For Immediate Release
DATE
(insert town/city/county)
Did you know that (insert town/city/county) only had a sewerage system installed in (insert year)? Join
WaterAid’s Big History Project and Time Team’s Tony Robinson and dig up the remarkable hidden history, discovering what it was like to live here before clean running water and toilets were inside every home.
WaterAid’s Big History Project aims to uncover the pioneering people, inspiring innovations and surprising stories found in the UK’s incredible journey to clean running water and toilets springing up in
British homes. The project will culminate in
WaterAid’s Big History Week
in July 2015, showing real-life examples from our own local history and the difference that access to clean water and toilets make to health and productivity.
Over 748 million people in the world live without clean water, while a shocking 2.5 billion people live without access to a toilet; that’s one in three of the world’s population. WaterAid is campaigning for everyone, everywhere around the world to have access to clean water and safe toilets by 2030. Tony Robinson has joined forces with the charity, because the history of Britain shows that this can be achieved with the right political will.
The year 2015 is a big year; it’s the 150 th anniversary of the first modern sewer built in the UK, and the end date for the UN Millennium Development Goals. The target set for sanitation is off-track – at the current rate of progress the target will not be reached for another 150 years. After the General Election in May 2015, the newly elected UK Government will have an influential role in agreeing the new global development priorities for the next 15 years and the opportunity to put clean water, toilets and hygiene at the top of the agenda.
Tony Robinson said: “I’ve been a lover of history all my life: studying it at school, bringing it to life through drama, and digging it up for over 20 years on Time Team.
WaterAid’s Big History Project is a wonderful opportunity to find out when your ancestors first got running water and flushing toilets. It’s hard to believe that only 150 years ago, people in Britain didn't have access to a tap or a humble toilet in their home. My family have been Londoners for over

300 years and lived through a time when disease-ridden sewage ran through the streets. Many people th roughout the world still live in these conditions, but as our history shows, it doesn’t have to be this way.
“I’m calling on all budding historians out there! Get your history hats on and go to your local library, join your local history group and discover the real people behind a fascinating history that is, quite literally, under your feet.”
Join WaterAid in compiling this exciting historical account of our country’s journey to clean water and sanitation. You can download The Big History Project toolkit from: www.wateraid.org/UK/bighistoryproject
For further enquiries about joining us in conducting research for the project please contact (insert your name, email address and phone number)
Notes to Editors:

A progress report on the UN Millennium Development Goals, which are due to be completed by
2015, has shown that access to basic toilets in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa remains very low, despite pledges to cut in half the proportion of people without access. Of the 2.5 billion people without basic sanitation, 644 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa and more than 1 billion are in South
Asia.
 The famous ‘Great Stink’ of 1858 - the overwhelming smell of untreated sewage filling the River
Thames - became so bad it forced MPs to leave the Houses of Parliament. In 1865 a new sewer system, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, was introduced in London helping to eliminate waterrelated diseases like cholera, which had plagued the city for centuries. This is recognised as the beginning of modern sewage systems throughout the UK. In the decade that followed, advances in water, sanitation and hygiene practices led to improved public health, a dramatic drop in child mortality rates and increased life expectancy.
Did you know....?
 The phrase ‘spend a penny’ dates back to the first public toilets in London in the 1850s which cost
1p to use.

When Queen Victoria came to the thro ne (1837), only half of London’s infants lived to their fifth birthday. Diseases such as cholera were rife in the capital.
 During the Great Stink of 1858, it took just 18 days to pass an act to refurbish the River Thames. It’s amazing what can happen with the right political will!


Sir Joseph Bazelgette and his team built 82 miles of intercepting sewers parallel to the River
Thames and 1,100 miles of street sewers, using 318 million bricks and digging up more than 2.5 million cubic metres of earth.

A load of tosh: in Victorian Britain ‘toshers’ made their living scavenging in sewers looking for anything worth selling.

In a custom that dates back to 1300s, some villages in Staffordshire and the Peak District still decorate their wells every year to celebrate the clean water they brought to the village.
WaterAid
WaterAid’s vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water and sanitation. The international organisation works in 26 countries across Africa, Asia, Central America and the Pacific Region to transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in some of the world’s poorest communities. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 21 million people with safe water and, since 2004, 18 million people with sanitation. For more information, visit www.wateraid.org
, follow @wateraidUK on Twitter or visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/wateraid

Around 1,400 children die every day from diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation.

748 million people in the world live without safe water. This is roughly one in ten of the world's population.

2.5 billion people live without sanitation; this is 39% of the world's population.

For every £1 invested in water and sanitation, an average of £4 is returned in increased productivity.

Just £15 can enable one person to access safe, clean water.