Victorian Toshers: When Sewer Hunting Was an Illegal Profession

While respectable Victorians walked the streets of London above, a secret underworld of "toshers" illegally explored the city's vast sewer system hunting for valuables that had washed down drains. These sewer hunters waded through human waste, toxic gases, and darkness searching for coins, jewelry, silverware, and anything else worth selling. Some died horrible deaths from methane explosions, drowning in sewage, or rat attacks. Others made small fortunes and knew the underground labyrinth better than the city engineers who built it.

Toshers worked illegally - entering sewers was forbidden and carried heavy fines or imprisonment. They knew secret entrances through riverside gratings, hidden manholes, and forgotten access points. The best toshers had mental maps of miles of ...