Robert Thorne: What the Victorians can still do for us

True to the blame culture of our time, we are invited to rebuke the Victorians for landing us with such a problem. Of course, they can’t answer from beyond the grave. If they could, they would rightly point out that we should be duly grateful that they bequeathed a legacy – in water mains and a great deal else – which has lasted so well.

It used to be common to poke fun at the Victorians – at their pomposity, their hypocrisy, their belief in class distinctions. There may still be aspects of the Victorian age we find hard to stomach, but with the passage of time it becomes easier to forgive their absurdities and to respect what they achieved. In the world of building and construction management, did they do things better than we do now, and what lessons can they teach us?

Which takes us back to the subject of water mains. Joseph Bazalgette’s intercepting sewer system, completed in 1865, is one of the most far-sighted infrastructure projects London has ever seen, particularly since the construction of the main sewer was combined with the building of the Victoria Embankment and the tunnels of the District line. The scale of what was achieved allowed for the future expansion of London.

In the same manner, William Barlow persuaded the directors of the Midland Railway to build a larger and more flexible terminus at St Pancras than they needed at the time. We have benefited from that spirit of generosity, which has allowed the transformation of the station to accommodate the Eurostar. Amidst all the praise for the re-invention of St Pancras, few have paused to consider that it never would have happened if Barlow had not been so forward thinking. How many of today’s projects take the same long-term view?

St Pancras is also a reminder that when they had to, the Victorians could build with ruthless efficiency. Most of the station was built in about two years, including the design and use of a complex scaffold which allowed work on the arched roof to proceed ahead of the enclosing walls. The rebuilding of the Royal Opera House after a fire in 1856 was even faster, completed in just six months and involving immensely complex logistics, under contractor Charles Lucas, to erect the wrought iron roof beams and prefabricated joinery.

I wish we knew more about how such construction programmes were achieved. In part it was the sheer number of people employed – 10% of the adult male population worked in building, according to the census of 1861. But it was also because people knew instinctively what was expected of them. Sites ran themselves much more than they do today.

Of course, only the best has survived. The Victorians had their Building Acts, but there were far fewer codes and regulations than today. The result seems to be that the range of quality was much greater than we see today. At the top end – major churches, museums, hospitals and country houses – construction standards were higher than for comparable buildings of recent years.

If you don’t believe me, look again at some much-feted architectural prize-winners of the last decade. But at the bottom end, Victorian buildings could be appallingly shoddy, particularly housing run up by jobbing builders with only minimal supervision.

The final contrast between then and now – and one which again we can learn from – is that the building world of the Victorians was not nearly as compartmentalised as today. You could go to the RIBA in the 1850s or 1860s and expect to hear lectures on construction, archaeology and history, as well as contemporary architectural developments.

The building press was just as wide-ranging and inclusive. The Builder, the leading journal of its kind, had a readership which fully reflected the breadth of its coverage, from Prince Albert and Florence Nightingale to building workers of all kinds. We should envy such a scale of interest and engagement.

When our water mains have finally been replaced, let’s hope they survive for as long as their predecessors did. In the meantime, we would do well to restrain our criticism of the Victorians’ legacy – and fix our sights on the same distant horizons as Barlow and Lucas.