Abstract
M.A. Taylor’s smoke abatement act in 1821 has been almost neglected by air pollution historians. However, this case study of Leeds revealed that most manufacturers adopted a smoke consumer under the threat of indictments by local smoke abatement committee. However, one of the biggest manufactory owners, Benjamin Gott, had the determination to prove ‘the utter folly’ of such technology at the court session. Another backlash of the local movement was the emergence of new iconography, smoke as a symbol of industrial prosperity. Similarly, the attention to the smoke nuisance seems to have changed the medical views of coal smoke.
