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By Lucy Kenningham Rarely will you hear anyone bring up the Great Stink of 1858 by choice, but when elite schools are closing over sewage backfill in boarding horses and toilet waste is spilling into the Thames for days at a time, it is worth revisiting the two-month period that resulted in the sordid sewage system Londoners suffer with today. During this ill-fated summer, heat, industrial waste and human excrement combined to produce an unyieldingly foul smell polluting the air city wide. Previously the rich had been able to ignore London’s antiquated waste system – reliant on the services of…

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