly asserted the perfect freedom of his master's yard from foul exhalations; but considered that the raking up of the drying night-soil, on the other side of the wall, was "quite awful, and enough to kill anybody." Since the publication of my lecture, the atrocious nuisance of the Patent Manure Manufacturer has been suppressed; although the soil then on the ground was valued at £2000. . | |||
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