the great fire of london (1666)
TRANSCRIPT
The Great Fire of London (1666)
Unknown painter,
The Museum of London
• wooden houses, covered with tar• narrow streets• insanitary and overcrowded• hot summer• no water resources• neighbourhood bucket brigades
London in 1666
Samuel Pepys
• worked for the British government• coded diary (1660 - 1669)• wrote about the Great Plague of 1665 and
the Great Fire of London
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/06/samuel-pepys-diary-350-years
• “The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruins.”
• “And among other things, the 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.”
• 2nd September 1666 (Sunday)
• Thomas Farriner
• Pudding Lane
The Fire
http://shapersofthe80s.com/tag/great-fire-of-london/
Day 1 (Sunday)
•“A woman could piss it out”
• strong wind
• by 7 am – 300 houses
• demolishing the houses
Day 2 (Monday)
• 8 fire posts around the fire were established
• the fire was 300 meters from the Tower (ammunition)
• the Londoners started to flee• smoke could be seen from Oxford
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_fire_spread.png
Day 3 (Tuesday)
• the most destructive day • St Paul’s Cathedral burnt down
http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.pt/2010/05/disasters-great-fire-of-london.html
Day 4 (Wednesday)
• no wind
• fires in the West part of London extinguished
• by Thursday the fire was out
Aftermath
• 80% of city destroyed • 13 200 houses• 89 churches• 44 company halls• officially 4 people died• 100 000 people homeless• BUT:
– the area around Fleet Street burnt down
• the Londoners blamed the foreigners
• The Parliamentary Investigation
• Robert Hubert
• 6 commissioners
• Sir Christopher Wren
• by 1671, 9000 houses and public buildings were built
Reconstruction
Sir Christopher Wren
• 52 churches• 36 company halls• 2 hospitals• the Royal Exchange• the Theatre Royal• St Paul’s Cathedral
The Monument
• 1670• 62 meters high• Sir Christopher Wren• “the most dreadful Burning of this City;
begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction”
• “the hand of God, a great wind, and a very dry season”
Links:• http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/g
reat_fire_01.shtml• http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/greatfire.htm• http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/great-fire-of-lo
ndon-begins• http://www.pepys.info/fire.html• http://www.themonument.info/• http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/londonfire.htm• http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.pt/2013/05/
changing-face-of-london-great-fire-of.html• http://www.architecture.com/
LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/OnlineWorkshops/UrbanAdventures/01Wren.aspx#.U1WUdVV5Pap
• http://www.pepys.info/1666/london_gazette.html
Thank you for your attention!