This study of 19th-century local government examines the role of local government officials and the social origins of this growing bureaucracy. As the predecessor of the London County Council, the Metropolitan Board of Works was an important body and its officials formed a large and significant professional group, not hitherto studied in such depth.

A critical evaluation of how theatre was assimilated to the interests of government by suppressing 'democratic' disorders associated with the stage.

Originally published in 1987, this volume examines the ideals and realities of river use in 19th Century Britain and the failure of legal and technological remedies for river pollution. It deals with the involvement of scientists, particularly chemists, in pollution inquiries and considers the effects on the normal workings of the scientific community of scientists’ participation in the adversary forums in which water and sewage policy was made. It discusses 19th ideas of decomposition, disease causation and purification and examines the gap between the abilities of science and the needs of society that developed as the existence of water-borne disease became increasingly clear. It also deals with the politicization of water bacteriology and the emergence of a technology of biological sewage treatment from a political context.