simply tubs carried on runners, long poles or wheels. Water was still
supplied to the site of the fire by the bucket brigade. The tub
functioned as a reservoir and sometimes housed a hand-operated pump that
forced water through a pipe or nozzle to waiting buckets.
3
The early Stages of the Fire
The flames spread to London Bridge, where they threatened to burn the
structure and bring it crashing into the Thames. Luckily this did not happen,
as an open space in between two groups of buildings, which had served as a
firebreak in 1632, yet again saved Southwark from destruction (on the south
of the Thames). The gap confined the Fire to the City of London.
When the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bludworth4, was first roused, he was
famously unimpressed, claiming that ‘a woman might piss it out’. King
Charles II and Samuel Pepys, a naval officer, wanted some houses around the
fire demolished. The mayor did not comply and thought the seriousness of
the Fire too minor to bother. Also, he would be responsible for the rebuilding
of those houses, and he was not willing to spend the money. Later, King
Charles ordered the demolition of these houses, so the mayor had no choice
but to do so. The inactions of the mayor share the blame of letting the Fire
cause such devastation.
4
The second day of the fire
On Monday, Charles decided that he himself was going to help the fire
fighting efforts, along with his brother, the Duke of York. He set up eight
fire-posts around the city, with thirty soldiers at each one, in an attempt to
control the fire. The King and his brother got their shoes wet and their hands
dirty, and this was remembered for many years.
In the evening, fire fighters managed to put out a fire at Westminster
school, and it was badly damaged. The repair work took several years. The
day before, several of the city’s waterworks had been set alight, so there was
a slight water problem.
London’s citizens were too busy gathering and evacuating to the Thames
with their belongings to help the fire fighters. Profiteers made money by
hiring out boats at an extremely high price. Only those who were wealthy
could afford these prices, and so the average person could only save what
they could carry. To reduce the number of people at the site of the fire,
parliament banned carts from entering the area. Even though this day was
pretty destructive, it was nothing like the day to come.
(This picture shows citizens escaping the flames in (mostly)hired boats)
5
Obliteration
Tuesday 4th of September 1666 was the most damaging day of the Fire by
far. In the afternoon, the wealthiest part of London, Cheapside, had caught
fire. Not long afterwards the area was burnt down and London’s economy
suffered badly. The worst was still to come. The Fire headed straight for St.
Paul’s, and there the scaffolding caught fire first, then the roof. Lead from the
roof melted on to the pavements, flowing down Ludgate Hill, as stones from
the structure flew like grenades. In a matter of minutes the whole of St.
Paul’s was in ruins.
The St. Paul’s then was not the one that we know today. This St. Paul’s was
an enormous medieval church, seen in the pictures below(in the background).
6
Wednesday
Wednesday started off hot and dry as usual, but there was no wind. This
meant that the Fire slowed and there was more time to destroy houses in
Cripplegate. Finally the mayor was doing something useful and directed the
destruction of those houses. This time, when bringing down buildings, King
and mayor used explosives instead of the normal method of pulling them
down with engines. This was far more efficient as many more houses could
be destroyed with much less effort.
At midday the Fire reached a brick wall- literally, at Middle Temple and
Fetter Lane. There, the wind changed direction and made the Fire blow onto
itself and into the river.
Thursday marked the end of the Great Fire, fire fighters weary after the past
five days.
A rare overhead view of London, as the fire gets to the banks of the Thames.
7
From a Citizen’s Perspective
At three on Sunday morning, Jane, Samuel Pepys’ maid, woke Pepys to
tell him of the Fire, visible from their house on Seething Lane. Pepys was a
civil servant who kept a diary all throughout his life. His diary has helped
many historians greatly. Pepys looked out of his window and decided that the
Fire was to far away to cause concern and returned to his bed.
Pepys woke again at seven. This time he thought the Fire looked even
further and less dangerous than he had at first thought. The former was true,
as the Great Fire was being fanned away from Seething Lane, by an east
wind. Subsequently, Jane told Samuel that three hundred houses had been
destroyed and the Fire was near London Bridge. This made Samuel decide
that he should go out and check that his house was not in danger.
Pepys hired a boat to travel on the Thames. After going to the Tower of
London to see how the Fire had progressed, he went to the King, concerned at
the inactions of the mayor at the time. This was his main role during the fire,
notifying the King and the people.
Samuel Pepys recorded the event literally in the heat of it all. Only during
the night when he was back on Seething Lane did he copy records into his
journal.
Many of Samuel’s friends had lost their houses to the Fire and he invited
them to stay at his home during the disaster, Tom Hayter being one example.
By this time he had decided to make sure that his valuables were safe if the
Fire did come to Seething Lane. He dug a hole in his back garden with a
colleague, Sir William Penn, and they both stored their wine in it. Pepys also
famously buried his Parmesan cheese as well.
Luckily the Fire never reached Pepys’ house. Seething street narrowly
escaped the flames.
Samuel Pepys5
8
Paranoid xenophobia: Who’s to blame?
In the summer of 1666 London was an emotional and physical tinderbox.
The protestant Charles II had just been restored to power, raising suspicion in
both republicans and Catholics alike. Also, England was at war with both the
French and the Dutch. Nobody considered Thomas Farynor3, the innocent
royal1 baker on Puding2 lane of accidentally starting the Fire. The people of
London all pointed their fingers at the Catholics, Dutch and French. Paranoid
Xenophobia, a familiar English trait, was widespread. This even went so far
that the King’s Guard assaulted anybody who spoke poor English.
After the Great Fire, a parliamentary committee was set up to find who was
to blame. Not surprisingly, Thomas Farynor3 denied that he had been careless
the night before and claimed that he had completely extinguished his ovens
on the night. But, as expected, a Frenchman came to claim responsibility. He
was a Protestant watchmaker called Robert Hubert. His colleagues claimed
that he was unbalanced, and the committee continuously found flaws in his
statement. Eventually the parliamentary committee came to the decision that
‘he was a poor distracted wretch, weary of his life, and chose to part with’.
No one in the court believed him guilty.
Over the next few centuries the blame was passed around, mostly to the
Catholics. The inscription on ‘The Monument’, a monument to The Great
Fire, blaming, ‘the treachery and malice of the popish faction’ was removed
as late as 1831. The incident of the Fire, due to the forgetfulness and
carelessness of baker Thomas Farynor3, as found out in a later enquiry, had
caused so much trouble just because of a spark, that had not been put out
properly.
A baker doing his job, as Thomas Farynor would have done. The oven in the picture would have been extremely hot, capable of setting off a great fire such as The Great Fire of London.
9
The aftermath: a new London
There were only 66 recorded deaths from the Fire, although the real amount
is likely to be much higher. The whole stretch of London from the Tower of
London in the east to Fleet Street and Fetter Lane in the west - covering 373
acres of land- was destroyed, smothered by the flames, not to mention the
damage the Fire did to London’s economy.
Plans were immediately handed in for the rebuilding of London.
Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Richard Newcourt and John Evelyn all
submitted theirs but none of them were accepted as people wanted to get back
to their usual routines as quickly as possible. All of the plans were pretty
drastic, totally changing the face of London. These would all take a long
time, so all were eventually scrapped. The old London was rebuilt, but with
wider streets and the avoidance of wood as much as possible.
Christopher Wren’s design of a new London showed the same rational
geometry as his St. Paul’s Cathedral plan. People wanted their houses back in
exactly the same place, but Wren’s plans would not allow it. Also, citizens
wanted larger houses than before, and this led to twenty to thirty nine percent
less houses. Christopher’s main role in the rebuilding though, was his
designing of a new St. Paul’s Cathedral. The dome-shaped roof was an
original idea, made possible by Christopher Wren’s unique architectural
mind. He also rebuilt fifty one parish churches, twenty three of which are
still standing today. Richard Newcourt’s plan of rigid road grids was later
adopted by Philadelphia in the U.S.A.
The only monument that survived The Great Fire of London is a statue of
the poet John Donne. Also, a monument was built, called ‘The Monument’
(same as in Chapter 8) to remind people of the incident. It was designed by
Christopher Wren again. The distance from base to top is the same as the
distance from base to the Farynors’ bakery.
Basically, the Fire wiped the slate clean so that a newer London could
escape its medieval bounds. One could say that The Great Fire did more good
than bad.
Christopher Wren
1.
2.
- A picture of The Monument.
- The top of The Monument (symbolising the flames).
10
An interesting fact about the Monument
- The Monument is marked with the following eteostichon: lorD haVe merCI Vpon Vs = L+D+V+M+C+I+V+V = 1666
Statistics
- 65,000-100,000 people were made homeless.
- 6 people lost their lives (real figure likely to be much higher).
- 373 acres of land destroyed (buildings on it).
- Fire insurance started after the Fire.
- 6000 houses built afterwards.
11
Notes
- Also master baker.
- Note the spelling: Nowadays the street is spelt Pudding Lane (extra d).
- Also spelt Faryner, Farriner.
- Also spelt Bloodworth.
- Interestingly, Samuel Pepys made the painter of this picture repaint the music in his hand.
- Various sources have different ‘official recorded’ deaths, ranging from 3 to 16.
12
Bibliography
Books
- Davies, Stevie. A Century of Troubles. Channel 4 books, 2001
- Robson, Pam. All about the Great Fire of London. Hodder Wayland, 1996
- Tomalin, Claire. Samuel Pepys The Unequalled Self. Penguin Group, 2002
Websites
