What caused the great London fire? There are several versions of the tragedy

A fire is one of the most violent calamities that can befall a person. The raging element brings destruction and death. History knows many tragic stories, when fires destroyed entire cities. One of them happened in the capital of England in 1666. What caused the great London fire? There are several versions of the tragedy.

Description of the fire

The fire broke out on 2 September and raged on September 5, 1666. For three days the flame was destroyed almost the whole city. Without shelter, there are 70 thousand residents, this is in view of the fact that the then population of London was 80 thousand. Dotla burned 13,500 dwelling houses, about 90 churches, including the main church of the city - St. Paul's Cathedral, almost all government buildings - the Royal Exchange, the main post office, Castle House, Brydwell prison, Beinards Castle.

The great London fire of 1966 threatened to spread to the Westminster aristocrats area, the Whitehall Palace nearly burned out. Not reached only a few suburban slums.

What caused the great London fire?

There are several assumptions about the catastrophe in the English capital in 1666. According to the official version, the cause was ignition at night in the house of a baker (Thomas Farringer) on Padding Lane Street, which caused a great London fire.

The combustion could not be localized, the baker's family had to flee. They climbed over the top floor into the house to their neighbors. Their maid was lost. The fire spread westward. His "food" was the neighboring houses and property of the unfortunate townspeople, who in panic began to run out of houses together with belongings.

When the great fire of London began, the opinion that the arsonists were foreigners was confirmed among the population. Suspicion fell on the French and the Dutch, with whom England fought. From the hands of the panicking crowd in the days of the fire, many foreign citizens were killed. To reassure the crowd, a certain Robert Hubert was convicted and executed by hanging, who begged for mercy. Later it turned out that at the time of the fire, Hubert was not even in London.

Also, an opinion was born about the deliberate burning of the city with the aim of destroying the bubonic plague. However, this version can be traced in only a few private records and is not confirmed by historians' research.

Why the fire could not be stopped at the very beginning?

The great London fire of 1666 was the consequence of the reunification of certain objective factors with a chain of certain events.

First of all, almost all the buildings in London were wooden, many roofs - thatched. When erecting houses, flammable materials such as flax, hemp, tar and wood tar were used. In addition, the houses were built in such a way that each next floor was raised above the lower one. Charles II in 1661 and in 1665 issued decrees on the prohibition of exposed floors. But local authorities and the population simply ignored them. The medieval streets were very narrow, covered with rags and other garbage.

The summer of 1666 was marked by a record heat. Wooden buildings dried up in the heat, which caused a great London fire, more precisely, its scale.

Such a fire-dangerous situation was supplemented by the inept actions of the mayor of the city, Lord Thomas Bloodworth, who did not give a timely order to destroy the houses adjoining the flames to stop the spread of the fire. The day after the catastrophe began, the mayor fled the city with his family. The fire was extinguished by the guardsmen of Charles II under the command of the brother of the king - the Duke of York. Even Charles II himself was directly involved in extinguishing several state buildings.

Victims of tragedy

Official data show that the great London fire of 1666 claimed the lives of only a few people - from 1 to 8 (according to various sources). However, the analysis of events and destruction shows that the victims, of course, were much more.

The fire spread very quickly, wooden houses, thatched roofs, garbage on the streets served as "food" for him. The accumulation of people, smoke, panic - this in any case should lead to victims in the streets. The London prison burned down completely, but it is known that the prisoners were not evacuated, no further information was found about them in any documents. It remains to be assumed that all of them were burnt in the fire.

It is known for sure that thousands of local residents, saving their lives and property, hid in the stone cathedral of St. Paul. They were sure that the stone walls and vast free area around the cathedral would protect them from the flames. However, the church at the time of the fire stood in the woods, since it was under reconstruction. The cathedral burned down completely, it is difficult to assume that many were saved.

To the victims of the tragedy, one should also consider the fire victims. Left without shelter and means of subsistence, many people did not survive the harsh winter of 1666-1667. Charles II, organizing assistance to the victims, put the market on the field, which housed those who lost their homes. But in the market products were sold for money, speculators inflated prices. Again, the poorest people, unable to buy bread, suffered severely from hunger.

Historians studying the great London fire of 1666, speak of several tens of thousands of dead.

After the fire

London was almost destroyed. The damage from the fire amounted to 10 million pounds (by today's standards, it's more than 1 billion pounds). Several plans for the restoration of London were proposed. However, all new plans were expensive, in the treasury there was no money. Therefore, the city was restored in the old place. But useful changes were made: the streets became much wider, all the houses were rebuilt from the stone, the overhanging floors were finally banned, the passage to the Thames remained unfinished. Restoration of the city engaged in the architect Christopher Wren.