Thu May 16 2002 at 16:22:07 "Londoners who can remember the state of London and of the Thames about thirty-five years ago, before those vast undertakings of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the system of main drainage and the magnificent Thames Embankment, which have contributed so much to sanitary improvement and to the convenience and stateliness of this immense city, will regret the death of the able official chief engineer, Sir Joseph Bazalgette." Illustrated London News, March 1891. Thus read the obituary of perhaps one of the greatest engineers of the 19 th century. Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819-1891) was responsible for public health works on an unprecedented scale in the largest city the world had ever known - London. As an engineer he was well known and respected by such contemporaries as Sir William Cubitt, George Parker Bidder, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Robert Stephenson and Thomas Hawksley. Yet he is now largely forgotten, and despite the key rôle he played in the development of the City of London, he has no published biography. The wide implications of his work, and their bearing on the development of his field, are still relevant today.