Beginning History: The Great Fire Of London

Product Information

Throughout Monday, the fire spread to the west and north. [58] The spread to the south was mostly halted by the river, but it had torched the houses on London Bridge and was threatening to cross the bridge and endanger the borough of Southwark on the south bank of the river. London Bridge, the only physical connection between the City and the south side of the river Thames, had been noted as a deathtrap in the fire of 1633. [59] However, Southwark was preserved by an open space between buildings on the bridge which acted as a firebreak. [60] [61] is the size of the area within the Roman wall, according to standard reference works (see, for instance, Sheppard, 37), although Tinniswood gives that area as a square mile (667acres). Jeater, Merial (6 December 2016). "3 myths you probably believe about the Great Fire of London". Museum of London. The wind dropped on Tuesday evening, and the firebreaks created by the garrison finally began to take effect on Wednesday, 5September. [97] [98] Pepys climbed the steeple of Barking Church, from which he viewed the destroyed City, "the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw". [99] There were many separate fires still burning, but the Great Fire was over. It took some time until the last traces were put out: coal was still burning in cellars two months later. [100]

Compare Hanson, who claims that they had wheels (76), and Tinniswood, who states that they did not (50). It seemed there was nowhere safe from the fire, so everyone was really worried – including the diary writer Samuel Pepys. A ten-year-old boy called Edward Taylor and his family were questioned for throwing fireballs at an open window in Pudding Lane and in the streets. Fireballs were made from animal fat (called tallow), set alight and used to start fires. However, the fire was most likely caused by chance rather than by a deliberate act.On 5 October, Marc Antonio Giustinian, Venetian Ambassador in France, reported to the Doge of Venice and the Senate, that Louis XIV announced that he would not "have any rejoicings about it, being such a deplorable accident involving injury to so many unhappy people". Louis had made an offer to his aunt, the British Queen Henrietta Maria, to send food and whatever goods might be of aid in alleviating the plight of Londoners, yet he made no secret that he regarded "the fire of London as a stroke of good fortune for him" as it reduced the risk of French ships crossing the English Channel being taken or sunk by the English fleet. [129] [130] Louis tried to take advantage but an attempt by a Franco-Dutch fleet to combine with a larger Dutch fleet ended in failure on 17 September at the Battle of Dungeness when they encountered a larger English fleet led by Thomas Allin. [131] Rebuilding John Evelyn's plan, never carried out, for rebuilding a radically different City of London Christopher Wren's rejected plan for the rebuilding of London Explore our Event Calendar to find educational events throughout the entire year. Each event includes: In addition to the physical changes to London, the Great Fire had a significant demographic, social, political, economic, and cultural impact. The fire "caused the largest dislocation of London's residential structure in its history until the Blitz". [142] Areas to the west of London received the highest number of new residents, but there was a general increase in the population density of the suburbs surrounding London. [143] Approximately 9,000 new houses were built in the area in which over 13,000 had been destroyed, and by 1674 thousands of these remained unoccupied. [144] Tenants who did remain in London saw a significant decrease in the costs of their lease. [145] According to Jacob Field, "the reaction to the Fire revealed England's long-standing hostility to Catholics, which manifested itself most visibly at times of crisis". [120] Allegations that Catholics had started the fire were exploited as powerful political propaganda by opponents of pro-Catholic Charles II's court, mostly during the Popish Plot and the exclusion crisis later in his reign. [151] [120] The Royalist perspective of the fire as accidental was opposed by the Whig view questioning the loyalties of Catholics in general and the Duke of York in particular. [152]

Suspicion soon arose in the threatened city that the fire was no accident. [70] The swirling winds carried sparks and burning flakes long distances to lodge on thatched roofs and in wooden gutters, causing seemingly unrelated house fires to break out far from their source and giving rise to rumours that fresh fires were being set on purpose. Foreigners were immediately suspected because of the ongoing Second Anglo-Dutch War. Fear and suspicion hardened into certainty on Monday, as reports circulated of imminent invasion and of foreign undercover agents seen casting "fireballs" into houses, or caught with hand grenades or matches. [71] [72] [73] There was a wave of street violence. [74] Letwin, William (1963). The Origins of Scientific Economics. Routledge. pp.50–51. ISBN 978-0-415-31329-2.

How did the Great Fire of London start?

Sussman, Nathan; Coffman, D'Maris; Stephenson, Judy (19 November 2020). Financing the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666 (Report). Centre for Economic Policy Research. Two people have left us eyewitness accounts of the fire. The first is Samuel Pepys, who worked for the Navy. He kept a diary from 1660-1669. The second is John Evelyn, who also kept a diary. Both men describe how dramatic and scary the fire was. Townsperson: I’ve heard that more than 300 houses have been burned by a fire, Sir, and it’s still going. The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, [1] gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the wall to the west. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small, [2] [3] although some historians have challenged this belief. [4] Carlson, Jennifer Anne (September 2005). "The economics of fire protection: from the Great Fire of London to Rural/Metro". Economic Affairs. 25 (3): 39–44. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0270.2005.00570.x.

Hmm. We must command the Lord Mayor to pull down all the houses in front of the fire, so it has no fuel to burn, then the fire will die down. Who Was Samuel Pepys? by Paul Harrison – simple biography of Pepy’s life, including a section about his recount of The Great Fire. Historic England. "The Golden Boy of Pye Corner(Grade II) (1286479)". National Heritage List for England.Soon London was filled with smoke. The sky was red with huge flames from the fire. By Monday, 300 houses had burned down. Sabur, Rozina (2 September 2016). "The Great Fire of London, 350th anniversary: How did it start and what happened?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. The Baker’s Boy and the Great Fire of London by Tom Bradman – join Will Farriner as he struggles to prevent London burning. London was a busy city in 1666. It was very crowded. The streets were narrow and dusty. The houses were made of wood and very close together. Inside their homes, people used candles for light and cooked on open fires. A fire could easily get out of control. In those days there were no fire engines or firemen to stop a fire from spreading. The Great Plague epidemic of 1665 is believed to have killed a sixth of London's inhabitants, or 80,000 people, [156] and it is sometimes suggested that the fire saved lives in the long run by burning down so much unsanitary housing with their rats and their fleas which transmitted the plague, as plague epidemics did not recur in London after the fire. [157] During the Bombay plague epidemic two centuries later, this belief led to the burning of tenements as an antiplague measure. [158] The suggestion that the fire prevented further outbreaks is disputed; the Museum of London identifies this as a common myth about the fire. [159] [158]

Rat: So, Pepys went to command the Lord Mayor to pull down the houses, while King Charles II followed up the Thames in his royal barge to see the fire for himself. A committee was established to investigate the cause of the Great Fire, chaired by Sir Robert Brooke. It received many submissions alleging a conspiracy of foreigners and Catholics to destroy London. [124] [125] The committee's report was presented to Parliament on 22 January 1667. Versions of the report that appeared in print concluded that Hubert was one of a number of Catholic plotters responsible for starting the fire. [125] In those days when people wrote diaries, instead of using pens they dipped feather tips in ink and wrote with that instead.Despite this, residents were inclined to put the blame for the fire on foreigners, particularly Catholics, the French, and the Dutch. [120] Trained bands were put on guard and foreigners arrested in locations throughout England. [121] An example of the urge to identify scapegoats for the fire is the acceptance of the confession of a simple-minded French watchmaker named Robert Hubert, who claimed that he was a member of a gang that had started the Great Fire in Westminster. He later changed his story to say that he had started the fire at the bakery in Pudding Lane. Hubert was convicted, despite some misgivings about his fitness to plead, and hanged at Tyburn on 29 October 1666. After his death, it became apparent that he had been on board a ship in the North Sea, and had not arrived in London until two days after the fire started. [122] [123] The lesson could be expanded to ask pupils to attempt a piece of writing on the fire such as a diary entry. The human habitations were crowded, and their design increased the fire risk. The typical multistory timbered London tenement houses had " jetties" (projecting upper floors). They had a narrow footprint at ground level, but maximised their use of land by "encroaching" on the street with the gradually increasing size of their upper storeys. [21] The fire hazard was well perceived when the top jetties all but met across the narrow alleys—"as it does facilitate a conflagration, so does it also hinder the remedy", wrote one observer. [22] In 1661, Charles II issued a proclamation forbidding overhanging windows and jetties, but this was largely ignored by the local government. Charles's next, sharper message in 1665 warned of the risk of fire from the narrowness of the streets and authorised both imprisonment of recalcitrant builders and demolition of dangerous buildings. It too had little impact. [23] Porter, Stephen (28 September 2006). "The great fire of London". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/95647. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Tinniswood, Adrian (2003). By Permission of Heaven: The Story of the Great Fire of London. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-06226-3.