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

Ursula Hall

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

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.

JEL-codes: N33 N53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2025-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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