The legislated control of river pollution in Victorian Scotland

Abstract

Abstract The use of rivers for sewage disposal was feared as a health hazard throughout the Victorian period, but Parliament's only serious intervention (the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876) had little effect. For all its defects, however, the statute proved to be a practical instrument of pollution abatement for those authorities that had the will to employ it. Unfortunately, few were persuaded to take advantage of its powers, because the government had failed to reconcile the conflict between its desire to prevent pollution and its commitment to laissez‐faire principles.