West Ham and the River Lea

Clifford draws welcome attention to part of Greater London frequently neglected in historical scholarship due to its proximity to London yet independent status … West Ham and the River Lea provides a view of the social and environmental impacts of West Ham’s industrialization with an emphasis on the sanitary experiences of people living in the borough during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

William M. Calvert, The University of St. Thomas:
West Ham, Clifford shows, was beset by intersecting social, administrative, technical, and environmental problems, and their consequences were felt quite unequally … Such nuance and detail is perhaps this book’s major contribution.

Barry Doyle, professor of health history, School of Music, Humanities and Media, University of Huddersfield:
Deploying environmental history approaches to reveal processes of social and political change, this book offers an original contribution to our understanding of urban transformation. Through a case study of the environmental politics of London’s working-class suburb of West Ham, it reveals how clean and plentiful water was the essential quotidian issue in late nineteenth-century Britain. Using both traditional sources and modern digital-mapping techniques, it offers a new focus and methodology for modern urban history.

From the Foreword by Graeme Wynn:
Abject though their living conditions may have been, difficult as their social and domestic circumstances often were, Clifford refuses to see the people of the parish and borough as helpless victims or pawns of fate. Here we see a West Ham shaped in manifold ways by the intricate interactions of humans and nature. This is a story that encompasses and turns on ecology, hydrology, topography, prevailing winds, economics, politics, trade networks, industrial processes, engineering abilities, technological competence, human resilience, and chance.