The Great London Smog of 1952

To some people, especially to Hollywood film directors London is synonymous with fog.

However it's not just directors for even our own Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes referring to a 'London Particular', and Stephen King used a fog to create terror in a small town, but nothing either writers mind could create those
frightening days of  December 1952.

The previous month had been unusually colder than normal, so without the benefit of central heating, which was a scare thing in those days, coal fires were banked up to keep the homes warm and comfortable.

 Normally the thick black smoke belching ouut from homes and factories would have been dispersed by the wind but it wasn't to be so in this case. By some fluke of nature an anti cyclone was moving in from the continent, bringing with it pollution from the industrial areas in the east and  trapping it with those pollutants already released in the atmosphere by Londons chimneys.

For each day the fog lasted according to the Met Office 1,000 tonnes of smoke particles, 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid and 14 tonnes of fluorine compounds. In addition, and perhaps most dangerously, 370 tonnes of sulphur dioxide were converted into 800 tonnes of sulphuric acid.

Although Londoners at that time were used to fogs, giving them the name of 'peasoupers', this they felt was somehow different. It seeped everywhere cinemas and theatre closed because the screen and stages couldn't be seen by the audiences. Cattle brought to London for the Smithfield show were reported as having died in the stalls.

By the second day 6th December over 500 people had died, by the second day 900 people had perished. Ambulances had largely stopped running, and for those who found their way to hospital on foot it was already too late. Poorly insulated houses in the eastend witnessed a death rate nine times higher than elsewhere. It was here that they had taken the full force of Hitlers Luftwaffa so that if not completely destroyed in the attacks were left in such a poor condition there was no way of stopping the fog fron seeping in. On the Isle of  Dogs not being able to see their feet which had disappeared into the dirty yellow swirling mass.

On the 10th December when the fog finally lifted by then 12.000 people had died. One of the contributing factors was that the country was almost bankrupt due to the recent war of 1939-1945. It was decided the one thing we could export quickly was the best low sulpher coal, leaving the high that with a sulfer for the domestic market. It was sold at a lower price to the domestic market and became known as 'nutty slack', it was remembered as being smaller than normal coal and spitting and sparking while burning.

The only good thing to come out of that disastrous and deadly week of 1952 was that it brought in the 'Clean Air Act' where only smoke free coal was allowed to be burnt, London has had fogs since then but thankfully none as deadly.


The Great London Fog of 1952 Parts 1 2 and 3