London Fire Brigade - The Great Fire of London London Fire Brigade The Great Fire of London London in 1666 In the 17th Century, people were not as aware of the dangers of fire as they are today. Buildings were made of timber covered in pitch and tightly packed together. The design of buildings meant flames could easily spread from building to building. Following a long, dry summer the city was suffering a drought; water was scarce and the wooden houses had dried out, making them easier to burn. Londoners had originally not been alarmed by the blaze due to fires being a common occurrence at the time. How did the Great Fire of London start? The Great Fire of London started on Sunday, 2 September 1666 in a baker's shop belonging to Thomas Farriner. Although he claimed to have extinguished the fire, three hours later, at 1am, his house was a blazing inferno. Farynor's bakery was situated in Pudding Lane . The fire spread quickly down Pudding Lane and carried on down Fish Hill and towards the Thames.

The fire continued to spread rapidly, helped by a strong wind from the east; when it reached the Thames it hit warehouses that were stocked with combustible products such as oil and tallow. Fortunately the fire couldn't spread south of the river because a previous blaze in 1633 had already destroyed a section of London Bridge. What happened? The Great Fire of London swept through the city in September 1666 devastating many buildings including 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, The Royal Exchange , Guildhall and St. Paul’s Cathedral , built during the Middle Ages, was totally destroyed. Although the verified death toll was only six people it is unknown how many people died in the great fire of London because many more died through indirect causes. In 1666 there was no organised fire brigade. Fire-fighting was very basic with little skill or knowledge involved. Leather buckets, axes and water squirts were used to fight the fire but had little effect.

About your area Enter your postcode to find out what we're doing to keep you safer Samuel Pepys , a diarist of the period and Clerk to the Royal Navy, observed the fire and recommended to the King that buildings were pulled down, as it may be the only way to stop the fire. The Mayor was ordered to use fire hooks to pull-down burning buildings but the fire continued to spread. People forced to evacuate their homes chose to bury or hide what valuables they couldn't carry. Pepys buried his expensive cheese and wine. How did they put out the Great Fire of London? Pepys spoke to the Admiral of the Navy and agreed they should blow up houses in the path of the fire. The hope was that by doing this they would create a space to stop the fire spreading from house to house. The Navy, which had been using gunpowder at the time, carried out the request and the fire was mostly under control by Wednesday, 5 September 1666, although small fires continued to break out and the ground remained too hot to walk on for several days afterwards. Pepys recorded in his diary that even the King, Charles II, was seen helping to put out the fire. What happened next?

London had to be almost totally reconstructed. Initially this meant temporary buildings were erected that were ill-equipped and enabled disease to spread easily. Many people died from this and the harsh winter that followed the fire. The cost of the fire was estimated to be £10 million - at a time when London's annual income was only £12,000 and many people were financially ruined and debtors' prisons became over-crowded. As a result, early fire brigades were formed by insurance companies as a way of recouping the costs of extinguishing fires. Sir Christopher Wren planned the new city and the rebuilding of London took over 30 years. The site where the fire first started is now marked by a 202-foot monument , which was built between 1671 and 1677. Know it all? Take our Great Fire of London quiz The Great Fire of London, 1666. Search The Great Fire of London began on the night of September 2, 1666, as a small fire on Pudding Lane, in the bakeshop of Thomas Farynor, baker to King Charles II .

At one o'clock in the morning, a servant woke to find the house aflame, and the baker and his family escaped, but a fear-struck maid perished in the blaze. At this time, most London houses were of wood and pitch construction, dangerously flammable, and it did not take long for the fire to expand. The fire leapt to the hay and feed piles on the yard of the Star Inn at Fish Street Hill, and spread to the Inn. The strong wind that blew that night sent sparks that next ignited the Church of St. Margaret, and then spread to Thames Street, with its riverside warehouses and wharves filled with food for the flames: hemp, oil, tallow, hay, timber, coal and spirits along with other combustibles. The citizen firefighting brigades had little success in containing the fire with their buckets of water from the river. By eight o'clock in the morning, the fire had spread halfway across London Bridge. The only thing that stopped the fire from spreading to Southwark, on the other side of the river, was the gap that had been caused by the fire of 1633.

The standard procedure to stop a fire from spreading had always been to destroy the houses on the path of the flames, creating fire-breaks, to deprive a fire from fuel. Lord Mayor Bludworth, however, was hesitant, worrying about the cost of rebuilding. By the time a Royal command came down, carried by Samuel Pepys , the fire was too out of control to stop. The Trained Bands of London were called in to demolish houses by gunpowder, but often the rubble was too much to be cleared before the fire was at hand, and only eased the fire's way onward. The fire blazed unchecked for another three days, until it halted near Temple Church. Then, it suddenly sprang to life again, continuing towards Westminster. The Duke of York (later King James II ) had the presence of mind to order the Paper House demolished to create a fire break, and the fire finally died down. From The Times History of London. London: Times Books, 1999. Courtesy of The Millwall History Files website. Although the loss of life was minimal (some sources say only sixteen perished), the magnitude of the property loss was staggering.

Some 430 acres, as much as 80% of the city proper was destroyed, including 13,000 houses, 89 churches, and 52 Guild Halls. Thousands of citizens found themselves homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the fire of 1676, which destroyed over 600 houses south of the river, changed the face of London forever. The one positive effect of the Great Fire of London was that the plague, which had ravished London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. Charles II appointed six Commissioners to redesign the city. The plan provided for wider streets and buildings of brick, rather than timber. By 1671, 9000 houses and public buildings had been completed. Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to design and oversee the construction of nearly 50 churches, not least of them a new St. Paul's Cathedral, construction of which began in 1675.

The King also had Wren design a monument to the Great Fire, which stands still today at the site of the bakery which started it all, on a street now named Monument Street. Books for Further Study: A History of the Great Fire of London of 1666 Reference and Reviews for European History - Reference and Reviews Introduction It is no exaggeration to describe the fire which started in London on September 2nd 1666 as 'Great'. The city had suffered large blazes before and after, including those started by the aerial might of the Nazi war machine, but none came close to the four days and nights of constant fire which raged through over four hundred acres of densely packed housing, stores and workplaces. While few died, anywhere up to 200,000 people suddenly found themselves homeless and often destitute, while religious fears and paranoia tinged the whole catastrophe with an air of anti-Catholic hatred. England's great capital city was put on the verge of ruin by a conflagration that literally burnt itself into popular memory.

The Waiting Disaster In 1666 London's medieval streets were narrow and the buildings close, most constructed from timber, wattle and daub, plaster and pitch and filled with the equally flammable essentials of everyday life: straw, tallow and firewood. continue reading below our video What are the Seven Wonders of the World In and around these materials were the candles and hearths of every home and business, each one a potentially dangerous spark. Londoners didn’t need hindsight to see the Great Fire of London as inevitable: people were worried, not just about a major fire, but about something so large it wiped London out entirely. Daniel Baker predicted such in 1559 and the fears were still strong in the 1660s, when the king himself asked London's mayor to reform the building regulations and tackle the threat of fire. The Fire Starts In the early hours of September 2nd 1666 a fire began at a bakehouse in Pudding Lane.

We don't know exactly where this building was in the Lane; it is supposedly 62 meters from the base of the fire Monument - but evidence from contemporary accounts (both eyewitness reports and later parliamentary findings) leaves us in no doubt that the fire began there. The bakehouse was owned by Thomas Farriner (also spelt Farynor), a baker to the king, and historians are confident that he, or one of his staff, failed to douse their ovens properly that September night, leading to an ember blowing out and igniting nearby straw. On this, contemporary opinion was not so clear cut (see below). The Fire Spreads Farriner, his family and staff were awoken around 1am by the smell of smoke; all fled apart from a maid who was too scared to either clamber over the rooftops with them or jump. She stayed and died, the first human casualty of the Great fire. Sparks from the bakehouse showered surrounding buildings, igniting stable materials out in a yard at the Star Inn in Fish Street. Soon after the Church of St.

Margaret caught alight and fire spread to the buildings in Thames Street, riverside warehouses packed with products like timber, coal, oils, tar, spirits and other combustibles. Here the fire caught such hold, gained such strength, that the attempts of ad hoc civilian groups to douse the flames with Thames water failed against overwhelming heat. By 4.00 am Parish Constables had awoken the Mayor of London, Thomas Bludworth, and brought him to the scene. His comments about the fire can't be repeated here, but he was openly derisive; he was also too scared to order the demolition of nearby buildings to create firebreaks and he soon returned to bed. Strong winds both fed the fire and carried the sparks further and further. By 7:00 an estimated three hundred buildings were ablaze. Shortly after, London experienced its one stroke of luck. Most of London’s bridges bore buildings down either side and the fire was easily working its way along London Bridge, from where it could ignite the South of London. Fortunately, a fire thirty-three years previously had left a gap between buildings, a gap which the fire wasn’t yet strong enough to cross.

The fire thus stopped halfway across the Thames, burning itself out before it could go further and saving the South. The same did not happen to the north, east and west. Why The Fire Spread So Quickly The fire spread in two ways: by igniting what was next to it and constantly spreading outward, or 'jumping' outward thanks to the strong wind, which carried burning embers across gaps. In contrast, London's population had two ways to combat the flames: use water – whether from buckets and pumps – to douse the flames – or create firebreaks by quickly pulling down a line of buildings and clearing the timber, thus effectively starving the fire of material. The fire was too strong and the technology too basic to move the quantity of water needed, so the population initially had to try making firebreaks using ropes, hooks, any working animals they could keep calm and their own strength. Unfortunately, the firebreaks proved inadequate. The winds were now strong enough to carry embers across huge gaps - a contemporary figure claims across the space of twenty houses – and for the first couple of days people simply couldn’t create firebreaks fast enough and far enough to stop the flames advancing.

People Add To The Woes People also caused a problem, often refusing permission to their houses to be destroyed. Mayor Bludworth initially refused to order firebreaks for fear of who would pay compensation. Even when King Charles II ordered the population to make breaks, others refused; people wanted the houses in front of their used as a break and their saves. The diary of Samuel Pepys – the man who initially informed Charles II of the situation – records the Mayor saying later in the day: "Lord, 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." A third method was proposed during the evening of September third, supposedly by the navy, but it was swiftly rejected by homeowners; it involved using gunpowder to quickly create large empty spaces. Prev Great Fire of London begins - Sep 02, 1666 - HISTORY.com Great Fire of London begins Share this: Great Fire of London begins Author Great Fire of London begins URL Publisher A+E Networks In the early morning hours, the Great Fire of London breaks out in the house of King Charles II’s baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge.

It soon spread to Thames Street, where warehouses filled with combustibles and a strong easterly wind transformed the blaze into an inferno. When the Great Fire finally was extinguished on September 6, more than four-fifths of London was destroyed. Miraculously, only 16 people were known to have died. The Great Fire of London was a disaster waiting to happen. London of 1666 was a city of medieval houses made mostly of oak timber. Some of the poorer houses had walls covered with tar, which kept out the rain but made the structures more vulnerable to fire. Streets were narrow, houses were crowded together, and the firefighting methods of the day consisted of neighborhood bucket brigades armed with pails of water and primitive hand pumps. Citizens were instructed to check their homes for possible dangers, but there were many instances of carelessness. So it was on the evening of September 1, 1666, when Thomas Farrinor, the king’s baker, failed to properly extinguish his oven. He went to bed, and sometime around midnight sparks from the smoldering embers ignited firewood lying beside the oven. Before long, his house was in flames.

Farrinor managed to escape with his family and a servant out an upstairs window, but a bakery assistant died in the flames–the first victim. Sparks from Farrinor’s bakery leapt across the street and set fire to straw and fodder in the stables of the Star Inn. From the Inn, the fire spread to Thames Street, where riverfront warehouses were packed full with flammable materials such as tallow for candles, lamp oil, spirits, and coal. These stores lit aflame or exploded, transforming the fire into an uncontrollable blaze. Bucket-bearing locals abandoned their futile efforts at firefighting and rushed home to evacuate their families and save their valuables. It had been a hot, dry summer, and a strong wind further encouraged the flames. As the conflagration grew, city authorities struggled to tear down buildings and create a firebreak, but the flames repeatedly overtook them before they could complete their work. People fled into the Thames River dragging their possessions, and the homeless took refuge in the hills on the outskirts of London. Light from the Great Fire could be seen 30 miles away. On September 5, the fire slackened, and on September 6 it was brought under control.

That evening, flames again burst forth in the Temple (the legal district), but the explosion of buildings with gunpowder extinguished the flames. The Great Fire of London engulfed 13,000 houses, nearly 90 churches, and scores of public buildings. The old St. Paul’s Cathedral was destroyed, as were many other historic landmarks. As estimated 100,000 people were left homeless. Within days, King Charles II set about rebuilding his capital. The great architect Sir Christopher Wren designed a new St. Paul’s Cathedral with dozens of smaller new churches ranged around it like satellites. To prevent future fires, most new houses were built of brick or stone and separated by thicker walls. Narrow alleyways were forbidden and streets were made wider. Permanent fire departments, however, did not become a fixture in London until well into the 18th century. In the 1670s, a memorial column commemorating the Great Fire of London was erected near the source of the calamity. Known as the Memorial, it was probably designed by the architect Robert Hooke, though some sources credit Christopher Wren.

The column stands 202 feet above the pavement and features sculpture and engravings that tell the story of the conflagration. Even though an official inquiry into the Great Fire concluded that “the hand of God, a great wind, and a very dry season” caused it, an inscription on the Memorial (removed in 1830) blamed the disaster on the “treachery and malice of the Popish faction.” In 1986, London’s bakers finally apologized to the lord mayor for setting fire to the city. Members of the Worshipful Company of Bakers gathered on Pudding Lane and unveiled a plaque acknowledging that one of their own, Thomas Farrinor, was guilty of causing the Great Fire of 1666. Related Videos The Great Fire of London, 1666 on AboutBritain.com You are here: Articles -> Events in British History -> The Great Fire of London, 1666 The Great Fire of London, 1666 The Great Fire, Seen From Tower Wharf The most famous visionary of England, Mother Shipton predicted The City would be destroyed by fire. Many years after her words were spoken, London went up in flames.

On an early Sunday morning in September 1666, the bakery in Pudding Lane, which was favored by the king, went up in flames. Sign on The Monument The Start The fire baked more than morning bread. It spread across the cook shops of the area and proceeded to destroy a large portion of England's capital. Fire fuel was plentiful as most of London's buildings were constructed of wood and plaster with straw covering the floors. Most areas featured homes and shops, from opposite sides of the street, with roofs touching each other. Thus, the fire was able to jump what little space was between the buildings. Raging for four full days the fire ate St Paul's Cathedral , devoured 13,000 houses, and left over 200,000 people without residences or businesses. No Fire Brigade There wasn't a centralized fire department for The City. Usually, the locals were responsible for creating water lines and carrying sticks to beat out any fires in their immediate area. To keep flames under control, axes, hooks, and ropes would often be used to pull down structures to make fire breaks. Due to a stiff east wind, this fire became too big, too fast, and more manpower and effort was needed.

Mass Exodus Leaving their lives behind except for what they could gather of their personal belongings, London citizens fled across The Thames. Boatmen were hard-pressed to keep up with the flow. People who hurried on foot towards northern sections of London found that cart rental prices had been raised by 300 percent. Once in safety, the refugees from the Great Fire of London could only watch as volunteers and troops, under the command of the Duke of York, attempted to control the conflagration. The Lord Mayor had been advised earlier to pull down structures which were in the fire's path, fire-breaks being desperately needed. He declined to do so, as then The City would be responsible for all the rebuilding. Fighting the Impossible Battling the fierce wind, it was impossible to douse the flames. The situation called for drastic measures, and thus, finally, huge breaks were created. Under orders from Charles II, homes and businesses were blown apart to destroy fuel for the flames. This method of fire-fighting worked in saving the Tower of London . However, the fire just jumped those breaks made in the west. Sparks continued to ignite warehouses full of coal, oil, tallow, and alcohol along The Thames.

The intense heat made fighting these particular flames impossible as the fighters couldn't get close enough with buckets of water. Churches, inns, and homes were devoured in short order. Fire Defeated Finally on Wednesday morning, the wind disappeared. With sparks no longer dancing in the air the fire-fighters were able to make progress. It took an additional day and a half but by Thursday evening, September 6th, the Great Fire of London was finally defeated. 80 percent of The City was destroyed, from The Tower to Ludgate Hill, and just south of Smithfields. Citizens returned to financial ruin and homelessness. Thankfully, few people lost their lives. The first casualty? The maid who lived above the Pudding Lane bakery. She was unable to follow the baker's family through an upstairs window to safety. Positive Outcome The fire did bring some good to London, however. A great majority of the plague-carrying rats were destroyed so the illness left The City. With the damage so intense it was difficult to define property lines but that didn't stop the authorities, and Charles II, from planning a newer, more open city. Ordinances to build only in stone or brick were passed, and wider streets would now be the norm.

Within a few years, fire insurance came into being. The first 'insurance company', The Phoenix Fire Office, was established in 1680. Others soon followed, all with private fire departments which were responsbile for fighting fires in their coverage area. In many respects, the Great Fire of London, in 1666, created the London which you can visit today. Article by "Tudor Rose" BBC - History - London's Burning: The Great Fire London's Burning: The Great Fire By Bruce Robinson Last updated 2011-03-29 In September 1666 the heart of England's capital, the City of London (now London's financial district), was devastated by fire. Everyone knows the Great Fire of London started in a baker's shop in the aptly named Pudding Lane, but was it an accident or a pernicious Papist plot? On this page Print this page Introduction Late summer, 1666: London was an emotional and physical tinderbox. Following decades of political and religious upheaval, the restoration in 1660 of the Protestant Charles II ensured that suspicion lingered around republicans and Catholics alike.

With the country also at war with the French and Dutch, paranoid xenophobia - a familiar English trait of the period - was rife. ...for years there had been warnings of London's total destruction by fire... Fires in London were common, even inevitable, given the capital's largely timber construction. Yet for years there had been warnings of London's total destruction by fire: in 1559 Daniel Baker had predicted London's destruction by 'a consuming fire'. In April 1665, Charles had warned the Lord Mayor of London of the danger caused by the narrow streets and overhanging timber houses. Furthermore, a long, hot summer had left London dry and drought had depleted water reserves. Yet the greatest fear among Londoners was not fire. Plague had killed over 68,000 people in the previous two years. Although Charles II had returned to Whitehall in February 1666, London remained unsafe, with death carts still commonplace. What worried inhabitants most was the strong east wind. This, combined with the dry, dusty air, was known to be particularly effective in carrying plague. It would prove as equally efficient as fire in taking lives. Top London's burning Long Lane, Smithfield.

Drawing of a house made from combustible materials, built before the Great Fire © Thus by September 1666, all that was required was a spark. This was provided at the house of Thomas Farynor, the king's baker in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. At 2.00am on Sunday 2nd September his workman smelled smoke and woke the household. The family fled across the nearby roofs, leaving only a maid, too scared to run, who soon became the first of the four listed casualties of the fire. With only narrow streets dividing wooden buildings, the fire took hold rapidly, and within an hour the Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, had been woken with the news. He was unimpressed, declaring that 'A woman might piss it out'. Yet by dawn London Bridge was burning: an open space on the bridge, separating two groups of buildings, had acted as a firebreak in 1632. It did so again: only a third of the bridge was burned, saving Southwark from destruction and confining the fire to the City of London, on the north bank.

...the smoke could be seen from Oxford, and Londoners had begun to flee to the open spaces of Moorfields and Finsbury Hill. Samuel Pepys lived nearby and on Sunday morning walked to the Tower of London. There he saw the fire heading west, fanned by the wind, and described 'pigeons... hovering about the windows and balconies till they burned their wings and fell down'. With Bloodworth dithering, Pepys went to Whitehall, informing the King and his brother James, Duke of York, of the situation. Although Charles II immediately ordered Bloodworth to destroy as many houses as necessary to contain the fire, early efforts to create firebreaks were overcome by the strength of the wind, which enabled the fire to jump gaps of even twenty houses. By the end of Sunday the fire had begun to travel against the wind, towards the Tower, and Pepys had begun to pack. By the following dawn, the fire was raging north and west, and panic reigned. The Duke of York took control of efforts to stop the fire, with militias summoned from neighbouring counties to help the fight, and stop looting.

But the flames continued relentlessly, devouring Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street, the Royal Exchange, and heading towards the wealthy area of Cheapside. By mid afternoon the smoke could be seen from Oxford, and Londoners had begun to flee to the open spaces of Moorfields and Finsbury Hill. Top Demolition By nightfall the streets were jammed with the carts of fleeing Londoners, and the fire was heading down Watling Lane, towards St Paul's Cathedral. The next day saw the greatest destruction. Both the King and the Duke of York were immersed in the battle against the fire, which was contained until late afternoon, when it jumped over the break at Mercers' Hall and began to consume Cheapside, London's widest and wealthiest street. While Pepys was busy evacuating his house - digging a pit in which he buried 'a parmazan cheese as well as my wine and some other things' - he had an inspiration. 'Blowing up houses... stopped the fire when it was done, bringing down the houses in the same places they stood, and then it was easy to quench what little fire was in it'. ...embers were falling on Kensington, and flames surrounded St Paul's Cathedral, covered in scaffolding.

Although demolition began to take effect in the east, in the west the fire had destroyed Newgate and Ludgate prisons, and was travelling along Fleet Street towards Chancery Lane. It was visible as far away as Enfield, embers were falling on Kensington, and flames surrounded St Paul's Cathedral, covered in scaffolding. This caught fire, soon followed by the timber roof beams. The lead roof melted and flowed down Ludgate Hill, and stones exploded from the building. Within a few hours the Cathedral was a ruin. This marked the height of the inferno. On Wednesday morning the fire reached a brick wall - literally - at Middle Temple and at Fetter Lane. Workers took the opportunity to pull down more buildings and widen the break. At the same time, the wind slackened and changed direction, turning south and blowing the fire onto itself and into the river. In the north, it was being checked at Smithfield and Holborn Bridge, and the Mayor, finally useful, was directing demolition in Cripplegate.

Top The aftermath By Thursday the fire was effectively extinguished, having destroyed 373 acres of the City - from the Tower in the East to Fleet Street and Fetter Lane in the West - and burning around 13,200 houses, 84 churches and 44 company halls. Officially, only four people died, but John Evelyn referred in his diary to 'the stench that came from some poor creatures' bodies' and the true toll is likely to have been much higher, rising further in the following months. The fire beaten, London's full attention could turn to the question of blame. The fire beaten, London's full attention could turn to the question of blame. Hysteria had raged as fiercely as the flames, as frightened fingers fell on foreigners. On Sunday a schoolboy, William Taswell, had seen 'the ignorant and deluded mob... [venting] forth their rage against the Roman Catholics and Frenchmen' and his brother saw 'a Frenchman almost dismembered'. The King's Guard assaulted strangers for speaking poor English, and everywhere there was 'a great alarm of French and Dutch being risen', as Pepys reported.

The Spanish Ambassador opened his house to all foreigners in fear of their lives - Protestant Dutch as well as Catholic French - as religious bigotry and xenophobia, born in the Reformation and raised by the Gunpowder Plot, surfaced again. On Thursday, Charles travelled to Moorfields to address the 100,000 people made homeless, one sixth of London's population. He declared that the fire had not been started by foreign powers or subversives, but had been an act of God. Few were convinced. A scapegoat was needed: the more foreign, the better. The wait was not a long one. Top The Parliamentary investigation At the end of September, a Parliamentary Committee was appointed to investigate the fire. During the investigation a French Protestant watchmaker, Robert Hubert, confessed to having deliberately started the fire at the bakery with 23 conspirators. His colleagues claimed he was unbalanced and the details of his confession changed as flaws were continually unearthed. The Earl of Clarendon commented that 'Neither the judges, nor any present at the trial did believe him guilty; but that he was a poor distracted wretch, weary of his life, and chose to part with it'.

He was helped by a jury - that included three Farynors - and was hanged at Tyburn. ...nothing hath yet been found to argue it to have been other than the hand of God upon us, a great wind, and the season so very dry... The Parliamentary committee reported in January 1667 that 'nothing hath yet been found to argue it to have been other than the hand of God upon us, a great wind, and the season so very dry'. Yet with Farynor declaring - as expected - that his ovens had been completely extinguished on the night in question, the committee was as widely believed as the Warren Report, and the cause of the fire became the grassy knoll of late seventeenth century conspiracy theorists. In 1678, during the Popish Plot, Titus Oates declared that Jesuit priests were to set fire to the city, prompting a Commons resolution declaring that 'the City of London was burnt in the year 1666 by the Papists... to introduce arbitrary power and Popery into this Kingdom'. In 1685 the Duke of Monmouth, rebelling against the new King, the Catholic James II, accused him of deliberately starting the fire.

It was not until 1831 that the inscription on the fire's commemorative Monument, blaming 'the treachery and malice of the Popish faction', was removed. An inferno caused by a forgetful baker, fuelled by a strong wind and indecisive leadership, was blamed on Catholics for over 150 years. London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd (Chatto & Windus, 2000) A City Full of People: Men and Women of London 1650-1750 by P. Earle (1994) The London Encyclopaedia by Christopher Hibbert & Ben Weinreb (eds)(Macmillan, 1983) The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys, edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews (1970-83) Restoration London by Liza Picard (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997) The Rebuilding of London After the Great Fire by T.F.

Reddaway (1940) The Building of London by John Schofield (1984) Top About the author Bruce Robinson is a professional journalist who graduated with a first class degree in History from Cambridge University, specialising in English Social, Political and Economic History from 1300 to 1600. Great Fire of London 1666 The people of London who had managed to survive the Great Plague in 1665 must have thought that the year 1666 could only be better, and couldn't possibly be worse! Poor souls…they could not have imagined the new disaster that was to befall them in 1666. A fire started on September 2nd in the King's bakery in Pudding Lane near London Bridge. Fires were quite a common occurrence in those days and were soon quelled. Indeed, when the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth was woken up to be told about the fire, he replied "Pish! A woman might piss it out!" . However that summer had been very hot and there had been no rain for weeks, so consequently the wooden houses and buildings were tinder dry.

The fire soon took hold: 300 houses quickly collapsed and the strong east wind spread the flames further, jumping from house to house. The fire swept through the warren of streets lined with houses, the upper stories of which almost touched across the narrow winding lanes. Efforts to bring the fire under control by using buckets quickly failed. Panic began to spread through the city. As the fire raged on, people tried to leave the city and poured down to the River Thames in an attempt to escape by boat. Absolute chaos reigned, as often happens today, as thousands of 'sightseers' from the villages came to view the disaster. Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, the diarists, both gave dramatic, first-hand accounts of the next few days. Samuel Pepys, who was a clerk of the Privy Seal, hurried off to inform King Charles II. The King immediately ordered that all the houses in the path of the fire should be pulled down to create a 'fire-break'. This was done with hooked poles, but to no avail as the fire outstripped them! By the 4th September half of London was in flames.

The King himself joined the fire fighters, passing buckets of water to them in an attempt to quell the flames, but the fire raged on. As a last resort gunpowder was used to blow up houses that lay in the path of the fire, and so create an even bigger fire-break, but the sound of the explosions started rumours that a French invasion was taking place…. even more panic!! As refugees poured out of the city, St. Paul's Cathedral was caught in the flames. The acres of lead on the roof melted and poured down on to the street like a river, and the great cathedral collapsed. Luckily the Tower of London escaped the inferno, and eventually the fire was brought under control, and by the 6th September had been extinguished altogether. Only one fifth of London was left standing! Virtually all the civic buildings had been destroyed as well as 13,000 private dwellings, but amazingly only six people had died. Hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless. Eighty-nine parish churches, the Guildhall, numerous other public buildings, jails, markets and fifty-seven halls were now just burnt-out shells. The loss of property was estimated at £5 to £7 million.

King Charles gave the fire fighters a generous purse of 100 guineas to share between them. Not for the last time would a nation honour its brave fire fighters. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, a poor demented French watchmaker called (Lucky) Hubert, confessed to starting the fire deliberately: justice was swift and he was rapidly hanged. It was sometime later however that it was realised that he couldn't have started it, as he was not in England at the time! Although the Great Fire was a catastrophe, it did cleanse the city. The overcrowded and disease ridden streets were destroyed and a new London emerged. A monument was erected in Pudding Lane on the spot where the fire began and can be seen today, where it is a reminder of those terrible days in September 1666. Sir Christopher Wren was given the task of re-building London, and his masterpiece St. Paul's Cathedral was started in 1675 and completed in 1711. In memory of Sir Christopher there is an inscription in the Cathedral, which reads, "Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice". - "If you seek his monument, look round".

Wren also rebuilt 52 of the City churches, and his work turned the City of London into the city we know today. Some buildings did survive the conflagration, but only a handful can still be seen to this day. For details and photos, please see our article, ' Buildings that Survived the Great Fire of London' . Great Fire of London Great Fire of London The London Gazette - Fire of London 1666 Share Intro This article describing the events of the Great Fire of London was published in The London Gazette, Monday September 3 to Monday September 10 1666. The fire had started in a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane on September 2. In 17th century London fires were common, but none of them had spread so widely or caused as much damage as this. London was by far the largest city in England and mainly consisted of wooden buildings, tightly packed together along very narrow streets. This poorly built urban sprawl, together with dry weather and a strong easterly wind, created the perfect conditions for the rapid spread of the fire. It raged for four days until it was finally extinguished, largely due to a change in wind direction.

By then it had destroyed 373 acres of the city of London, including over 13,000 houses and 84 churches as well as St Paul’s Cathedral and much of London Bridge. Image From Monday September 3 to Monday September 10 1666 Whitehall, Sept. 8. The ordinary course of this Paper having been interrupted by a sad and lamentable accident of Fire lately happened in the City of London: It hath been thought fit for satisfying the minds of so many of His Majesties good Subjects who must needs be concerned for the issue of so great an accident to give this short, but true Account of it.

On the second instant at one of the clock in the Morning there happened to break out, a sad in deplorable fire, in Pudding Lane, neer New Fishstreet, which falling out at that hour of the night, and in a quarter of the town so close built with wooden pitched houses, spread it self so far before day, and with such distraction to the inhabitants and Neighbours, that care was not taken for the timely preventing the further diffusion of it, by pulling down houses, as ought to have been; so that this lamentable Fire in a short time became too big to be mastered by any Engines or working neer it. It fell out most unhappily too, that a violent Easterly wind fomented it, and kept it burning all that day, and the night following, spreading it self up to Grace-church street, and downwards from Cannon Street to the Waterside as far as the Three Cranes in the [?].

The people in all parts about it distracted by the vastness of it, and their particular care to carry away their Goods, many attempts were made to prevent the spreading of it by pulling down Houses, and making great intervals, but all in vain, the Fire seizing upon the Timber and Rubbish and so continuing it self, even through those spaces, and raging in a bright flame all Monday and Tuesday, notwithstanding His Majesties own, and His Royal Highness's indefatigable and personal pains to apply all possible remedies to prevent it, calling upon and helping the people with their Guards; and a great number of Nobility and Gentry unweariedly assisting therein, for which they were required with a thousand blessings from the poor distressed people.

By the favour of God the Wind flickned a little on Tuesday night & the Flames meeting with Brick-buildings at the Temple, by little and little it was observed to lose its force on that side, so that on Wednesday morning we began to hope well and his Royal Highness never dispairing or slackning his personal care, wrought so well that day, assisted in some parts by the Lords of the Councel before and behind it, that a stop was put to it at the Temple church, neer Holborn-bridge, Pie-corner, Aldersgate, [?], neer the lower end of Coleman-street, at the end of Basing-hall-street, by the Postern, at the upper end of Bishopsgate-street, and Leaden-hall-street, at the Standard in Cornhill, at the Church in Fan-church-street, neer [?]workers Hall in [Minting?]-lane, at the middle of Mark-lane, and at the Tower-dock. On Thursday by the blessing of God it was wholly beat down and extinguished.

But so as that Evening it unhappily burnt out again a fresh at the Temple, by the falling of [some?] sparks (as is supposed) upon a Pile of Wooden buildings; but his Royal Highness, who watched there that whole night in Person, by the great labours and diligente [used?], and especially by applying Powder to blow up the Houses about it, before day most happily [?] it.

Divers Strangers, Dutch and French were, during the fire, apprehended, upon suspition that they contributed mischievously to it, who are all imprisoned and Informations prepared to make a severe inquisition here upon my Lord Chief Justice [Keeling?], assisted by some of the Lords of the Privy Councel, and some principal Members of the City, notwithstanding which suspitions, the manner of the burning all along in a [train?], and so blowen forwards in all its way by strong Winds; makes us conclude the whole was an effect of an unhappy chance, or to speak better, the heavy hand of God upon us, for our Sins, shewing us the terrour of his Judgment in thus raising the fire, and immediately after his miraculous and never enough to be acknowledged Mercy in putting a stop to it when we were in last despair, and that [our?] attempts for the quencing it however industriously pursued, seemed insufficient.

His Majesty then sat hourly in Councel, and ever since hath continued making rounds about the City in all parts of it where the danger and mischief was greatest, till this morning that he hath sent his Grace the Duke of Aibemarle, whom he hath called for to assist him in this great occasion, to put his happy and successful hand to the finishing this memorable deliverance. About the Tower the seasonable orders given for plucking down Houses to secure the Magazins of Powder, was more especially successful, that part being [?] the Wind, notwithstanind which it came [?] [?] very Gates of it, so as by this early provision, the several Stores of War lodged in the Tower were entirely saved: And we have further this infinite cause particularly to give God thanks, that the fire did not happen in any of those places where his Majesties Naval Stores are kept, so as tho it hath pleased God to visit us with his own hand, he hath not, by disfurnishing us with the means of carrying on the War, subjected us to our enemies.

It must be observed, that this fire happened in a part of the Town, where tho the Commodities were not very rich, yet there were so bulky that they could not well be removed; so that the Inhabitants of that part where it first began have sustained very great loss, but by the best enquiry we can make, the other parts of the Town, where the Commodities were of greater value, took the Alarum so early, that they saved most of their Goods of value, which possibly may have diminished the loss, tho some think, that if the whole industry of the Inhabitants had been applyed to the stopping of the fire, and not to the saving of their particular Goods, the success might have much better, not only to the publick, but to many of them in their own particulars.

Through this sad Accident it is easie to be imagined how many persons were necessitated to remove themselves and Goods into the open fields, where they were forced to continue some time, which could not but work compassion in the beholders, by his Majesties care was most signal in this occasion, who, besides his personal pains, was frequent in consulting all wayes for relieving those distressed persons, whic produced so good effect, aswell by his Majesties Proclamations, and the Orders issued to the Neighbour Justices of the Peace to encourage the sending in provisions to the Markets, which are publickly known, as by other directions, that when his Majesty, fearing lest other Orders might not yet have been sufficient, had commanded the ViSualler of his Navy to send bread into Moore-fields for the relief of the poor, which for the more speedy supply he sent in Bisket out of the Sea Stories; it was found that the Markets had been Find out more about the Great Fire of London Here The Great Fire of London | IRMI.com Download FREE Report The Great Fire of London The insurance industry can accurately trace its formation to the Great Fire of London on September 2, 1666.

Learn the history behind the event—why the setting was ripe for disaster, the demolition of most of the city, and the foretelling of what emerged from the ashes. Risk and Insurance History June 2001 Most industries evolve over time. While there have been risk-sharing mechanisms dating back to the days of Phoenician ship captains splitting up their cargoes at the mouth of the then-raging Nile river, the insurance industry Superior Access Internet Software can accurately trace its beginning to one event. That event was the Great Fire of London, on September 2, 1666. The Setting London had a poor history with fire. There had been many severe fires over the years. In fact, when William the Conqueror took over in the early 11th Century, he was aghast at what he saw. Fires, sometimes severe fires, were commonplace. Straw roofs would catch fire and burn, only to be replaced by more straw roofs. One of the customs was to stoke a fire before going to bed to keep the home warm throughout the night. Needless to say, there were many nighttime fires.

He instituted a law that each home had to douse all candles and cover the main fire with a large metal bowl or cover. That law, requiring a couvre-feu (couvre for cover and feu for fire) led to today's "curfew" laws. By the mid-1600s, London was a city ripe for a conflagration. Many of the buildings were built of wood, many of them old. Even many of the brick and stone buildings had thatched roofs. Where there were sidewalks, they were made of wood with no fire-stops inside them. Fires, even today, can be scary events. They had to have been especially scary back in those days. There were no formalized fire departments yet. Any building that caught fire was pretty much doomed, but the citizenry would rally around with bucket brigades to keep the fire from spreading. The Spreading The fire started early in the morning in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane, and quickly spread. Surviving written records indicate that it was windy, which blew burning embers around the still-sleeping city. Unfortunately, one of the first structures to burn was the huge wooden waterwheel on the Thames that supplied water to the city.

Losing the waterwheel significantly reduced the amount of available water throughout the city. The bucket brigades didn't stand a chance. The fire raged for days. Structure after structure burned, with the fire spreading from one district to another. After several days, the king, King Charles II, called in the Duke of York, who was in charge of the Royal Navy, to be responsible for putting out the fire. It had long been a practice to use long poles, with hooks on the end, to pull down adjacent buildings to a fire to keep the fire from spreading. Unfortunately, the combination of heat, wind, and lack of water kept that from working. The concept of a "fire break," depriving a fire of fuel, was nonetheless a valid way of containing a fire. The Duke of York applied it to a large degree. He had his men fan out past where the fire was burning and create a large swath of empty land. They did it not only by pulling down buildings where they could, but by using gunpowder to blow up and clear away buildings where they couldn't be pulled down. The tactic worked. In the end, the fire burned to the edge of the large fire break and finally died for lack of fuel.

After raging for 5 days, the Great Fire of London was finally out. The Rebuilding By the time it was over, London was devastated. Four-fifths of the city lay in smoldering ashes. England's biggest city—containing roughly two-thirds of the wealth of the empire—was ruined. Over 13,000 buildings were destroyed, mostly homes but including many churches and commercial establishments. Fortunately, the death rate was amazingly small. Whereas the first "Great Fire" in London in the 11th Century reportedly claimed around 3,000 lives, this new inheritor of that name caused only 16 recorded deaths. The city began the long and arduous task of rebuilding. It was a task that would take many years. As new buildings began springing up from the ruins, so did something else. The following year, 1667, rising from the ashes of London like the mythical Phoenix bird, was the world's first insurance company. See the next article in this series for the rest of the story, The World's First Insurance Company. Opinions expressed in Expert Commentary articles are those of the author and are not necessarily held by the author's employer or IRMI.

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Question: In which street in the City of London did the Great Fire of London break out in 1666 ?
Answer: PUDDING LANE