Pea soup fog

Pea soup fog(also known as apea souper,black fogorkiller fog) is a very thick and often yellowish, greenish or blackish fog caused byair pollutionthat containssootparticulatesand the poisonous gassulphur dioxide. This very thicksmogoccurs in cities and is derived from the smoke given off by the burning ofsoft coalfor home heating and in industrial processes. Smog of this intensity is often lethal to vulnerable people such as the elderly, the very young (infants) and those withrespiratory problems. The result of these phenomena was commonly known as aLondon particularorLondon fog; in a reversal of the idiom, "London particular" became the name for a thickpea and ham soup.
From as early as the 13th century,air pollution became increasingly prevalent, and a predominant perception in the 13th century was thatsea-coalsmoke would affect one's health.From the mid-17th century, in British cities, especiallyLondon, the incidence of ill-health was attributed to coal smoke from both domestic and industrialchimneyscombining with the mists and fogs of theThames Valley.Luke Howard, a pioneer inurban climatestudies, publishedThe Climate of Londonin 1818–1820, in which he uses the term "city fog" and describes theheat islandeffect which concentrated the accumulation of smog over the city.
In 1880,Francis Albert Rollo Russell, son of formerprime ministerJohn Russell, 1st Earl Russell, published a leaflet that blamed home hearth smoke, rather than factories' smoke, for damaging the city's important buildings, depriving vegetation of sunlight, and increasing the expense and effort of laundering clothes. Furthermore, he charged the "perpetually present" sulphurous smoke with increasing bronchitis and other respiratory diseases. More than 2,000 Londoners had "literally choked to death", he wrote, on account of "a want of carefulness in preventing smoke in our domestic fires" which emitted coal smoke from "more than a million chimneys" that, when combined with the prolonged fogs of late January and early February 1880, fatally aggravated pre-existing lung conditions and was "more fatal than the slaughter of many a great battle".
The difficulties of driving through the fog were vividly described in theAutocarmagazine, with an otherwise straightforward 45 mile car journey on the night of 12 December 1946 taking over eight hours to complete. At times, the passenger had to get out and walk alongside the car to see the kerb and operate the steering through the side window while the driver operated the pedals.
The most lethal incidence of this smog in Londonoccurred in 1952and resulted in theClean Air Act 1956andClean Air Act 1968, both now repealed and consolidated into theClean Air Act 1993, which were effective in largely removing sulphur dioxide and coal smoke, the causes of pea soup fog, though these have been replaced by less visible pollutants that derive from vehicles in urban areas.
Reference to the sources of smog, along with the earliest extant use of "pea-soup" as a descriptor, is found in a report byJohn Sartainpublished in 1820 on life as a young artist, recounting what it was like to
An 1871New York Timesarticle refers to "London, particularly, where the population are periodically submerged in a fog of the consistency of pea soup". The fogs caused large numbers of deaths from respiratory problems.
King Edward Iof England banned the burning ofsea-coalby proclamation inLondonin 1272, after its smoke became a problem.By the 17th century London'spollutionhad become a serious problem, still due, in particular, to the burning of cheap, readily available sea coal.John Evelyn, advisor toCharles II of England, defined the problem in his pamphlet,Fumifugium: Or, the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipatedpublished in 1661, blaming coal, a "subterrany fuel" that had "a kind of virulent or arsenical vapour arising from it" for killing many. He proposed the relocation of industry out of the city and the planting of massive gardens of "odiferousflowers" to "tinge the air" and thus mask the pollution.
The worst recorded instance was theGreat Smog of 1952, when 4,000 deaths were reported in the city over a couple of days, and a subsequent 8,000 related deaths, leading to the passage of theClean Air Act 1956, which banned the use of coal for domestic fires in some urban areas.The overall death toll from that incident is now believed to be around 12,000.