Downstream

Oxford already had a basic
sewage system in place by the
early nineteenth century, with
the drains emptying into the
Thames or its tributaries, but
there were several serious
cholera epidemics in the first
half of the 1800s. A more
efficient sewage system was
put in place in the 1870s,
though how clean the water
was during Easton’s swim
isn’t mentioned in the
newspapers.