Talk:Great Smog of London/Archive 1

Change Title, add facts
For your information, I was eleven years old at the time, living in Surrey,UK, and remember it being called "smog". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.19.133.145 (talk) 21:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The title of this article should be changed to either "London 'Big Smoke' of 1952" or "London 'Great Fog' of 1952." The term "smog" was used by few if anyone at the time. Perhaps "Killer Fog" should be added parenthetically. From (as written below) by Tim The infamous fog of December 1952 has come to be known as 'The Great Smog'; the term 'smog' being a portmanteau word meaning 'fog intensified by smoke'. The term was coined almost half a century earlier, by HA Des Voeux, who first used it in 1905 to describe the conditions of fuliginous (sooty) fog that occurred all too often over British urban area[...] --24.37.141.122 (talk) 16:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC) Also, the sentence "At the same time, the final conversion of London's electric trams to diesel buses was completed" needs to be attributed or deleted. Various accounts make clear that the "fog" was in fact mostly coal smoke, trapped near ground level by an inversion layer. I doubt that any reputable authority would attribute "diesel buses" as a significant cause of the London great fog.

A factor that worsened the problem: burning of low-quality high-sulfur coal for home heating in London in order to permit export of higher-quality coal, because of the country's tenuous economic situation Ldemery 07:10, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

No one has objected, so I have made the changes outlined above. Ldemery 05:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * See for example:, which use Great Smog. Tim! 08:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

...respiratory tract infections from hypoxia (low level of oxygenation of blood) due to mechanical obstruction of the air passages by pus arising from lung infections... — paraphrased: lung infections caused by hypoxia caused by pus caused by lung infections. Besides the fact that this statement is circular, hypoxia doesn't cause infections, microorganisms and viruses cause infections. 64.191.142.162 (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

"...coal tended to be exported"???? In the 1950s the UK exported less than 5 Mton/yr of anthracite which was used exclusively in continental steel making. Power stations and railways took the next best coal. The UK's coal is mostly black as the poorer quality shallow coal had been exhausted over the centuries. Peat was still a significant fuel in the 1950s.14.203.207.166 (talk) 05:01, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Lung Irritation or Inflamation
A lot of people didn't die from a lung infection, but rather a mechanical obstruction of the human breathing system by pus caused by lung irritation or inflamation; the term infection here may be misleading- (smog is not a biological agent that self-reproduce). Yes, some had infections because of the damage, but others died from other health conditions that aren't treated like an infection is treated (as a final outcome of this disaster). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.84.66 (talk) 23:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite and Clean up
Rewrote intro and part of "Events". Cleaned up and clarified citations and added to "further reading".Shadygrove2007 (talk) 15:11, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

fix me
"According the the United Kingdom's National Weather Service," 76.117.72.131 (talk) 04:21, 1 December 2014 (UTC)


 * ✅ some time ago by someone else. DBaK (talk) 15:43, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Likely plagiarism
"into gutters and down the drains in dirty black rivulets" - this phrase can be found in a comment by 'Victor Spink' here. I'm about to research the timing and name of who inserted it, but I wanted to bring it to attention quickly here in case I get pulled away from the job.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2013 (UTC)


 * This edit appears to be where the paragraph was introduced on 29 January 2012. Victor Spink appears to have left the same words exactly as part of a longer personal story in the comment... on February 11, 2012.  Very curious.  Still researching.  In any event I'm going to end up removing this paragraph as unsourced but now my curiosity is really engaged as to what happened!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:03, 24 October 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅ I don't know who this bloke is but he seems to have done a jolly good job, almost nine years ago when we were all young and innocent, of removing the possible copyvio with this edit so I will mark this done and maybe archive it. If anyone can track down this "Mr Wales" and thank him for his excellent contribution here ?? ... DBaK (talk) 15:50, 3 July 2022 (UTC)