Scratch and sniff the odd odours of Victorian London

THE pungent aroma of Victorian London is soon to come wafting back from the past.

There is no one alive who can recall the Great Stink of 1858 that brought proceedings in the House of Commons to a standstill as it seeped in from the open sewer that was the River Thames, of homemade bandoline hair dressing that turned elaborate coiffeurs into sticky, odiferous dirt traps, or the stench of lights fuelled by whale oil.

Smell is the most evocative of the five senses but is rarely handed down by history. But now the smells have been recreated for the Age of Odour exhibition that will include a virtual reality tour of the City’s stinkiest streets from Spitalfields to the banks of the Thames and parts of Chelsea.

It will also include smells that every Victorian Londoner would have been intimately familiar with, the horses, coal smoke that poured from chimneys, the lye soap used in the laundries that lined the Thames, and the tallow candles made from animal fat that were the main source of lighting.

The smells have been recreated for the exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford by the Institute for Digital Archaeology.

Roger Michel, the IDA’S executive director, said the exhibition would help bring the past back to life. They are even recreating the acrid smell of an east London opium den as depicted by Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde. Mr Michel said: “Odour also told a very important part of the Victorian story. It tells the story of the industrial revolution, the emergence of the personal hygiene/grooming industry on a mass scale and the story of the rise of public health science and of government regulation of the environment – especially odours. It really was the Age of Odour.”

Objects on display will include items such as nosegays and vinaigrettes, and a steam-powered omnibus, which was wildly unpopular because of the smell it produced. The catalogue will be accompanied by a scratch and sniff card but the IDA has also developed an electronic nebuliser, which uses only a tiny amount of fluid to avoid sensory fatigue.

Not all the smells of 19th century London were unpleasant. The IDA has recreated the only perfume that Queen Victoria ever wore, the aroma of fresh flowers, fruit and baked goods from Covent Garden market, and the smell of a coffee stall in the days when chicory, burnt sugar and carrots were commonly used as additives.

Some smells will not be recreated, among them pipe tobacco, the waft of the Bermondsey tanneries that used dog faeces to make leather supple and the smell of Smithfield meat market.

Mr Michel added: “Tobacco seemed like a bad idea around children and we could not get a non-sickening but accurate butcher’s smell.”

The exhibition will be staged when museums are able to reopen.