Charles Dickens, 19th century writer and early ecologist, told in an exhibition in London

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The famous British novelist, defender of the oppressed, often depicted in his works the “fog”, this cloud of pollution that the workers of London suffered on a daily basis. He was already calling on the authorities to act to preserve their health.

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In a video posted on Youtube on March 27, 2023, the Dickens Museum in London describes the British writer's commitment to pollution. (YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT)

THE “fog“, this London fog, is not only a decorative element in the work of Charles Dickens (1812-1870), it is a real character. In The House of Bitterwind, A Christmas Carol, or antique store, the British writer always gives a place to the “pea supper”as it was called at the time, “pea puree”.

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This fog, sometimes cloud of pollution, is at the center of the exhibition A Great and Dirty City: Dickens and the London Fog (“A big and dirty city: Dickens and the London fog”), to be seen until October 22 at Dickens Museum in the capital of London.

A very unappetizing puree, since Dickens describes it as black, yellow, heavy, dense, suffocating… He says this “fog“frightening which comes to pinch the toes of frozen children. A haze which had nothing natural about it, which already emanated in the Victorian era from the smoke from factories and especially from fireplaces and individual stoves, the only inexpensive heating for a population in full expansion.

The “unhealthy environment” of the workers

Years before the questions of climate change, Charles Dickens warned of a very concrete danger in press articles, says Frankie Debicki, the curator of the museum: “One of them is called ‘Spitalfields’ and talks about this area of ​​east London in the 19th century. This is where the textile workers were based. In this text, he describes the unhealthy environment they live in, because of the smoke. In that sense, he really campaigned against pollution”she assures.

It will be necessary to wait until 1952 – 82 years after the death of the father ofOliver Twist – for legislation to end the use of coal for personal heating in the UK. In Dickens’s time, the legislator feared the reaction of the population if they were deprived of a simple and cheap means of heating the house. As a foreshadowing of the energy and climate crises we are experiencing today.


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