Chapter 2 The Great London Smog of 1952: its consequences and contemporary relevance

Introduction

For five days in 1952 London was crippled by one of the worst ‘smogs’ ever experienced. The combination of damp air and pollutants led to thousands of deaths over an extended period of time. This chapter starts by locating the 1952 event within the context of the time and then considers the largely ineffective measures that had been taken in the preceding years to deal with industrial and domestic pollution. The chapter then follows the impetus for further change triggered by the Beaver Report 1954, which led in turn to the Clean Air Act 1956. It highlights the compromises that were made to balance concerns about health, damage to buildings and the wasteful use of coal, against the costs that would be incurred by industrialists and the burdens imposed on local authorities. The chapter concludes by bringing the past up to the present and the persisting problem of air pollution culminating in a coroner’s ruling in 2021 that a child’s death in London had been caused by air pollution. It closes by observing that despite heightened awareness of environmental harms, there is a persisting failure of politicians to robustly address the issue.

The year 1952 neither started nor ended well. In February, King George VI had died, leaving his daughter Elizabeth, aged twenty-five, to succeed him. Although the Second World War had ended seven years earlier, London was still suffering the ravages of air raid bombings, and rationing on some items remained in force.¹ Crime rates were escalating. In the first two decades of the century the police in England and Wales recorded a yearly average of 90,000 indictable offences. In the 1950s this rose to over 500,000.² Winston Churchill was prime minister leading a Conservative government, having been elected for a second time in 1951, although by 1952 his majority was very slight. Coal mining was a major and booming industry employing over 700,000 workers. The estimated national weekly intake of men and boys into the industry in the course of 1952 was over 1,500.³ In the period 1943–1952 there were 1,480 deep coal mines and 118 open cast mines.⁴ In 1952 around 228 million tonnes of coal was being mined.⁵ Coal-fired locomotives linked London with the rest of the country and coal-fired power stations provided electricity for the city. Much of this coal was exported with lower quality coal left for domestic use. Almost every home had at least one coal-fuelled open fireplace and the image of family gathered around a coal fire became a trope for security, domestication and homemaking in the post-war years of reconstruction and modernisation.⁶ Nead highlights the use of the image in advertising, popular culture, film and literature, where the focus on the home and family provided a counterweight to the disruption and destruction that continued to impact many lives in the post-war years. Attachment to the open coal fire in the ‘family hearth’ was strong,⁷ the fireplace was the focal point of the home,⁸ and the metaphor and image of the open fire aligned with the cry of the war years to ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’.⁹ As the century progressed, the use of and reliance on coal was increasingly being assailed by more modern designs of housing and heating, including gas-fired utilities and electric appliances, but it was the major event at the end of 1952, described as ‘The catastrophe that gave the smoke abatement movement momentum’, that began to turn the tide as regards the pollution caused by coal.¹⁰

The Great London Smog

From 5 to 9 December 1952 London was smog bound – a mixture of fog and pollutants, described by one medical writer as ‘an extremely dense and polluted fog affecting the whole of the London area’.¹¹ The triggers were a combination of anticyclonic air, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and smoke particles caused largely by coal combustion aggravated by additional fuel burning due to a very cold spell of weather in November and December 1952.¹² The pollution may also have been aggravated by the fact that London had switched from electric trams to diesel buses that year, and a general increase in motor vehicles in the post-war years.¹³ ‘Every 24 hours, London’s chimneys and tail pipes spewed 1,000 tons of smoke particles, 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and 370 tons of sulfur dioxide into the foggy air.’¹⁴

Fog or smog, as the dense mixture of industrial and domestic pollutants and fog was called, was not a rare occurrence in London, especially in the winter months of November to January.¹⁵ Richly evoked in literature,¹⁶ art,¹⁷ and film,¹⁸ its frequency may also have led to political complacency. Raising the matter of the 1952 fog in the House of Commons, Norman Dodds MP cited a remark quoted in the local press by Mr. Iain Macleod, the minister of health, ‘ “Really, you know,” he said, “anyone would think fog had only started in London since I became Minister.”’¹⁹

The smog of December 1952 was, however, exceptionally severe owing to the fatalities it caused. In the House of Lords, it was reported that

During the fog of 1952, it is estimated – I cannot say more than estimated – that between 4,000 and 5,000 people died from the effects of the fog … During the week ended December 6, the weekly death figures for London were running at about the normal winter average, about 945. The next week, when the fog occurred, they went up to 2,484, and the week after that the figure was still much above normal, 1,523. Why the increase is said to be due to fog is that there was no trace of any kind of epidemic of influenza.²⁰

Other figures also indicated that at least 4,000 people had died of respiratory issues during the period (some from pre-existing conditions but others who had no pre-existing conditions) and as many as 8,000 in the following months.²¹ Kynaston challenges this official figure, suggesting it was nearer to 12,000 deaths.²² The possibility that the government of the day deliberately concealed the true gravity of the event is reinforced by the lackadaisical response of ministers. Harold Macmillan, who was housing minister at the time, had made his views on reducing the burning of coal on open fires public knowledge, highlighting the ‘enormous number of broad economic considerations which have to be taken into account and which it would be foolish altogether to disregard’.²³ More striking perhaps is the absence of any comment by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who was in London at the time, and the absence of any parliamentary coverage until the new year.²⁴ Indeed, the Honourable member for Dartford, Mr Norman Dodds, commenting on the amount of public concern at the death toll caused by the fog in the House of Commons in May 1953, said, ‘This alarm has been greatly increased by the amazing, at least outward, apathy of the Government. Most people who have deep feelings about this just cannot understand why there has not been a public inquiry after thousands of people were choked to death during the December fogs.’²⁵

In a city traditionally notorious for its fogs there was general agreement on its exceptional severity on this occasion. On the late afternoon of 9 December 1952 the Guardian newspaper reported as follows:

Lamp-posts have become invisible and their thin lights, faintly visible from immediately beneath, seem to be hanging unsupported in the air. The city police have put on their white coats again for the hazard of point duty in the dark. The smash and grab men are harvesting fast. The fog has made it impossible for the information room at Scotland Yard to direct area wireless cars to 999 calls and police are having to use pedal cycles.²⁶

As suggested by this quote, the immediate media focus was not on health but on the disruption of transport, crime and – as the fog occurred over the weekend – the disruption of sporting fixtures. The first estimate of its health impact was made several weeks afterwards.

The Chief Medical Statistician stated that ‘the incident was a catastrophe of the first magnitude in which for a few days, death rates attained a level that has only been exceeded on rare occasions during the past hundred years as for example at the height of the cholera epidemic of 1854 and the influenza epidemic of 1918–1919’.²⁷

The density and gravity of the fog of 1952 captured the public’s imagination both then and subsequently. Movietone Moment, 4 December 1952, covered it on their newsreel, and further newsreel footage can be found on British Pathé, The Smog Menace 1953.²⁸ Ten years after the event the BBC broadcast A Look Back at the Great Smog of London 1952, revisiting ‘the scenes of chaos caused by the “dark-yellow choking mass”’.²⁹ The fascination persists. The event is captured in Season 1, Episode 4, of the Netflix series The Crown, entitled ‘Act of God’. Fog, and particularly the London fog, has also been a long-standing element in English literature.³⁰ Dominick Donald’s 2018 novel Breathe and most recently Kate Winkler Dawson’s 2025 novel Death in the Air portray the ‘killer’ fog and the crimes the fog concealed, notably, although fictionally, those of the real-life serial killer John Reginald Christie.

Early responses

The dangers of air pollution were known to the government and various measures had been passed such as the Smoke Nuisance Abatement (Metropolis) Acts in 1853 and 1856 – to control furnaces used to raise steam, factories, public baths, wash houses and steam vessels on the River Thames. Enforcement rested with the police. This was followed by the Public Health (London) Act 1891, which transferred enforcement responsibility from the police to the sanitary authorities, which were subsumed into the Metropolitan Borough Councils in 1899.³¹ This Act was a codifying and amending Act and the culmination of several efforts since 1875 to bring some order to the many pieces of legislation which governed public health and sanitation in London.³²

The London County Council which had been established in 1889 was given reserve powers to act if a borough authority defaulted. The LCC coal officers had authority to report smoke nuisance cases; however, a well-used defence from industrial polluters was that most of the smoke came from the chimneys of the 7,000,000 houses in London. There was also a requirement in the law that the smoke was ‘black’ which presented evidential difficulties and resulted in few prosecutions.³³ The Public Health Act (London) 1936 had also included provisions to deal with smoke but it had to be proved that the smoke was a nuisance. The Act also provided for local authorities to make by-laws regulating the emission of smoke and planning regulations calculated to prevent or reduce smoke emissions for new buildings – other than private houses.³⁴

A year after the London Smog, the LCC presented a report detailing its effects.³⁵ There was, however, considerable reluctance to pass further legislation. Harold Macmillan, Minister for Housing and Local Government (who would later become prime minister), in a Memorandum dated 18 November 1953, suggested forming a committee, noting that ‘There are some short-term things which we have done, and can do. We can gain popularity by doing them well – the masks, the warning signals etc’ and ‘there are some longer-term solutions, which we might study – the better stoves, the smokeless coal, and, possibly, some smokeless zones’. He concluded, ‘We cannot do very much, but we can seem to be very busy – and that is half the battle nowadays.’³⁶ He went on to state, ‘I am not satisfied that further general legislation is needed at present’ and to say, in reply to a question why more was not being done, ‘of course, the hon. Gentleman must realise the enormous number of broad economic considerations which have to be taken into account and which it would be foolish altogether to disregard’.³⁷ Reluctance to address the issue was evident as the following winter approached when the government response was to require Londoners to wear masks. It was also the case that the problem of air pollution crossed a number of different ministries, for example, housing, health, fuel and power.³⁸ Despite government reluctance to act, pressure from the press, the public, doctors and individual Members of Parliament compelled the government to appoint the Committee on Air Pollution, chaired by Sir Hugh Beaver (The Beaver Committee).³⁹

The Beaver Report 1954

The Beaver Committee produced two reports: an interim report four months after it was formed, in December 1953, and a final report the following year. The interim report focused on air pollution arising from fuel combustion. It found that the greatest cause of air pollution were domestic fires.

No cure can, therefore, be found for the heavy smoke pollution of our cities and towns unless the domestic chimney is dealt with. In our view there would be little justification for requiring industry and commerce to take possible measures to prevent smoke, often at considerable expense, if the problem of domestic smoke were not also tackled.

It recommended improving the availability of smokeless fuels. The final 1954 report included recommendations to create smokeless zones and smoke control areas – where the use of coal would be restricted, and the provision of grants for the conversion of domestic fires to burn smokeless fuels.

The Committee estimated that the smoke, grit, dust and noxious gases, emitted into the air from domestic dwellings and industrial plant, caused damage to property and other harmful effects to the tune of about £250 million a year. Added to this was the value of the heat wasted through excessive smoke, which was assessed by the Committee at between £25 million and £50 million a year. These figures took no account of injury to health and loss of life.

The Committee made a number of important proposals, the adoption of which would, in their opinion, reduce the density of smoke in the atmosphere to an extent amounting perhaps to as much as 80 per cent over the next ten or fifteen years. Their main recommendations were:

(1)  That, subject to certain exceptions, the emission of dark smoke should be prohibited by law.

(2)  That industries, when installing new plant, should be required to take all practical steps to prevent the emission of grit and dust.

(3)  That, subject to confirmation by the Government, local authorities should be empowered to designate ‘Smokeless Zones’ and ‘Smoke Control Areas’.

(4)  That the duty of inspection and enforcement should be placed upon local authorities, except in the case of certain industrial processes, which should be supervised by Government Inspectors.

(5)  That householders in smoke restricted districts should be required to burn only smokeless fuel, and that the cost of converting domestic fireplaces for this purpose should be met, to a large extent, by grants from the Exchequer and the local authorities.

Opposition to the proposal to introduce new legislation drew attention to the complex technical issues involved in reducing pollution, the costs to those contributing most to pollution (factories and industrialists) and the issues of policy which rested on local authorities (who would have to contend with industry and private individuals in their areas).⁴⁰

Arguments in favour emphasised the health risks and the economic costs of not addressing the problem. For example, referencing the Beaver Committee Report in the House of Lords, Lord Munster (Minister without Portfolio) noted:

I should remind the House that the Committee presented a very convincing indictment of air pollution, not only as a threat to health but also as a source of great material damage, which they estimated at no less than £250 million a year. They further pointed out that the prevention of smoke goes hand in hand with the efficient use of coal. Excessive smoke, they said, means a waste of fuel, and the Committee considered that possibly ten million tons of coal was now wasted in this way every year. The damage to health is even more serious.⁴¹

Faced with the threat of opposition to the introduction of new legislation there was an attempt to introduce a private member’s Bill based on the Beaver recommendations.⁴² This was withdrawn when the Government undertook to introduce a somewhat weaker Clean Air Bill.

The Clean Air Act 1956

Four years after the Great Smog, Parliament brought in the Clean Air Act 1956 (later amended and extended in 1968 and consolidated in 1993). In some cities ‘smokeless’ and/or ‘smoke control’ zones were established, and households were urged to switch to cleaner fuel. By November 1956 the Act was fully operative in principle but it was up to local authorities to implement the measures.⁴³ Responding to questions in the Commons in 1959, the parliamentary secretary to the ministry of housing and local government, Sir Keith Joseph, stated:

The effectiveness of the various measures taken under it will be cumulative. The powers given to local authorities to create smoke control areas are adequate … In England and Wales 104 smoke control orders were in operation at the end of October, 69 others had been confirmed, and a further 59 had been submitted for confirmation. We have been notified provisionally of yet a further 202 schemes. Smokeless zones can be established only under local Acts. Out of some 300 local authorities in the black areas, 183 have so far submitted five-year programmes.⁴⁴

He had to admit, however, that

the Beaver Committee spoke of probably ten to fifteen years being needed to achieve clean air throughout the black areas. There are many problems in achieving clean air. Some local authorities dispute that they are in black areas. Some have concessionary coal problems. There is no evidence that smokeless fuel is a cause of delay. As for diesel oil, that is another question.

Nevertheless, at a time when the concept of environmental law was yet to emerge the Clean Air Act was significant in its scope and application.

The new Act divided air pollution into four classes: first, prohibiting the emission of dark smoke from chimneys; secondly, requiring that new furnaces should, so far as practicable, be smokeless; thirdly, making provision for the declaration of smokeless areas, and fourthly, requiring minimisation of the emission of grit and dust. The enforcement of these various prohibitions was to be left with local authorities and the officials responsible would be the sanitary inspectors. The Act did not however, cover sulphur fumes and diesel fumes.

While well intentioned the Act provided a number of exceptions and defences. For example, in respect of the emission of dark smoke from chimneys, a defence of unavoidable emission on a number of grounds was permitted, and a seven-year period of grace allowed for an offender to show that the contravention was due to the plant used and that the necessary alterations could not be carried out in the time available. In reducing the emission of grit and dust polluters were to use whatever means were ‘practicable’ allowing for excuses to be made on grounds of non-practicability – especially the cost of installing new furnaces which had the required grit and dust preventing plant.

The declaration of smokeless zones would continue to rest with local authorities but a new dimension was the availability of grants to assist householders with the cost of the shift to burning smokeless fuel with funding support being divided across the owner or occupier (30 per cent), the local authority (30 per cent) and the Exchequer (40 per cent). Also new was the creation of Clean Air Councils for England and Wales and for Scotland. These were intended to be consultative bodies whose function was to advise the minister (or the Secretary of State) and assist him in keeping under review the progress made in reducing air pollution.

At the time (1956) Lord Milner of Leeds, speaking in the House of Lords highlighted the magnitude of the problem:

The Government propose to get rid of smog within the next ten to fifteen years. There are something like 12 to 14 million houses in Great Britain; there are perhaps 1 million or more commercial and similar buildings and more than half the latter are in what the Committee called ‘black areas’. Those cover 6,000 square miles, equal to some 4 million acres of land. Thus if we try to dispose of this question and to minimise the evil, something like 300,000 to 400,000 acres a year will have to be tackled. On its face that would seem an almost impossible task, especially when one remembers that since the war only 3,000 acres have been so dealt with. Then, added to the premises I have mentioned there are some 200,000 factory chimneys and 20,000 steam engines, all of which come within the purview of the Bill. Finally, there is the question of dust and grit deposit. In some areas of my own city of Leeds, 30 to 40 tons of dust and grit are deposited per square mile in the course of a year. Much of that is due to the proximity of power stations and it is well to bear in mind that power stations, especially the old ones, are prime offenders in the depositing of dust and grit. Those figures indicate the tremendous size of the problem; and to deal with it as we hope to do will require a great effort over a long period of time.⁴⁵

The 1956 Clean Air Act made no attempt to set standards for clean air. What it did was to target specific problems of the time and provide incentives, particularly to householders to replace their fireplace, boilers and cookers with cleaner fuel. Targeted areas, such as London, saw some improvement but beyond London, as suggested in the comments of Lord Milner, the challenges were considerable, and progress ‘was hampered by a lack of political priority and money in local councils, confounded by vested industrial interests and poor understanding of the impact of the problem’.⁴⁶

Mosely suggests that outside London there were four key obstacles:

• The cost of conversion of domestic coal fires and the financial burden of provided grant assistance by local authorities to householders along with the administrative burden of inspection and approval.
• Shortages of approved ‘smokeless’ fuel, such as coke.
• This in turn led to the suspension of smoke control orders in some areas.
• Resistance in those areas where mining took place and miners were paid in part with poor quality coal and where there was a deeply engrained ‘coal culture’.⁴⁷

Despite the challenges the government presented a positive picture of progress as indicated by the response to questions in Parliament in November 1959, by Sir Keith Joseph the parliamentary secretary to the ministry of housing and local government, referenced earlier.⁴⁸ He did, however, acknowledge that achieving clean air in the ‘black areas’ would take time, particularly as some local councils denied that they were even ‘black areas’ and that the progress of a number of local authorities could only be described as ‘satisfactory’.

Later measures

The Clean Air Act was updated in 1968, to require coal and gas burning industries to install tall chimneys, and again in 1974 to include control of motor vehicle emissions. Increasing use of smokeless fuels and the development of alternative energy sources and a general decline in the coal heavy industries of the Victorian and later period led to a general decrease in pollution related health issues such as bronchitis. Heys, writing in 2012, notes, ‘deaths in the UK from respiratory disease declined 34 per cent from 212 to 140 per 100 000 population between 1970 and 2003’.⁴⁹ However, because the Clean Air Acts were primarily directed at visible pollution caused by coal, once the ‘pea-soup’ fogs of London abated and dark smoke was reduced, there was, it has been suggested, a false sense of security.⁵⁰ Other pollutants were building up, especially those caused by motor vehicles.

By 1952 British car makers were producing nearly half a million vehicles, most of which were destined for export.⁵¹ Car purchases were on the rise but in 1952 most people still travelled by public transport.⁵² There were around 4 million licensed vehicles in 1950 jumping to 35 million by 2010.⁵³ Consequently, while air pollution from industrial furnaces and coal fires may have abated other air pollutants were replacing them.

In 1993 these Acts were consolidated in the 1993 Clean Air Act. Industrial and other processes were regulated by the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999. In anticipation of the European Union’s Air Quality Framework Directive, the Environment Act of 1995 required the government, for the first time, to produce a national air quality strategy which included standards and objectives in line with the Directive and its successors and established a system of local air quality management.⁵⁴

The position today

Nevertheless, and despite these various regulatory measures it was admitted in Parliament by the government when they published their clean air strategy in 2019 that ‘exposure to the pollution still present in our atmosphere is one of the UK’s biggest public health challenges, shortening lifespans and damaging quality of life for many people’.⁵⁵ In 2021 the Member of Parliament for Twickenham pointed out that ‘Air pollution contributes to diabetes, dementia and heart disease, and can even cause problems for children in the womb. Public Health England has estimated that the cost of air pollution to the NHS will be approximately £1.5 billion by 2025, and £5.1 billion by 2035. Research by Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation has found that over 8,500 schools and colleges are in places with levels of PM2.5 that are above World Health Organization guidelines.’⁵⁶

In 2013 a nine-year old child, Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, died from an acute asthma attack. An initial coroner’s report stated the cause was acute respiratory failure. In 2021 a second coroner’s inquest into her death recorded the cause of death as air pollution. The coroner stated:

The evidence at the inquest was that there is no safe level for particulate matter and that the WHO guidelines should be seen as minimum requirements. Legally binding targets based on WHO guidelines would reduce the number of deaths from air pollution in the UK.⁵⁷

Subsequently Baroness Jones introduced a private members Bill into the House of Lords, the Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill.⁵⁸ This was described as:

A Bill to establish the right to breathe clean air; to require the Secretary of State to achieve and maintain clean air in England and Wales; to involve Public Health England in setting and reviewing pollutants and their limits; to enhance the powers, duties and functions of the Environment Agency, the Committee on Climate Change, local authorities (including port authorities), the Civil Aviation Authority, Highways England, Historic England and Natural England in relation to air pollution; to establish the Citizens’ Commission for Clean Air with powers to institute or intervene in legal proceedings; to require the Secretary of State and the relevant national authorities to apply environmental principles in carrying out their duties under this Act and the clean air enactments; and for connected purposes.

The Bill addressed a gap in the Environment Act 2021, which, although it includes a section on particulate matter,⁵⁹ falls short of the levels and targets suggested by the World Health Organization.⁶⁰ On 2 December 2022 the bill passed through the House of Lords – an unusual achievement for a private member’s Bill. In March 2023 ‘Ella’s Law’ (The Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill) reached its second reading in the House of Commons. However, a general election and a new government meant that it did not progress.

The Environment Act 2021 established a legally binding duty on government to bring forward at least two new air quality targets in secondary legislation by 31 October 2022. These are targets for air quality and targets for fine particulate matter. This duty sits within the environmental targets’ framework outlined in the Environment Act (Part 1). On 28 October 2022 the Government confirmed that this legal deadline would be missed.⁶¹ Commenting on the delay, Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, special adviser on air quality at the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), said:

These targets are supposed to play a central role in driving our efforts to address environmental decline and its impact on human health in various areas, including air quality. It is therefore deeply disappointing and extremely concerning that the government will now miss the deadline for introducing them.⁶²

The Royal College of Physicians has argued for greater ambition aimed at reducing air pollution by 2030. It has pointed to research by the Clean Air Fund and Imperial College London that

reducing PM2.5 levels to 10μg m-3 by 2030 is feasible – many parts of the UK are already on course to meet this. It also showed that it would lead to 3,100 fewer coronary heart disease cases and 388,000 fewer reported asthma symptom days in children each year. The total economic benefits were projected to be in excess of £380 billion.⁶³

Some initiatives have been implemented. In a move intended to cut air pollutants in 2019 London introduced an Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) across all its boroughs. This was extended to create a larger zone in 2021 and again in 2023 to include the whole of Greater London. The ULEZ operates by levying a charge on all vehicles entering the zone which do not comply with the low emissions standards set for the zone. The introduction of ULEZ triggered considerable opposition by politicians and drivers. In July 2023 four London borough councils brought a legal claim against the Mayor of London’s decision to expand the scheme. On 28 July 2023 the High Court ruled that the expansion was lawful.⁶⁴ However researchers at Imperial College London found that the introduction of ULEZ made very little difference to levels of nitrogen dioxide levels in the city in a comparison of before and after data.⁶⁵ The report suggested a more holistic and integrated approach was needed such as the upgrading of bus and taxi fleets, tighter controls of vehicle emissions and consideration of pollutants generated outside the ULEZ but drifting into it.⁶⁶ Given that a number of other cities either have or are proposing to introduce ULEZ the research is useful in identifying a need for broader thinking. The Mayor of London, however, claimed the introduction of ULEZ was a success because it had resulted in far fewer non-compliant cars – only 5 per cent of cars in London being found to be non-compliant and liable to the charge in October 2023.⁶⁷ Arguably scrappage schemes for non-compliant vehicles owned by Londoners may have helped, while those who owned older vehicles more likely to fail the standards resorted to other means of transport.⁶⁸ Implicitly therefore those who could afford either to pay the fines or to upgrade their vehicles were largely unaffected by the introduction of these measures, while those who could not have become increasingly reliant on public transport.

There are similar social and economic inequalities associated with the government’s drive to move from carbon fuel cars to electric vehicles (EVs). The United Kingdom aims to ‘end the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030, and for all new cars and vans to be fully zero emission at the tailpipe by 2035’.⁶⁹ While this is less to do with air pollution and more driven by concerns about global warming and the commitment of government to reach a certain reduction in carbon targets, a consequence will also be a reduction in vehicle emissions and therefore air pollutants from cars. There are, however, two major inequalities related to this. The first is the cost of acquiring EVs.

The second is the environmental impact of sourcing the rare metals (lithium or lithium-ion, manganese, cobalt, graphite, steel, and nickel) needed to power EVs. Currently, most of these rare metals are from China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, neither of which have good human rights records. However, because demand may soon outstrip supply other sources are being considered, including mining the deep sea-bed around islands where the indigenous populations are already vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. This chapter is not the place to examine the arguments for and against electric vehicles, but there are parallels with the impact of industrialisation on air pollution in 1952. In 1952 a shift to smokeless fuel and greater regulation of furnaces met resistance on the part of industrialists because the costs incurred ate into profits. It was necessary to secure the support of those with vested interests to shift the dial and that took a long time. At the opposite end were health experts and scientists highlighting the dangers of air pollution and events such as the Great London Smog. Today, environmentalists have joined the scientists in highlighting the damaging effects of human activity. At the same time the opportunities to capitalise on shifting priorities are being seized by those who can benefit financially leaving those least able to escape the consequences of these shifts vulnerable to new harms.

Conclusion

In December 2022, seventy years after the Great London Fog, City Hall published a report looking at the impact of Clean Air Acts on air pollution and speculating on what the situation might have been in 1952 had those Acts then been in force. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, pointed out:

Air pollution in London today is still a matter of life and death. But unlike the toxic pollution of the past, which could be seen, the air pollution today is an invisible killer. It’s making people sick from cradle to grave – from stunted lungs in young children to adult onset asthma, lung disease and dementia.⁷⁰

An article in the Guardian drew parallels between the events of 1952 and today. Referring to Jenny Jones MP’s private member’s Bill ‘Ella’s Law’, Garry Fuller reminds us that:

The UK’s first Clean Air Act also began as a private member’s bill, introduced by the handlebar moustached Tory MP Gerald Nabarro. Nabarro’s bill was triggered by a Ministry of Health report that estimated a death toll of about 4,000 people due to the weeklong London smog of 1952, a death rate greater than the Victorian cholera outbreaks and the worst periods of the blitz. Politically, Jones and Nabarro are poles apart but Jones’s bill comes at a time when about 4,000 Londoners die from breathing polluted air each year.⁷¹

Scarrow has suggested that the ‘most important impact of the Clean Air Act may be its precedent-setting example of what is possible – or what is thought possible – in attacking pollution problems with legal measures’.⁷² Unfortunately there was no reference to the Act in the king’s speech at the opening of parliament in November 2023 or in subsequent speeches, and therefore little hope that the current government will advance this. In some respects therefore limited progress has been made since 1952 despite the UK government acknowledging that:

In the UK, air pollution is the largest environmental risk to public health … The annual mortality of human-made air pollution in the UK is roughly equivalent to between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths every year. It is estimated that between 2017 and 2025 the total cost to the NHS and social care system of air pollutants (fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide), for which there is more robust evidence for an association, will be £1.6 billion’.⁷³

Although the figure for fatalities attributable to the Great London Fog of 1952 are uncertain, taken at its worst there were around 13,000 deaths at the time of the Fog and in the succeeding months. Figures for this decade are similarly uncertain not least because air pollution is rarely listed as a cause of death – Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s death certificate was an exception. Academic research and media reports suggest however, that air pollution related deaths remain high. In 2018 it was estimated that ‘28,000 and 36,000 people die as a result of air pollution every year in the UK’.⁷⁴ In 2019 research by Imperial College London, found that ‘In 2019 around 4,000 deaths in the capital could be attributed to air pollution’.⁷⁵ In February 2023, The Standard newspaper referred to a global study of excess deaths caused by air pollution published in the medical journal The Lancet Planetary Health; of these ‘5,950 were in London, 1,330 in Birmingham, 730 in Leeds, and 670 in Liverpool’.⁷⁶ Although the contributing factors may be different from those in 1952, the fact remains that air pollution is a killer, and that those most likely to succumb are the elderly, children and the socially and economically disadvantaged. It also remains a fact that getting politicians to focus on this issue is a challenge and apparently not a priority.

Notes

1. 1. Rationing did not end completely until 1954.

2. 2. UK Parliament, Crimes of the Century, https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/crime-and-defence/crimes-of-the-century/#:~:text=During%20the%20first%20two%20decades,1901%20to%201%2C000%20by%201950.

3. 3. Reply to question put in the Commons 25 March 1952, ‘Coalmining’, Hansard, Vol. 498, 25 March 1952.

4. 4. Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, ‘Historical Coal Data: Coal Availability and Consumption 1853 to 2023’. Updated 30 July 2024.

5. 5. Statista, ‘Coal Production in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1913 to 2023’, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1125925/historic-coal-production-in-the-united-kingdom/.

6. 6. Lynda Nead, ‘ “As Snug as a Bug in a Rug” Post War Housing, Homes and Coal Fires’ (2011), Science Museum Group Journal, https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/post-war-housing-homes/#abstract.

7. 7. Queen Elizabeth, in her Christmas broadcast in 1953, sent from New Zealand, referred to the family hearth: ‘Of course, we all want our children at Christmas time – for that is the season above all others when each family gathers at its own hearth.’ https://www.royal.uk/christmas-broadcast-1953

8. 8. In 1950 only 350,000 had televisions (black and white and usually hired rather than purchased). Ten years later almost three-quarters of all homes had televisions and the television became the focal point of the home. Benjie Goodhart, ‘ “At 6 P.M. Every Evening the Screen Went Blank”: The Outlandish Tale of the UK’s TV Blackout’, The Guardian, 16 February 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/16/at-6 P.M.-every-evening-the-screen-went-blank-the-outlandish-tale-of-the-uks-tv-blackout#:~:text=In%201950%2C%20only%20350%2C000%20homes,interrupted%2C%20it%20became%20an%20issue.

9. 9. A 1914 Ivor Novello song which became popular in the First World War.

10. 10. Stephen Mosely, ‘Clearing the Air: Can the 1956 Clean Air Act Inform New Legislation?’ Policy Paper, https://historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/clearing-the-air-can-the-1956-clean-air-act-inform-new-legislation/.

11. 11. J. Black, ‘Intussusception and the Great Smog of London, December, 1952’. Archive of Diseases of Childhood 88 (2003): 1040–42.

12. 12. Estimates suggest that there were 1,000 tonnes of smoke particles, 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid and 14 tonnes of fluoride compounds: ‘The Great Smog of 1952’, Met Office, https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/case-studies/great-smog#:~:text=A%20fog%20so%20thick%20and,to%20death%20in%20the%20fields. Accessed 5 May 2023.

13. 13. W.P.D. Logan, ‘Fog and Mortality’, The Lancet 49, no. 5 (1949): 1.

14. 14. D. Laskin, ‘The Great London Smog’, Weatherwise 59, no. 6 (2006): 42–5.

15. 15. It was also called the ‘London Particular’ owing to its unique density.

16. 16. For example, Henry James, Portrait of a Lady, 1881, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1852, and Our Mutual Friend, 1865, and Marie Bellow Lowdnes, The Lodger, 1913. See also Christine Carton, London Fog: The Biography (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2025).

17. 17. See, for example, the work of Claude Monet and James McNeill Whistler.

18. 18. See for example, Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger, 1927.

19. 19. Mr Norman Dodds, Hansard, Vol. 515, column 843, 8 May 1953, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1953-05-08/debates/551a22aa-af54-4df5-af4c-6716ee8ee6f6/AirPollution.

20. 20. Lord Amulree, House of Lords, 18 November 1953, Hansard HL Debates, 18 November 1953, Vol. 184, cc 364–93. Some reports indicate that as many as 12,000 people choked to death and 150,000 were hospitalised.

21. 21. Ministry of Health, Reports of Public Health and Medical Subjects, No. 95 ‘Mortality and Morbidity During the London Fog of December 1952’, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1954. See also E.T. Wilkins, ‘Air Pollution and the London Fog of December 1952’, Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute 74 (1954): 1–21.

22. 22. David Kynaston, Family Britain 1951–57 (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), 257.

23. 23. Kynaston, Family Britain 1951–57, 257.

24. 24. There is no mention of the event in Churchill’s speeches for December, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/people/mr-winston-churchill/1952. Indeed on 4 December he was facing a motion of censure for the inefficiency of his government. Hansard 1803–2005, HC Deb, 4 December 1952, Vol. 508, cc 1783–892.

25. 25. Mr Norman Dodds, note 19, Hansard, 8 May 1953, volume 515, c 842.

26. 26. ‘London Again Blacked Out’, The Guardian, 9 December 1952, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22863067/the-great-smog-of-1952/.

27. 27. Laura Robson-Mainwaring, ‘The Great Smog of 1952’. The National Archives, July 19, 2022, blog-nationalarchives.gov.uk.

28. 28. British Pathé, 1953, The Smog Menace, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsWcfX6dpQ8.

29. 29. BBC, ‘1962: A look back at The Great Smog of London 1954’, https://bbc.co.uk/videos/c13385716g6o.

30. 30. See Jesse Oak Taylor, The Sky of Our Manufacture: The London Fog in British Fiction from Dickens to Woolf (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016).

31. 31. Even earlier the problems of smoke pollution in London had been realised with a royal Proclamation prohibiting the burning of sea coal in the thirteenth century.

32. 32. A digitised and annotated copy of the Act can be found in the Wellcome Collection, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/krgyghjx/items?canvas=7.

33. 33. There was also an Atmospheric Pollution Research Committee responsible for measuring air quality across major cities, under the Department of Scientific Research: ‘Fifty Years On: The Struggle for Air Quality in London since the Great Smog of December 1952’, Greater London Authority, 2002, https://cleanair.london/app/uploads/CAL-217-Great-Smog-by-GLA-20021.pdf.

34. 34. Section 104 Public Health Act 1936.

35. 35. J. Scott, ‘Fog and Death in London, December 1952’, Public Health Reports (1896–1970), 68, no. 5 (1953): 474–7.

36. 36. Memorandum by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, 18 November 1953, National Archives CAB129/64/22.

37. 37. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates House of Commons, 27 January 1953. Vol. 510, c 829, https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1953/jan/27/atmospheric-pollution#column_829.

38. 38. V. Berridge and S. Taylor, ‘Roy Parker in “The Big Smoke: Fifty Years after the 1952 London Smog”’, Seminar, 10 December 2002, Centre for History in Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 2005, 16–18, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/assets/icbh-witness/bigsmoke.pdf.

39. 39. This was not the first committee to look at the matter. In 1843 a Select Committee recommended reducing black smoke for fires and private dwellings, and another in 1945 recommended that action should focus on furnaces used to generate steam.

40. 40. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 25 January 1955, Vol. 536, cc 38–42, Air Pollution (Committee’s Report), https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1955/jan/25/air-pollution-committees-report.

41. 41. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/1956-04-24/debates/49e11717-50cc-433c-a119-2d66644631a7/CleanAirBill.

42. 42. This was tabled by Gerald Nabarro.

43. 43. The first London local authority to do so was the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn, but not until 1962. By 1969 over 60 per cent of premises and 50 per cent of the area of Greater London was designated as smokeless, considerably reducing pollution from smoke and sulphur dioxide. One consequence was a shift to oil and gas.

44. 44. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 10 November 1959, Vol. 613, cc 194–5, Clean Air Act 1956, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1959-11-10/debates/d675bead-3830-41b8-94d5-f336b5aaedfe/CleanAirAct1956 Vol 613.

45. 45. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, 24 April 1956, Vol. 196, c 1162, Clean Air Bill, https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/1956-04-24/debates/49e11717-50cc-433c-a119-2d66644631a7/CleanAirBill.

46. 46. Gary Fuller, ‘Pollutionwatch: Lessons to Learn from the UK’s 1956 Clean Air Act’, The Guardian, 16 July 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/16/pollutionwatch-lessons-to-learn-from-uks-1956-clean-air-act.

47. 47. Mosely, ‘Clearing the Air’.

48. 48. Hansard, House of Commons, ‘Clean Air Act’, Vol. 613, column 194, 10 November 1959, https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1959-11-10/debates/d675bead-3830-41b8-94d5-f336b5aaedfe/CleanAirAct1956.

49. 49. Robert Heys, ‘The Clean Air Act 1956’, British Medical Journal 345 (2012). doi: https://doi-org.libproxy.ncl.ac.uk/10.1136/bmj.e5751.

50. 50. J.W.S. Longhurst, J.H. Barnes, T.J. Chatterton, E.T. Hayes and W.B. Williams, ‘Progress with Air Quality Management in the 60 years since the UK Clean Air Act, 1956: Lessons, Failures, Challenges and Opportunities’, Int. J. Sus. Dev. Plann 11, no. 4 (2016): 491–9, 492.

51. 51. Lancaster Insurance, ‘The 1952 Motor Show’, https://www.lancasterinsurance.co.uk/news/2022/december/19/the-1952-motor-show/.

52. 52. BBC, ‘Ten Charts That Tell the Story of Britain’s Roads’, 22 December 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42182497.

53. 53. Transport Department, ‘Transport Statistics: Great Britain 2011’. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a78fa5bed915d0422066d7b/vehicles-summary.pdf.

54. 54. Council Directive 96/62/EC of 27 September 1996 on ambient air quality assessment and management: Official Journal of the European Communities, L286, 21 November 1996: 55–63.

55. 55. Cited by Munira Wilson MP for Twickenham, Hansard Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons 27 April 2021, Vol. 693, c 97WH. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-04-27/debates/42F8034A-2C92-4361-9588-657732FA41C5/AirPollutionLondon.

56. 56. Hansard Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Vol. 693, cc 97–8, 27 April 2021, https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-04-27/debates/42F8034A-2C92-4361-9588-657732FA41C5/AirPollutionLondon.

57. 57. Jocelyn Cockburn and Guy Mitchell, ‘The Cost of Air Pollution Is Captured in a Child’s Smile: It’s Time for “Ella’s law”’, The Guardian, 26 April 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jocelyn-cockburn.

58. 58. Gary Fuller, ‘ “Ella’s Law” Bill Seeks to Establish Right to Clean Air in UK’, The Guardian, 20 May 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/20/ellas-law-bill-right-to-clean-air-uk-pollution-jenny-jones#:~:text=The%20clean%20air%20(human%20rights,Great%20Smog%20later%20this%20year%E2%80%9D.

59. 59. Environment Act 2021, Section 2(2).

60. 60. World Health Organization, WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines: Particulate Matter (PM2.5 and PM10), Ozone, Nitrogen Dioxide, Sulfur Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide. November 2021, xiii.

61. 61. UK Parliament, Statement made by Thérèse Coffey, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 28 October 2022, https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2022-10-28/hcws347.

62. 62. Royal College of Physicians, ‘RCP Comments on Announcement That UK Government Will Miss Deadline for Setting Environmental Targets’, https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/rcp-comments-announcement-uk-government-will-miss-deadline-setting-environmental-targets.

63. 63. Royal College of Physicians, ‘RCP Comments’. The formula is the World Health Organization recommendation. A summary of the report ‘Pathway to Healthy Air in the UK’ can be found at https://s40026.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/The-Pathway-to-Healthy-Air-in-the-UK.pdf.

64. 64. The King on the application of London Borough of Hillingdon, London borough of Bexley, London Borough of Bromley, London Borough of Harrow and Surrey County Council v The Mayor of London and Transport for London [2023] EWHC 1972 (Admin)

65. 65. Laing Ma, Daniel Graham and Marc Stettler, ‘Has the Ultra Low Emissions Zone in London Improved Air Quality?’ (2021) Environmental Research Letters. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac30c1, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/356266007_Has_the_ultra_low_emission_zone_in_London_improved_air_quality.

66. 66. For example, agricultural pollutants.

67. 67. Gwyn Topham, ‘Ulez Expansion: 45% Fewer “Dirty” Vehicles Now on London’s Roads, Says TfL’ The Guardian, 31 October 2023.

68. 68. See Kathrin Enenkel, Valentine Quinio and Paul Swinney, ‘Holding Our Breath: How Poor Air Quality Blights Cities’, 27 January 2020, https://www.centreforcities.org/reader/cities-outlook-2020/air-quality-cities/ for detail.

69. 69. UK Government, ‘Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure’, Research Briefing, 12 July 2024, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7480/. The Conservative government under Rishi Sunak pushed this first deadline back to 2035, but the current Labour government has indicated that it will revert to the 2030 deadline.

70. 70. Mayor’s Press Release, ‘Seventy Years on from the Great Smog, Mayor Warns that Air Pollution Is Still a Matter of Life and Death in London’, 5 December 2022, https://www.london.gov.uk/media-centre/mayors-press-release/Seventy-years-on-from-the-Great-Smog-Mayor-warns-that-air-pollution-is-still-a-matter-of-life-and-death-in-London.

71. 71. Fuller, ‘ “Ella’s Law” Bill Seeks to Establish Right to Clean Air in UK’.

72. 72. Howard Scarrow, ‘The Impact of British Domestic Air Pollution Legislation’, British Journal of Political Science 2, no. 3 (1972): 261–82, 282.

73. 73. Office for Health Disparities and Improvement, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/air-pollution-applying-all-our-health/air-pollution-applying-all-our-health#:~:text=In%20the%20UK%2C%20air%20pollution,and%2036%2C000%20deaths%20every%20year.

74. 74. Public Health England for the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, ‘Associations of Long-Term Average Concentrations of Nitrogen Dioxide with Mortality: A Report by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants’, 2018, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5b76d41040f0b643410888e5/COMEAP_NO2_Report.pdf.

75. 75. David Dajnak, Dimitris Evangelopoulos, Nutthida Kitwiroon, Sean Beevers and Heather Walton Environmental Research Group – Imperial College London, ‘London Health Burden of Current Air Pollution and Future Health Benefits of Mayoral Air Quality Policies’, https://erg.ic.ac.uk/research/home/resources/ERG_ImperialCollegeLondon_HIA_AQ_LDN_11012021.pdf.

76. 76. Emma Loffhagen, ‘Why Is Air Pollution in London So Bad? 10 Years on from Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s Death’, The Standard, 15 February 2023.

Selected bibliography