Which London river did Faraday criticize in an 1855 letter to The Times?

Michael Faraday criticized the River Thames in an 1855 letter to The Times.

On 7 July 1855, Faraday published “Observations on the Filth of the Thames” after travelling by steamboat between London and Hungerford Bridges. He described the river as an opaque, pale-brown fluid and tested its murkiness by dropping pieces of white card into the water. They disappeared almost immediately below the surface.

The letter appeared during the period remembered as the Great Stink, when untreated sewage and industrial waste made the Thames exceptionally foul. Faraday’s report was not merely rhetorical: he used direct observation to document the river’s opacity and smell. The episode is sometimes confused with Faraday’s investigations of industrial pollution elsewhere, but this particular letter concerned the Thames in central London.