6 MEMORABLE LONDON FIRES (OTHER THAN THE GREAT FIRE OF 1666) @ 02:33 pm
A fire broke out in the city on the night of 11 July 1212 in which many people died. City dignitaries met at the Guildhall about a fortnight later and a record of their deliberations and recommendations survives. As well as bemoaning the fire which 'to our greatest dismay, utterly destroyed London Bridge and many other splendid buildings, and sent innumerable men and women to their graves', they suggested ways of preventing such conflagrations in the future. They recommended, among other things, that 'all cook-shops by the Thames should be whitewashed and plastered, inside and out' and that it would be 'advisable to place in front of each house a wooden or stone tub full of water'.
2.Cornhill Fire, 1748
Caused by a maidservant who 'left a candle burning in the shed whilst she was listening to a band performing at the Swan Tavern', the fire raged for ten hours on 25 March in the streets and alleys around Cornhill. More than a hundred buildings, including many of the well-known taverns and coffee-houses in the area were destroyed and a dozen people killed.
3.Albion Mills Fire, 1791
Arguably the mill Blake had in mind when he wrote of 'dark, satanic mills', Albion Mills was a corn mill built at the foot of Blackfriars Bridge by Matthew Boulton, the industrialist, entrepreneur and partner of James Watt. The largest and best-equipped mill of its time, it nonetheless went up in flames on 2 March 1791. Boulton's strong suspicion that the cause of the fire was arson, possibly by a business rival, was never proven and the Albion Mills were not rebuilt.
4.Houses of Parliament Fire, 1834
The fire was started when servants at the Palace of Westminster were instructed to destroy a large number of tally sticks, lengths of wood which were used in an ancient method of accounting. The practice of using the tally sticks was obsolete but thousands of them were littering the palace and it was decided they should be consigned to the furnace. Unfortunately, there were so many that the fire grew out of control, the wooden panelling of the buildings caught light and soon the entire palace was on fire. The Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, Lord Althorp, on arriving at the scene of the fire, is said to have shouted, 'Damn the House of Commons. Let it blaze, but save the Hall'. The dramatic sight of the parliament buildings blazing attracted thousands of spectators, amongst them the artist JMW Turner, who sketched what he saw and later painted two large canvases of the fire lighting up the skies across the Thames.
5.Tooley Street Fire, 1861
The fire started in a riverside warehouse on 23 June and spread to other buildings along the Thames. James Braidwood, the fire chief, was killed during the blaze when a wall collapsed on him. It took two days to bring under control and the ruins continued to smoulder for a fortnight. The scale of the disaster and the vast insurance claims led to a parliamentary enquiry and the establishment of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. A memorial plaque which records Braidwood's heroism can still be seen in Tooley Street.
6.Crystal Palace Fire, 1936
A small fire, possibly caused by faulty electrical wiring, was spotted by the manager of the Crystal Palace, Harry Buckland, who was out walking with his young daughter (whom he had named Chrystal) and his dog on the evening of 30 November 1936. Despite the efforts of Buckland and two night-watchmen, the fire took hold and spread from an area in the central transept to the entire structure. The fire crews that began to arrive could do little to stop it. At the height of the fire eighty-eight fire engines and more than a thousand firemen were fighting the blaze but, by morning, the Crystal Palace was a smouldering ruin of twisted iron and melted glass. The television pioneer John Logie Baird had workshops in the South Tower of the Crystal Palace and lost much of his equipment in the fire.
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