[3] In 1880, meteorologist Rollo Russell wrote an influential pamphlet, London Fogs, noting that "numerous deaths occur in the course of the year from smoke-fogs, not unusually thick, producing or increasing diseases of the lungs".

[9] It was apparent that pollution was a real and deadly problem, and the smog's effects were a notable milestone in the modern environmental movement.

The government appointed a Committee on Air Pollution chaired by the civil engineer Sir Hugh Beaver to investigate the problem in London.

The committee proposed that domestic coal should be replaced by coke, and that greater reliance should be placed on other 'smokeless' fuels such as electricity and gas.

[13] The Authority claimed that installing scrubbers in all power stations would entail an annual capital investment of £10 million and would increase the cost of electricity by 0.1 d. per kWh, therefore exceeding the cost-effectiveness criterion suggested in the draft Beaver report.

The British Electricity Authority was also critical that the Beaver committee had made no serious attempt to assess the relative economics of different ways of reducing atmospheric pollution.

By shifting domestic sources of heat towards cleaner coals, electricity, and gas, it reduced the amount of smoke pollution and sulphur dioxide from household fires.

During the London fog of 2–5 December 1957 smoke and sulphur dioxide concentrations reached levels comparable to 1952 and there were 760–1,000 deaths.

[18] The provisions of the 1956 act were extended by the Clean Air Act 1968 (c. 62), which made it an offence to emit dark smoke from a chimney, empowered the Minister to define limits for emissions of grit and dust from furnaces, defined requirements for arrestment plant to be fitted to new furnaces, and provided a framework for control of the height and position of chimneys.