Editing River Thames (section)

===Early modern period===
[[File:Frost Fair on the Thames, with Old London Bridge in the distance - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|[[River Thames frost fair]], {{Circa|1685}}]]

The Stuart monarchs and the City of London organised pageants on the river, including ''[[London's Love to Prince Henry]]'' in May 1610,<ref>David M. Bergeron, ''The Duke of Lennox, 1574–1624: A Jacobean Courtier's Life'' (Edinburgh, 2022), pp. 78–79.</ref> and a theatrical sea battle for the [[Wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate]] in February 1613.<ref>[[Nadine Akkerman]], ''Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts'' (Oxford, 2022), p. 85.</ref> During a [[Little Ice Age|series of cold winters]] the Thames froze over above London Bridge: in the first [[Thames frost fairs|Frost Fair]] in 1607, a tent city was set up on the river, along with a number of amusements, including ice bowling. 

In good conditions, barges travelled daily from Oxford to London carrying timber, wool, foodstuffs and livestock. The stone from the [[Cotswolds]] used to rebuild [[St Paul's Cathedral]] after the [[Great Fire of London|Great Fire]] in 1666 was brought all the way down from [[Radcot]]. The Thames provided the major route between the City of London and Westminster in the 16th and 17th centuries; the clannish guild of watermen ferried Londoners from landing to landing and tolerated no outside interference. In 1715, [[Thomas Doggett]] was so grateful to a local waterman for his efforts in ferrying him home, pulling against the tide, that he set up a rowing race for professional watermen known as "[[Doggett's Coat and Badge]]".

[[File:FaradayFatherThames.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Michael Faraday]] giving his card to Father Thames'', caricature commenting on a letter of Faraday's [[Great Stink|on the state of the river]] in ''[[The Times]]'' in July 1855]]

By the 18th century, the Thames was one of the world's busiest waterways, as London became the centre of the vast, mercantile [[British Empire]], and progressively over the next century the docks expanded in the [[Isle of Dogs]] and beyond. Efforts were made to resolve the navigation conflicts upstream by building locks along the Thames. After temperatures began to rise again, starting in 1814, the river stopped freezing over.<ref name=freeze2>{{cite web |title=Frost Fairs, London, UK |date=11 March 2003 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A970733 |publisher=BBC |access-date=21 March 2007 |archive-date=6 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100106190310/https://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A970733 |url-status=live}}</ref> The building of a new [[London Bridge]] in 1825, with fewer [[pier (architecture)|piers]] (pillars) than the old, allowed the river to flow more freely and prevented it from freezing over in cold winters.<ref name=freeze1>{{cite web |title=London, River Thames and Tower Bridge |url=http://www.vrlondon.co.uk/london_virtual_tour/source/lon7.html |publisher=VR London |access-date=21 March 2007 |archive-date=16 May 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070516023416/http://www.vrlondon.co.uk/london_virtual_tour/source/lon7.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

Throughout early modern history the population of London and its industries discarded their rubbish in the river.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/external/la21/articles/stink.htm |title=Thames and Waterways |publisher=London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham |access-date=17 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150415055701/http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/external/la21/articles/stink.htm |archive-date=15 April 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref> This included the waste from slaughterhouses, fish markets, and tanneries. The buildup in household cesspools could sometimes overflow, especially when it rained, and was washed into London's streets and sewers which eventually led to the Thames.<ref>{{cite book |authorlink=Jonathan Schneer |first=Jonathan |last=Schneer |title=The Thames |pages=145–146 |publisher=Yale University Press |date=2005 |isbn=9780300107869}}</ref> In the late 18th and 19th centuries people known as [[mudlark]]s scavenged in the river mud for a meagre living.