Many of us know about the deadly fog that covered London in the 20th century, culminating in the Great Smog in 1952. Not only the thick fog but also the smog, caused by soot particles and poisonous sulfur dioxide produced by the burning of soft coal, that is thought to have taken around 12,000 lives.
The whole city used to be covered in blindly smog, where you couldn’t see anything. This atmosphere inspired a lot of people to create some of the most monstrous stories which still live to that day. From R.L. Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde to Tim Burton’s Vincent, the thick mist inspired wonder and fear to those who got to witness it first hand.
For the rest who didn’t experience it their selves, this scene might be hard to picture. However, below we have compiled a series of vintage pics that portray that exact atmosphere. Scroll down below to check them out.
h/t: vintage everyday
1. A Lamp Lighter At Work In Finsbury Park, London, 17 October 1935
2. St Pancras Railway Station, 1 July 1907
3. A Woman Leads A Car Through London’s Regent’s Park, 25 October 1938
4. A Family Feeding The Famous Pigeons In London’s Trafalgar Square, 1952
5.Fleet Street, 6 December 1952
6. Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 24 January 1934
7. A Man Lighting His Pipe In Thick Fog Under The Arches At The Temple, London , 23 December 1935
8. Blackfriars, Mid-morning, 5 December 1952
9. Fleet Street, 1952
10. Piccadilly Circus, 20 December 1956
11. A Policeman Wears A Mask For Protection Against The Smog, 1962
12. Whitehall, 25 December 1937
13. Central London, January 1936
14. National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, 1 December 1948
15. The Tower Of London, January 1947
16. The Sun Comes Through At The Pool Of London, 26 October 1938
17. Trafalgar Square, In The Daytime, November 1927
18. Blackfriars, In The Morning, 5 December 1952
19. A Bus Conductor Walks In Front Of His Vehicle, 9 December 1952
20. An Iceman Delivers In The Fog, 1 October 1919
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