- When was the Great Fire of London?<\/a><\/li>\n
- How did the Great Fire of London start?<\/a><\/li>\n
- The Great Fire of London: eye-witness accounts<\/a><\/li>\n
- What did people do when the fire broke out?<\/a><\/li>\n
- The aftermath of the Great Fire of London<\/a><\/li>\n
- How many people died in the Great Fire of London?<\/a><\/li>\n
- How was London rebuilt after the Great Fire of London?<\/a><\/li>\n
- 10 lesser-known facts about the Great Fire of London<\/a><\/li>\n
- Great Fire of London: through the eyes of Samuel Pepys<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>
The Great Fire of London: key facts<\/h4>\n
When was the Great Fire of London?<\/strong><\/p>\n
2 September 1666 to 5 September 1666<\/p>\n
How much damage did it cause?<\/strong><\/p>\n
It is thought that the Great Fire of London destroyed up to four-fifths of the City of London, including most of the civic buildings, old St Paul\u2019s Cathedral, 87 churches, and around 13,000 houses<\/p>\n
How many people died in the Great Fire of London?<\/strong><\/p>\n
\u201cThough we do not know exactly how many people died as a result of the Great Fire of London, it was almost certainly more than commonly accepted figures,\u201d says historian Rebecca Rideal<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
When was the Great Fire of London?<\/h2>\n
The Great Fire of London began on Sunday 2 September 1666. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys<\/a> \u2013 from whom we know a great deal about the event \u2013 was enjoying a good night\u2019s rest at the time; the previous day he\u2019d been to the theatre, avoided someone he didn\u2019t like and repaired to Islington. He ate, drank and became \u201cmighty merry\u201d, before singing all the way home, writing some letters and falling into bed. Hardly surprising, then, that when his maid called him at three o\u2019clock in the morning to look at a fire across town, he decided it was far enough away not to worry about and went straight back to sleep.<\/p>\n
The Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, took one look at the blaze, declared ‘a woman might piss it out’, and went back to sleep <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Pepys wasn\u2019t the only one. The Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, took one look at the blaze, declared \u201ca woman might piss it out,\u201d and dived back under the covers. In the days that followed, his weak leadership added fuel to a fire that became one of the greatest catastrophes the city has seen. A spark from a baker\u2019s oven grew into an all-consuming monster that lasted four days. The immediate aftermath was homelessness and ruin for thousands, but the effects can still be seen today.<\/p>\n
How did the Great Fire of London start?<\/h2>\n
The Great Fire began when someone in Thomas Farynor\u2019s Pudding Lane bakery failed to securely damp down the oven before going to bed. By Monday evening, 300 houses had burned \u2013 the final toll would top 13,000.<\/p>\n
Divine retribution?<\/h4>\n
Mystics, fortune tellers and especially Puritans had predicted doom for the city\u2019s modern, sinful ways even before the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. London, led by the decadent Charles II<\/a>, enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and was, according to the deeply religious, ripe for a tumble. It was, they claimed, already happening. The Great Plague<\/a> had taken 100,000 lives the previous year and invasion by the Dutch seemed to be only a matter of time.<\/p>\n
The \u2018666\u2019 number had not gone unnoticed either. In 1597, an anonymous pamphlet, Babylon is Fallen, had suggested 1666 would be the Year of the Beast, perhaps even the time of Christ\u2019s second coming. Oddly, afterwards, it was commemorated by poet John Dryden as an annus mirabilis (\u2018year of wonders\u2019).<\/p>\n
Restoration London<\/a> was frivolous and worldly, bustling and cosmopolitan. On narrow, dirty and dark streets, rickety houses were built from wood and thatch. Their protruding upper storeys, \u2018jetties\u2019, almost met at the top. Filth rained onto unwary pedestrians from upstairs windows. Inside, people lit their houses with candles and cooked with open fires. There was hay in the stables, pitch on the roofs, tar in the shipyards and even gunpowder in many homes, as Cromwell\u2019s soldiers retained their muskets from the civil wars. Given the city\u2019s flammability, doom-mongers\u2019 predictions of an apocalyptic inferno could hardly be deemed radical.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
The Great Fire of London: eye-witness accounts<\/h2>\n
We have several eye-witness accounts of the fire.\u00a0 The most famous is that of Pepys, whose access to famous figures such as the King, the Duke of York and the Lord Mayor make his version pivotal. Pepys\u2019s friend John Evelyn, another diarist, lived in Deptford but came to town to see the kerfuffle. Letters and memoirs from ordinary people provide glimpses of what went on below the surface. Sir Edward Harley\u2019s account mentions Farynor\u2019s bakery maid, who, he says, was too scared to climb onto the roof next door with the rest of the household and became the fire\u2019s first victim. Unless in the fire\u2019s immediate path, people didn\u2019t panic \u2013 at first. Strong winds from the east, however, fanned the flames, and disagreement and indecision allowed things to get out of hand. Postmaster James Hickes was forced to flee from the post office, but not before taking as many letters as he could carry. With no reliable information, rumour and hearsay took over.<\/p>\n
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Firefighting was the job of the Watch, \u2018bell-men\u2019 who patrolled the streets at night. Every church stored basic equipment \u2013 fire hooks (long poles to demolish precarious buildings), ladders, leather buckets, axes and \u2018squirts\u2019 (the 17th-century Super Soaker). The few \u2018fire engines\u2019 were clumsy and the river had no quays, so firefighters had to trundle them to the water as best they could. Several toppled into the Thames.<\/p>\n
The Museum of London holds an incomplete fire engine from around 1678. As part of their \u2018Fire! Fire!\u2019 project, they commissioned Croford Coachbuilders to rebuild the missing parts. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t until we put it together again that we could see how it would work,\u201d explains Meriel Jeater, curator of the Museum of London\u2019s \u2018Fire! Fire!\u2019 exhibition. \u201cNow the wheels are back on we\u2019ve realised it\u2019s really difficult to turn corners.\u201d The default fire-fighting technique was demolition, but faced with that prospect, the Lord Mayor demurred. He may have feared being personally held to account for the damage, but, whatever his reasons, Bloodworth became a hate figure.<\/p>\n
Pepys described him as \u201ca silly man\u201d. In one of Pepys\u2019s proudest moments, he was called to court to describe the fire to the Kingand the Duke of York. He advised a troubled Charles that buildings must be pulled down. \u201cThe King commanded me to go to my Lord Mayor from him, and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down before the fire every way. The Duke of York bid me tell him that if he would have any more soldiers he shall.\u201d Pepys made his way back, noting \u201cevery creature coming away loaden with goods to save, and here and there sicke people carried away in beds\u201d.<\/p>\n
When he found Bloodworth, the mayor was \u201clike a man spent, with a handkercher about his neck. To the King\u2019s message he cried, like a fainting woman, \u2018Lord! What can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.\u2019\u201d Bloodworth refused the Duke of York\u2019s soldiers and disappeared to \u201crefresh himself, having been up all night\u201d. Disgusted, Pepys reflected he appeared to be \u201ca very weak man\u201d.<\/p>\n
People moved valuables to nearby \u2018safety\u2019, then again, and again as the flames licked closer. \u201cI did remove my money and iron chests into my cellar, as thinking that the safest place,\u201d recounts Pepys. \u201cAnd got my bags of gold into my office, ready to carry away, and my chief papers of accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t long before he would bury his wine and parmesan cheese, for safekeeping. The diarist was helped by the wife of a colleague, Sir William Batten, when, at 4am on Monday 3 September, she sent a cart to carry his things to the safety of a house in Bethnal Green. Pepys didn\u2019t like the Battens \u2013 and is regularly rude about them in his diary \u2013 but for once he was grateful. Most Londoners weren\u2019t so lucky.<\/p>\n
What did people do when the fire broke out?<\/h2>\n
London streamed with people trying to get out, gridlocked by narrow streets and bottlenecked by the eight gates in the old Roman wall. The river jammed with boats. \u201cHere we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges & boates laden with what some had time & courage to save, as on the other, the Carts &c. carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with moveables of all sorts, & Tents erecting to shelter both people & what goods they could get away,\u201d writes John Evelyn who, on hearing the news, couldn\u2019t resist taking his wife and son to Southwark to watch the carnage from the South Bank.<\/p>\n
Pepys noted that one-in-three boats boasted a pair of virginals (a keyboard instrument) and most of the saved goods were, unsurprisingly, luxuries. One witness, Robert Flatman, writing to his lawyer brother, tells him his chambers are down \u2013 but his books are safe. The Museum of London holds a half-finished embroidery and set of bed-hangings said to have been saved from the flames.<\/p>\n
Most burned. Excavations have fetched up crusty, rusted lumps which, under X-ray, reveal themselves as a padlock and several keys, fused together in London\u2019s furnace.\u00a0 A large iron lump turned out to be a heavy-duty waffle iron, just like ones used today. Archaeologists found, in a building two doors from Farynor\u2019s bakery, melted hooks and eyes, as we might use on clothes, along with heat-twisted window glass and partly-melted ceramic floor tiles. \u201cWe understand it must have been at least 1,200 degrees to do that,\u201d says Jeater.<\/p>\n
The fire brought out the worst in some. Fourteen-yearold schoolboy William Taswell, who roamed the ruins, describes his father being robbed by people pretending to help… <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
However chaotic the flow out of town, it was almost as busy going towards the blaze. With carts and boats suddenly at a premium, it didn\u2019t take long for country folk to realise they could charge extortionate rates to desperate refugees. The fire brought out the worst in some. Fourteen-year-old schoolboy William Taswell, who roamed the ruins, describes his father being robbed by people pretending to help, and mobs attacking foreigners, who were increasingly blamed for the disaster.<\/p>\n
But while the Lord Mayor dragged his heels, first-hand reports describe King Charles up to his ankles in water helping to fight the flames. Londoners were impressed at the king\u2019s \u201clabouring in person\u201d and if, to modern ears, his later declaration that no one had lost more than himself doesn\u2019t sound too diplomatic, they knew what he meant.<\/p>\n
Pepys, who had initially taken a boat to watch the fire \u2013 before \u201cfire drops\u201d raining from the sky made it too dangerous \u2013 had his family\u2019s safety in mind. When his wife Elizabeth woke him at 2am with the flames at the bottom of their lane, it was time to get out. \u201cLord what sad sight it was by moone-light to see, the whole City almost on fire that you might see it plain at Woolwich,\u201d he wrote, having taken a boat to the nearby port.<\/p>\n
His family safe, Pepys dashed back expecting to find his home consumed, but it wasn\u2019t. The wind had changed, causing the flames to switch course. Pepys climbed the church tower (brave, given its clock had burned) \u201cand there saw the saddest sight of desolation that\u00a0I ever saw; everywhere great fires, oylecellars and brimstone and other things burning\u201d. He picked his way through the streets, his \u201cfeet ready to burn, walking through the towne among the hot coles\u201d, and picking up a piece of glass as a souvenir \u201cmelted and buckled with the heat of the fire like parchment\u201d. He watched \u201ca poor cat taken out of a hole in the chimney, joyning to the wall of the Exchange; with, the hair all burned off the body, and yet alive\u201d.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the only time he noted the animals: \u201cThe poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till they were some of them burned their wings, and fell down.\u201d Then at Moorfields he witnessed human suffering. Refugees, who had lost everything overnight, camped in the open air. He described the \u201cwretches\u201d, remarking how prices had taken a sharp hike during the fire: \u201ctwopence for a plain pennyloaf\u201d.<\/p>\n
A city in ruin: the aftermath of the Great Fire of London<\/h2>\n
Probably due to the demolition-policy, the fire stopped at Pye (Pie) Corner on the west of the city, on 5 September, but London was decimated. St Paul\u2019s Cathedral lay in ruins, joined by scores of churches, thousands of homes and the city\u2019s only bridge, itself once covered in shops and dwellings.<\/p>\n
People wandered, dazed, through the rubble, looking for their old homes and haunts. Evelyn moved \u201cwith extraordinary difficulty, clambring over mountaines of yet smoking rubbish, & frequently mistaking where I was, the ground under my feete so hott, as made me not onely Sweate, but even burnt the soles of my shoes\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a mystery as to why more deaths aren\u2019t recorded <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
How many people died in the Great Fire of London?<\/h2>\n
After the fire, the Parish Clerks\u2019 bills of mortality, listing causes of death, were collated, with just six deaths appearing to have been fire-related. \u201cIt\u2019s a mystery as to why more deaths aren\u2019t recorded,\u201d says Jeater. \u201cThere must have been more.\u201d The true figure of deaths during the Great Fire of London may never be known.<\/p>\n
The small number of deaths, however, meant mass misery. Gigantic encampments of around 100,000 homeless people appeared outside the city walls. \u201cThe fields are the only receptacle which they can find for themselves and their goods,\u201d writes witness Thomas Vincent, \u201cmost of the late inhabitants of London lie all night in the open air, with no other canopy over them but that of the heavens.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Evelyn, he went north to Islington and Highgate, where \u201ctwo hundred thousand people of all ranks & degrees, dispersed & laying along by their heapes of what they could save from the Incendium, deploring their losse, & though ready to perish for hunger & destitution, yet not asking one penny for reliefe\u201d.<\/p>\n
Relief, asked for or not, was on its way, by order of the King. On 10 October, people across the country went to church, fasted for the day and donated money to destitute Londoners. The new lord mayor, Sir William Bolton, for whom everyone had high hopes after Bloodworth, was in charge of administrating the \u00a312,000 raised. It all ended in scandal, however, when he couldn\u2019t account for \u00a31,800 and had to resign. Pepys, no fan of his predecessor, called Bolton\u2019s actions \u201cthe greatest piece of roguery that they say was ever found in a Lord Mayor\u201d.<\/p>\n
London was never be the same again. \u201cI could not sleep till almost two in the morning through thoughts of fire,\u201d Pepys wrote months later, in February 1667. Rebuilding, with fire-resistant bricks and mortar, had begun, but the mental scars would be harder to erase.<\/p>\n
Paying the price: fire judges<\/h3>\n
Nobody agreed about who should pay for rebuilding after the Great Fire of London. Many landlords required tenants to continue paying for homes that didn\u2019t exist anymore \u2013 some even claimed tenants should rebuild their homes at their own expense. The Fire of London Disputes Act declared: \u201cEvery one concerned should beare a proportionable share of the losse according to their severall Interests,\u201d but admitted that \u201cwherein in respect of the multitude of cases varying in their circumstances, noe certaine generall rule can be prescribed.\u201d To oversee disputes at the Fire Court, 22 men were recruited as firen judges. Speed was imperative, so they usually pronounced judgement within a day of hearing cases. They gave up their time free of charge and heard hundreds of cases. Between 1671-74, portraits of each judge were painted as a thank you.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
How was London rebuilt after the Great Fire of London?<\/h2>\n
The ground may have been too hot to walk on, but that didn\u2019t stop plans for rebuilding. First off the mark was Christopher Wren (not yet a \u2018sir\u2019) on 11 September, with a handsome peacock-tail grid of boulevards radiating from a central monument. He was followed by John Evelyn with a similar structure, containing an elegant kite-design at its centre. There were more radical suggestions, such as the severe, box-like grid of identical squares by Richard Newcourt, or retired army officer Valentine Knight\u2019s terrifying ladderfest of tiny streets.<\/p>\n
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The plans received varying levels of excitement by Charles II, but none found favour with Londoners. No landowner was prepared to see his few square feet consumed into a giant communal grid. So the medieval criss-cross of alleyways and courtyards was rebuilt, albeit with wider streets and one new road. Strict building regulations dictated construction. Sensible, straight-sided houses were to be built in brick and stone only, with no overhanging jetties. There should be guttering with pipes, not spouts, and the Thames was to have proper quays, accessible by fire engines. Smoke-producing and other dangerous industries were to be sited together, a plan that pleased Evelyn, who had written Fumifugium, one of the first treatise on air pollution in London, in 1661.<\/p>\n
Royal surveyor Wren was put in charge of the complex rebuild, working closely with his friend Robert Hooke, the city surveyor (and another polymath, known as an inventor, physicist, astronomer, biologist and artist).<\/p>\n
Some structures had survived. The church of St Katherine Cree acted as a canteen for the thousands of labourers building the new city. Its brand-new rose window had been based on one in the old St Paul\u2019s and, today, provides an idea as to how the previous cathedral looked. The Guildhall needed a new roof, but was otherwise relatively unscathed. A merchant\u2019s house, now the OldWine Shades in Martin Lane, and one of the city\u2019s last half-timbered buildings, 41\u201342 Cloth Fair also survived both the Great Fire and the Second World War<\/a>. Oddly, there are very few surviving private houses. Lack of good quality materials and poor workmanship ensured most fell down quickly. Wren was very fussy about his materials, ensuring the great public buildings of the time, including St Paul\u2019s Cathedral, were built to last.<\/p>\n
Man with the plan: Christopher Wren<\/h4>\n
Scientist, mathematician, architect, engineer, Christopher Wren was one of a growing group of 17th-century polymaths. The son of a rector, he had grown to prominence as a professor of astronomy, first at London\u2019s Gresham College, then Oxford. He mingled with the great minds of the day and became a founding member of the Royal Society. When Wren visited Paris, he became inspired by continental baroque design, which, combined with his love of physics and engineering, created his own unique style.<\/p>\n
In charge of rebuilding London, Wren grew frustrated that his original plans were rejected, but he oversaw 51 new churches (23 still survive). His pi\u00e9ce de resistance was, of course, St Paul\u2019s Cathedral. It was a building site before the fire, with piecemeal renovation ongoing instead of Wren\u2019s requested wholesale demolition, which had been refused. But during the Great Fire, the wooden scaffolding surrounding the building created a mini-furnace \u2013 so Wren got his way after all. He was knighted in 1673 and went on to design many other famous London landmarks, including the royal hospitals at Greenwich and Chelsea.<\/p>\n
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London<\/a> demanded a monument to the great disasters, and Christopher Wren was happy to oblige. He \u2013 and his friend Robert Hooke \u2013 couldn\u2019t bear the idea of a useless pillar at a time stone was so precious, so the pair of fanatical astronomers sneakily created a precision-instrument, disguised as a classical column. Opened in 1677, its spiral staircase has an open centre, with a secret door at the gilded urn at the top. This meant that Wren and Hooke could sit in an underground room, with their zenith telescope pointed through the stairs and the open trapdoor towards the heavens. Sadly, the only thing the two scientists couldn\u2019t control was the rumble of traffic on the cobbled streets outside, which made their telescope practically unusable.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
Who was to blame for the Great Fire of London?<\/h2>\n
Everyone looked to blame someone for the fire, with Roman Catholics under most suspicion, followed closely by foreigners. Things got ugly.<\/p>\n
Then, out of the blue, French watchmaker Robert Hubert confessed. His story was shaky \u2013 he claimed he started the fire in Westminster, despite the flames never even reaching that far, then changed his tale to Pudding Lane, the fire\u2019s base. Hubert\u2019s mental condition was clearly unstable. The Earl of Clarendon watched his trail and described him as \u201ca poor, distracted wretch\u201d. Even the judge didn\u2019t believe him, but he stuck to his story and all they could do was hang him. After his death, it was discovered Hubert hadn\u2019t even been in London when the fire started.<\/p>\n
Much of the blame culture was so Londoners could avoid looking at themselves <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Much of the blame culture was so Londoners could avoid looking at themselves. Thomas Vincent, a Puritan preacher, published God\u2019s Terrible Voice in the City by Plague and Fire in 1667, voicing what many secretly suspected \u2013 that God punished them for their sinful ways, not least those of Charles II\u2019s extravagant court. In 1681, a plaque blaming papists for the fire was erected in Pudding Lane. It had to be removed in the 18th century, not as it offended Catholics, but as it caused congestion as people stopped to read it. An inscription on the Monument itself, also blaming the Roman church, wouldn\u2019t be removed until the 1830s.<\/p>\n
This article was first published in the September 2016 issue of BBC History Revealed<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
Great Fire of London: 10 facts<\/h2>\n
Historian Rebecca Rideal\u00a0shares 10 lesser-known facts about the Great Fire of London<\/strong><\/h3>\n
On 5 September 1666, the 33-year-old Samuel Pepys<\/a> climbed the steeple of the ancient church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower and was met with the \u201cthe saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw; everywhere great fires, oyle-cellars, and brimstone, and other things burning\u201d. Leaving the church, he wandered along Gracechurch Street, Fenchurch Street and Lombard Street towards the Royal Exchange, which he found to be \u201ca sad sight\u201d with all the pillars and statues (except one of Sir Thomas Gresham) destroyed. The ground scorched his feet and he found nothing but dust, ash and ruins. It was the fourth day of the Great Fire of London and, though some parts of the city would continue to burn for months, the worst of the destruction was finally over.<\/p>\n
Thanks in part to Pepys\u2019s vivid diary entries, the story of the Great Fire is well known. Alongside the fortunes of Henry VIII\u2019s wives<\/a>, the Battle of Britain<\/a> and the fate of Guy Fawkes<\/a>, it forms part of a scattering of familiar islands in the muddy quagmire of British history. We all know, roughly speaking, what happened: during the early hours of 2 September 1666, a fire broke out in Thomas Farriner\u2019s bakehouse on Pudding Lane, which blazed and spread with such ferocity and speed that within a few days the old City of London was reduced to a charred ruin. More than 13,000 houses, 87 churches and 44 livery halls were destroyed, the historic city gates were wrecked, and the Guildhall, St Paul\u2019s Cathedral, Baynard\u2019s Castle and the Royal Exchange were severely damaged \u2013 in some cases, beyond repair.<\/p>\n
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