History of London — 21 - Lessons 52 - 53: The Terror of Fire (I - II)

(_From Speed's map of 'The Kingdom of England,' 1646. _)] The City of London has suffered from fire more than any other great town.

In the year 961 a large number of houses were destroyed: in 1077, 1086, and 1093, a great part of the City was burned down.

In 1136, a fire which broke out at London Stone, in the house of one Aylward, spread east and west as far as Aldgate on one side and St. Erkinwald's shrine in St. Paul's Cathedral on the other.

London Bridge, then built of wood, perished in the fire, which for five hundred years was known as the Great Fire.

In these successive fires every building of Saxon erection, to say nothing of the Roman period, must have perished.

But the ravages of all the fires together did less harm than the terrible fire which laid the greater part of London in ashes in the year 1666. If you will refer to the map of London you may mark off within the walls the North-East angle: that part contained by the wall and a straight line running from Coleman Street to Tower Hill.

With the exception of that corner the whole of London within the walls, and beyond as far as the Temple, was entirely destroyed.

The fire broke out at a baker's in Pudding Lane, Thames Street.

It was early on Sunday morning on the second day of September, 1666. It was then, and is now, a place where the houses stood very thick and close together: all round were warehouses filled with oil, wine, tar, and every kind of inflammable stuff.

The baker's shop contained a large quantity of faggots and brushwood, so that the flames caught and spread very rapidly.

The people, for the most part, had time to remove their most valuable things, but their furniture, their clothes, the stock of their shops, the tools of their trade, they had to leave behind them.

Some hurriedly placed their things in the churches for safety, as if the fire would respect the sanctity of these buildings.

A stranger Sunday was never spent than this, when those who had escaped were asking where to go, and those upon whom the flames were advancing were tearing out of their houses whatever they could carry away, and the rest of the town were looking on and asking whether the flames would be stayed before they reached their houses.

Among those who thought that a church would be a safe place were the booksellers of Paternoster Row.

They carried all their books into St. Paul's Cathedral and retired--their stock in trade was safe.

But the flames closed round upon the Cathedral: they seized on Paternoster Row, so that the booksellers like the rest were fain to fly: and presently towering to the sky flamed up the lofty roof of nave and chancel and tower.

Then with an awful crash the flaming timbers fell down into the church below.

Even the Cathedral was burned with the rest, and with it all the books.

[Illustration: A GENTLEMAN.

A GENTLEWOMAN.

ORDINARY CIVIL COSTUME; _temp.

_ CHARLES I.

(_From Speed's map of 'The Kingdom of England,' 1646. _)] All Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday, the fire raged, till it seemed as if there would be no end until the City was utterly destroyed.

Happily a remnant was saved, as you have seen.

The fire was stopped at last by blowing up houses everywhere to arrest its progress.

Close by the Temple Church (which barely escaped) they stopped it in this way.

At Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and Bishopsgate, they used the same means, and at Pye Corner, Smithfield.

Nearly opposite Bartholomew's Hospital, you may still see the image of a boy set up to commemorate the stopping of the fire at that point.

Had it gone further we should have lost St. Bartholomew the Great and the houses of Cloth Fair.

[Illustration: LUD-GATE ON FIRE.

] When the fire stopped the people sat down to consider the losses they had sustained and the best way out of them.

St. Paul's Cathedral, that ancient and venerable edifice, with its thick walls and roof so lofty, that it seemed as if no fire but the fire from heaven could reach it, was a pile of ruins, the walls of the nave and transept standing, the choir fallen into the crypt below.

The Parish churches to the number of 88 were burned: the Royal Exchange--Gresham's Exchange--was down and all the statues turned into lime, with the exception of Gresham's alone: nearly all the great houses left in the City, the great nobles' houses, such as Baynard's Castle, Coldharbour, Bridewell Palace, Derby House, were in ashes: all the Companies' Halls were gone: warehouses, shops, private residences, palaces and hovels--everything was levelled with the ground and burned to ashes.

Five-sixths of the City were destroyed: an area of 436 acres was covered with the ruins: 13,200 houses were burned: it is said that 200,000 persons were rendered homeless--an estimate which would give an average of 15 residents to each house.

Probably this is an exaggeration.

The houseless people, however, formed a kind of camp in Moorfields just outside the wall, where they lived in tents, and cottages hastily run up.

The place now called Finsbury Square stands on the site of this curious camp.

[Illustration: PAUL PINDAR'S HOUSE.

] We ask ourselves in wonder how life was resumed after so great a calamity.

The title deeds to houses and estates were burned--who would claim and prove the right to property?

The account books were all lost--who could claim or prove a debt?

The warehouses and shops with their contents were gone--who could carry on business?

The craftsmen had lost their employment--how were they to live?

Of debts and rents and mortgages and all such things, little could be said.

It was not a time to speak of the past.

They must think of the future: they must all begin the world anew.

53. THE TERROR OF FIRE.

PART II.

They must begin the world anew.

For most of the merchants nothing was left to them but their credit--their good name: try to imagine the havoc caused by burning all the docks, warehouses, wharves, quays, and shops in London at the present day with nothing at all insured!

[Illustration: LONDON, AS REBUILT AFTER THE FIRE.

] But the citizens of London were not the kind of people to sit down weeping.

The first thing was to rebuild their houses.

This done there would be time to consider the future.

The Lord Mayor and the Aldermen took counsel together how to rebuild the City.

They called in Sir Christopher Wren, lately become an architect after being astronomer at Cambridge, and Evelyn: they invited plans for laying out the City in a more uniform manner with wider streets and houses more protected from fire.

Both Wren and Evelyn sent in plans.

But while these were under consideration the citizens were rebuilding their houses.

They did not wait for the ashes to get cool.

As soon as the flames were extinct and the smoke had cleared: as soon as it was possible to make way among the ruined walls, every man sought out the site of his own house and began to build it up again.

So that London, rebuilt, was almost--not quite, for some improvements were effected--laid out with the same streets and lanes as before the fire.

It was two years, however, before the ruins were all cleared away and four years before the City was completely rebuilt.

Ten thousand houses were erected during that period, and these were all of brick: the old timbered house with clay between the posts was gone: so was the thatched roof: the houses were all of brick: the roofs were tiled: the chief danger was gone.

At this time, too, they introduced the plan of a pavement on either side of smooth flat stones with posts to keep carts and waggons from interfering with the comforts of the foot passengers.

It took much longer than four years to erect the Companies' Halls.

About thirty of the churches were never rebuilt at all, the parishes being merged in others.

The first to be repaired, not rebuilt, was that of St. Dunstan's two years after the fire: in four years more, another church was finished.

In every year after this one or two: and the last of the City churches was not rebuilt till thirty one years after the fire.

[Illustration: COACH OF THE LATTER HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

(_From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.'

_)] [Illustration: WAGGON OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

(_From Loggan's 'Oxonia Illustrata.'

_)] It was at this time of universal poverty that the advantages of union was illustrated to those who had eyes to see.

First of all, the Corporation had to find food--therefore work.

Thousands were employed in clearing away the rubbish and carting it off so as to make the streets, at least, free for traffic.

The craftsmen who had no work to do, were employed when this was done on the building operations.

The quays were cleared, and the warehouses put up again, for the business of the Port continued.

Ships came, discharged their cargoes, and waited for their freight outward bound.

Then the houses arose and the shops began to open again.

And the Companies stood by their members: they gave them credit: advanced loans: started them afresh in the world.

Had it not been for the Companies, the fate of London after the fire would have been as the fate of Antwerp after the Religious Wars.

But there must have been many who were ruined completely by this fearful calamity.

Hundreds of merchants, and retailers, having lost their all must have been unable to face the stress and anxiety of making this fresh start.

The men advanced in life; the men of anxious and timid mind; the incompetent and feeble: were crushed.

They became bankrupt: they went under: in the great crowd no one heeded them: their sons and daughters took a lower place: perhaps they are still among the ranks into which it is easy to sink; out of which it is difficult to rise.

The craftsmen were injured least: their Companies replaced their tools for them: work was presently resumed again: their houses were rebuilt and, as for their furniture, there was not much of it before the fire and there was not much of it after the fire.

The poet Dryden thus writes of the people during and after the fire: Those who have homes, when home they do repair, To a last lodging call their wandering friends: Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care To look how near their own destruction tends.

Those who have none sit round where once it was And with full eyes each wonted room require: Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place, As murdered men walk where they did expire.

The most in fields like herded beasts lie down, To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor: And while the babes in sleep their sorrow drown, Sad parents watch the remnant of their store.

[Illustration: ORDINARY DRESS OF GENTLEMEN IN 1675.