Quotes from Lee Jackson

Before taking his leave of a premises, the dustman would request either beer or a tip for his trouble, quaintly known in the trade as 'sparrows'.

Ashes had always had some value to farmers as fertiliser,

Transport costs increased as the city grew, making the sale of mud less and less profitable; competition in the form of guano and chemical fertilisers undermined sales further.

London was the heart of the greatest empire ever known; a financial and mercantile hub for the world; but it was also infamously filthy.

Between 1801 and 1901, the population of London soared from one million to over six million.

Filth implied social and domestic disorder; and, when discovered in the home, inculcated immoral habits – for it was widely agreed that working men, faced with poor housekeeping, sought refuge in the glittering comforts of the gin palace.