Soon after the new Palace of Westminster was opened by Queen Victoria more than 160 years ago, London suffered a sweltering hot summer.

On one particularly scorching afternoon in June the stink of sewage from the polluted Thames was so obnoxious it drove Members of Parliament from the chamber of the House of Commons and prompted the Times to write a leading article headlined The Great Stink.

It said: “A few members bent upon investigating the matter to its very depth ventured into the library, but they were instantly driven to retreat, each man with a handkerchief to his nose. We are heartily glad of it.”

For many years, sewage from two million Londoners had been pouring into the river, where it was carried to and fro by the tides. Even those who lived near the banks of the Thames in Woolwich, Erith and Dartford found the smell offensive.

Someone, somehow had to come up with a way of cleansing the river and banishing cholera which, in 15 years, had already carried off approximately 40,000 Londoners. The Great Stink was also The Great Plague (Mk II).

That someone stepped forward in the guise of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, who proceeded to unveil the most innovative civil engineering plan London had then known — and certainly far more important than those already completed by other great Victorian architects and engineers.

His plan was to build a system of intercepting sewers, pumping stations and treatment works using Portland cement, made at Northfleet, as a mortar.

It involved the building of tunnels to take sewage, with the aid of gravity, along both sides of the Thames, travelling to Barking on the north and to marshland at Erith on the south. The cost was estimated at millions of pounds.

The work took many years to complete, but by 1866 the Crossness engines and pumping house was open. Sewage was pumped into a covered reservoir and held until an ebb tide could take it away towards the North Sea. It meant the quality of life of those who lived near the Thames was changing. Newly formed water companies were supplying clean drinking water and the area was finally rid of foul smells and filthy streets.

More important, cholera, typus, smallpox and other water-born diseases were gradually being eradicated.

The Thames was no longer a vast open sewer.

These were not the only elements in Bazalgette’s contribution to the development of London. Under his auspices land was reclaimed from the Thames to construct the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea embankments.

He constructed bridges across the river at Battersea, Putney and Hammersmith. He built Charing Cross Road, Southwark Street, Northumberland Avenue, Queen Victoria Street and Shaftesbury Avenue.

In north Kent, he was the inspiration behind the Woolwich free ferry and it was his idea to build two tunnels under the Thames at Blackwall and Rotherhithe.

He moved almost 40,000 people from insanitary properties to new ones. During the time he held office as chief engineer, Sir Joseph spent in excess of £20m.

I have written a history of Kent in the 19th century and learned much more about Rennie, Brunel, Peto, Stephenson, Nash, Cubbitt and other great engineers and architects.

I have also learned this. Joseph Bazalgette was a genius. His great project probably saved more lives than any single figure in history.