Traffic in smog at night, 1956 2017.36/4 Sergeant Major of the Grenadier

Sergeant Major of the Grenadier Guards wearing medals at the Chelsea Barracks

Salt Office

A decade or so after Reid photographed this exterior

The Water Chute at Battersea Park Funfair

Perkins and Company brewery in Park Street

Traffic in smog at night, 1956 2017.36/4 Sergeant Major of the GrenadierTraffic in smog at night. Heavy smog was common in London in the 1950s and this photograph was taken only four years after the Great Smog of 1952, which claimed at least 8,000 lives, half of which in the immediate aftermath of the Smog. Following an investigation, Parliament passed the Clean Air Act of 1956, which marked London's move away from coal burning as the primary heating source to gas, oil and electricity.