Songsheet cover for 'The lamentation of Old Father Thames' written & sung by Mr Hudson & Mr Taylor at public dinners. The cover is printed with a black & white illustration by William Heath showing Old Father Thames arising from a polluted River stating 'Here's a mess I am in'. The bearded figure is surrounded by captioned images of a putrefied Thames as a common sewer and diseased 'white bait looking black' and 'ghosts of departed flounders'. This popular song made reference to the polluted condition of the River Thames which, by the 1850s, was overflowing with waste from sewers, slaughter-houses, tanneries and factories, stable dung, and rotting food.
