The indusTrial revoluTion^79erode; plants like bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and crowberry (Empetrum
nigrum) became more important.^26
Yet, while we must not underestimate the impact of industrialization on
the environment, in the period before c.1860 its worst effects were probably
localized and limited. It was ‘not until well into the nineteenth century that
serious pollution occurred’ in England’s river system.^27 As late as 1900 it
could be claimed that ‘within the memory of persons still living, salmon
still ascended the Mersey every year to spawn in its upper reaches’, a river
which, by the time this was written, was effectively dead downstream of
Stockport.^28 Contemporaries described how palls of smoke visibly hung over
Manchester, London and other large cities, but this of course implies that
there were cleaner conditions beyond. Although, in the case of the Pennines,
significant levels of sulphur dioxide deposition were occurring in the first half
of the nineteenth century, they increased significantly thereafter: moreover,
in all periods there was a ‘steep gradient in the smoke pollution from the city
centre to the outskirts’.^29 Even in 1859 Leo Grindon’s extensive comments
on the flora growing in the area around Manchester contain virtually no
references to the effects of pollution: only lichens – particularly sensitive to
levels of sulphur dioxide – were declining, even at some distance from the
city centre, on the ‘high hills beyond Disley, Ramsbottom, Staleybridge and
Rochdale’.^30
The often localized character of pollution is important because, in the
period before the 1860s, mines, mills and factories, and associated housing
for workers covered relatively small areas and were generally interdigitated
with farmland. Many books on the Industrial Revolution feature the
famous painting by Phillip de Loutherbourg of ‘Coalbrookdale by Night’
of 1801, which depicts the flaming furnaces almost as a scene from hell.
A different impression is conveyed by William Williams’ ‘Afternoon’ and
‘Morning Views of Coalbrookdale’ of 1777, which show smoke rising from
furnaces set in a resolutely rural, pastoral environment (Figure 16). The
Ordnance Survey 6" maps indicate that even in the 1880s the industrial
areas in the Ironbridge Gorge were still surrounded by fields and woods.
Indeed, in general England’s great conurbations did not develop quite as
early as we often assume, in part because poor transport facilities meant
that people needed to live close to their place of work, and thus at high
densities. In the first half of the nineteenth century Manchester’s population
grew from 88,000 to 400,000: it was the second largest city in the kingdom.
Yet in 1850 its built-up area – mills, factories and all – covered less than
18 square kilometres.^31 To the south, the spread of houses ended abruptly
at Longsight, and there was a space of some six kilometres, occupied by
open countryside, before Stockport (to which the city is now seamlessly
connected) began. Oldham was still a completely distinct town, again
separated by a belt of open land some eight kilometres wide.^32 At its widest
Manchester was less than five kilometres across – an hour’s brisk walk –
and much of its area comprised, not industrial premises and back-to-back