Vol 14; No 20 Hampton's Great Stink Part 2

[Les1949]

HAMPTON, AROUND AND ABOUT

Things you may not know, or didn’t know you knew!

No 20 HAMPTON’S GREAT STINK Part 2

Following on from Part 1, we continue with the story of Hampton’s ‘stink’ from the Candle & Soap Factory in Thames Street.

It is now 1891 and once again the magistrates have requested the presence of the owner of the factory (now William George Smith) regarding the nuisance caused by emissions from the factory during July. There was a great deal of interest in the proceedings and a number of ‘Hamptonians’ present in court.

Mr Shearman, acting on behalf of the Local Board, presented the case against Smith. It was acknowledged that there were occasions when making candles there were occasional discharges, however, the factory was now boiling mutton and on those days the stench was ‘unbearable’. The Board had served orders on the factory to abate the nuisance but there had been no improvement. During his submission, Shearman offered several statements from residents from residents. One statement was from Dr Tyndale, the Medical Officer of Health (he was not present in court as he had been obliged to take his wife from the locality!).

Appearing for Smith was Mr McMorran, a barrister-at-Law. McMorran maintained that Smith had taken evert step to negate the problems of the smell. The Chairman of the Court, W Mitchison, offered to drive Mr McMorran through Hampton when the factory was operating, to experience the problem first hand (shouts of ‘hear, hear’ from the public seats). Eventually the judgement was handed down giving Smith three months to carry out further improvements.

In June 1894, legal proceedings were started again, this time in the High Court in front of Mr Justice Roman. The case lasted four days and was a very long re-hash of all that had occurred for the previous twenty or so years regarding the nuisance to the residents of Hampton. After hearing all the arguments, his Lordship granted an injunction restraining the defendant from carrying on his works so as to cause a nuisance by stink to the public. All costs to be met by the defendant. The injunction was suspended for one month to allow the defendant to remedy the defects.

There was a later problem identified by the Medical Officer relating to a different source of a smell. The privies (toilets) in the factory. Instructions were given to correctly connect the privies to the sewers!

It would seem that eventually the problems of the ‘stink’ were eradicated as the factory, which gradually became more focused on the manufacture of soap, rather than candles continued to operate into the 1920s. The building had disappeared by the mid-1950s, a block of flats now occupies the site.

Co-incidentally, just after I had written this article, John Sheaf (a respected Local Historian) had included some images of boxes of soap produced by the factory, in the latest edition of the Borough of Twickenham Local History Newsletter.



The Old Historian