<論説>一八世紀イギリスにおける煤煙をめぐる言説と煤煙対策の展開

Abstract

イギリスの大気汚染史においては王権による煤煙対策が行われた一七世紀と近代的な煤煙対策が始まった一九世紀以降に研究が集中している。この論文では、これまで空白期だと考えられてきた一八世紀を、近世的な煤煙対策から近代的な煤煙対策の移行期と位置づける。最初に、煙のイメージは地理的、時間的、社会的に多様性を持つものであったこと、煙が必ずしも否定的なイメージを伴っていなかったことを明らかにする。煤煙対策としては、工芸振興協会から出された煤煙を削減する技術に関する懸賞が見られたが、本格的な対策はボールトン・ワット商会による技術の発明が最初であり、これは利用が拡大した蒸気機関による煤煙問題への対応だった。この発明は改良法への煤煙条項の導入を後押しするものだった。産業革命と大気汚染対策には、対策枠組みの形成という面においてはほとんど時間的なずれがないことを示す。

This paper explores the various perceptions of smoke and the development of smoke abatement technology in eighteenth-century England. Compared with the multiple attempts made to remove polluting trades from the vicinity of the Royal Palace in London in the seventeenth century and smoke abatement movements in the nineteenth century, the eighteenth century lacks such obvious efforts to deal with smoke. However, the views of smoke and smoke abatement technology that developed in the eighteenth century served as the foundations of nineteenth-century smoke abatement movements. In other words, the eighteenth century was the transitional period from seventeenth-century attempts, which were made using royal power, to nineteenth-century middle-class-oriented and more national movements. This paper consists of three sections: smoke iconography, medical views of smoke, and the development of 'smoke consumption' technology. The section on smoke iconography explores perceptions of smoke in the eighteenth century. London had been associated with smoke from as early as the seventeenth century. John Evelyn's pamphlet on London's smoke nuisance (1661) is often quoted by historians as an example of early dissent over smoke. However, Evelyn's opinion was not the most widely accepted view of London smoke, and the association between London and smoke tended to have positive implications in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, in the second half of the century, the association became negative. In addition to London, some provincial towns and industrial sites were also associated with smoke. Especially, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the industrial sublime became a genre of aesthetic landscape and industrial smoke was one of the key elements of such landscape. Industrial sublime often symbolised economic prosperity and national power as consequences of industrial development. The section on medical views of smoke section argues that medical experts generally denied the negative impact of coal smoke on human health throughout the eighteenth century. Conventionally, medical experts believed that coal smoke was disinfectant and therefore, smoke problems were nuisance problems, not a health problem per se. Though Evelyn argued in his pamphlet that coal smoke was unwholesome and some eighteenth-century physicians supported the view, the mainstream of medical theory throughout the period was that smoke was not unwholesome. Finally, this paper examines the development of smoke abatement technology, namely 'smoke consumers' The idea of consuming smoke, or complete combustion in the modern phrase, had already existed in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, the realisation of the idea needed to await James Watt's patent. The Royal Society of Arts offered a premium for the technology from 1767 but with little result. Despite this premium, it was individual manufacturers' need and initiative which developed the technology. For example, James Watt invented a smoke abatement apparatus in order to deal with the smoke nuisance. Because of Watt's improvements in steam engines, the number of engines rapidly increased in urban areas, and the consequent nuisance was felt by the manufacturers themselves as well as by the inhabitants. Watt's invention encouraged the introduction of the smoke clause in the Manchester and Salford Police Act (1792). Similar clauses were introduced to other towns' improvement acts and these clauses were the first legal development to abate smoke. It is generally believed that there was a temporal gap between the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent response to pollution. However, this paper shows that measures to address smoke problems were at least formed as early as the late eighteenth century when the use of steam engines expanded to urban areas and the nuisances caused by the engines were first seriously perceived. The development of smoke abatement technology and the smoke clauses were the foundations of nineteenth century efforts to abate smoke, and they had already appeared in late eighteenth- century industrialising English towns.