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Air currents, coal scuttles, chimney sweeps and dense, yellow fog... Winter smog, a deadly concoction of chimney smoke, sulphur dioxide and winter
fog, had been casting a shadow over London since the 17th century. However, the
Industrial Revolution of the 19th century dramatically exacerbated the problem,
and by the time this film was made in the 1930s, the effect of
unregulated pollution on public health and the environment was seriously taking
its toll.
In its treatment of this complex problem, The Smoke Menace neatly divides into two
parts. The first outlines in detail the causes of smog, combining deftly
photographed and edited montages of industrial and domestic usage of untreated
coal, punctuated by the cautionary commentary. Our perception of images of
housewives feeding their blazing hearths, skylines defined by smoke-spewing
chimneys, molten steel pouring from the furnace and other industrial motifs,
such as a thriving Clyde shipyard, is steered by assertions such as 'Where
there's muck there's losing money'.
The second part proposes a solution in the form of the smokeless fuel and oil
processed by the gas industry, and the appeal to stop burning raw coal is made
forceful and fully convincing by a mosaic of visual and verbal explanation.
The Coal Smoke Abatement Society (CSAS), which had been set up in 1898 by
London based artist Sir William Blake Richmond, was instrumental in bringing
about the 1926 Public Health Smoke Abatement Act, but the conversion to cleaner
fuels was unfortunately a very gradual one and the escalation in popularity of
the motor vehicle introduced a new enemy to contend with.
By the mid-20th century, the insidious alliance of pollution and weather
culminated in the deadly 'Great Smog' of 1952, which claimed the lives of around
4000 Londoners and prompted a change in the way we relate to the air around us.
The government's response was to legislate smoke controlled areas with the
introduction of the Clean Air Act of 1956.
Katy McGahan
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1. The coal industry (1:07)
