The Harrowing Eye-Witness Accounts Of The Great Plague | Fire & Fever | Chronicle

[Music] for [Music] who can express the calamities of the Great Plague of 1665 the whole British Nation wept for the miseries of her Metropolis in Som houses carcasses lay waiting for burial and in others persons in their last agonies in one room might be heard dying groans in another the ravings of delirium and the relatives and friends bewailing both their loss and the Dismal Prospect of their own sudden departure death was a sure m wife to all children and infants passed immediately from the womb to the Grave who would not burst with grief to see the stock of a future generation hanging upon the breasts of a dead mother or the marriage bed changed the first night into a Seiler and the unhappy pair meet with death in their first Embraces as the city was later burned without distinction in like manner did this plague spare no order age or sex the terrible epidemic Which history remembers as the Great Plague of London claimed its first victim in the freezing December of 1664 deaths from the dreaded disease were not in themselves unusual in the middle of the 17th century for in each year a few unfortunate individuals succumbed so these new fatalities probably excited little comment however as the weeks and months passed heralding the warm spring of 1665 the worst fears of the population were confirmed the plague had arrived with a Vengeance the last major outbreak had brought death and misery to London as long ago as 1625 during which more than 40,000 people had died the short life expectancy of the average man or woman at this time meant that few people would remember the last epidemic memories of its horror though were kept luridly Alive by the colorful storytelling and Rich folklore of the age it's not difficult to understand the abject Terror which gripped the population as day by day more and more people fell prey to the awful contagion London of course was a vastly different place in the 17th century to the massive Metropolis we know today it was to begin with much smaller this map indicates its boundaries at the time which stretched from the river temps in the South to Ludgate in the west and from alers gate in the North to the tower in the East the area of builtup housing is also shown including places such as souk Westminster and the Strand areas to the north of the city such as Islington and clarenell which today tremble to the Thunder of modern day traffic were then peaceful hamlets surrounded by green thickets and Rolling Meadows there could be no greater contest between these quiet suburbs and the heaving seething cauldron which was the center of London Itself by far England's largest city London in the middle of the 17th century teamed with people perhaps a million squeezed sometimes four or five families to a dwelling industry dominated the area to the north of the temps and it was here that the most unpleasant living conditions were to be found Timber framed houses packed tightly together overhung narrow unlit Cobble streets which were filled daily with every imaginable type of rotting rubbish no sanitation existed and the smell of open sewers mixed appallingly with the stench of the acrid black smoke which belched from from the chimneys of the soap boilers and the Brewers rats and mice ran rampant furthermore the gutters in the street were channeled directly into the river temps the very same place from which most people drew their water for drinking and washing there had been suspicions for a very long time in fact centuries that the disease was caused by rats but no one had actually uh nailed this down really and it wasn't until um the early part of this Century that the actual um cycle of transmission was clearly worked out the disease is transmitted by fleas rat fleas and it is they that actually bite man and transmit the the the bacterium to to man standards of personal hygiene were of course extremely low ordinary poor people were usually utterly filthy and even the better off with their fashionable wigs were more often often than not beveled by lice Little Wonder then that illness and sickness were so common for there was no understanding of the importance of cleanliness in the prevention of disease it was beyond the comprehension of even learned men that microscopic germs and bacteria should be the cause of such miseries bereft of any ideas as to its cause ordinary folks saw the horror of the plague as divine retribution for their Earthly sins God-fearing people beset with superstitions and certain of the truth of old wives tales seized upon signs of the workings of the almighty taking the appearance of a comet over London to be a grim foretelling of disaster soon to follow some even believe the contagion to be the work of those of other nations or faiths whom they despised the Jews the Roman Catholics or the Dutch the predominant clinical feature here is is you get very large lymph glands uh in the groins and uh underneath the arms in the axil um which uh the these can vary in size from about a centimeter to anything up to 10 cm and of course accompanying that you get a high fever and the liver and spleen are enlarged and then rashes are common um some of these are hemorrhagic underneath the skin uh and these become can become rather black as Gang Green sets in and that of course is why we uh why the term Black Death actually arose if the causes of the plague remained a mystery to the people its results were all too obvious and filled them with Dread the diarist Samuel peeps whose writings left as such a vivid picture of life in the Stewart period conveyed clearly his feelings as he observed the emergence of the plague Thursday June the 7th with the mighty heat of the afternoon I stayed walking in the garden until 12: at night this day I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross and Lord have mercy upon us WR there this was a sad sight for me being the first of that kind which to my conception I ever saw it put into me an ill conception of myself and my smell so that I was forced to buy some roll tobacco to smell and chew Saturday June the 17th it struck me very deep this afternoon going with a Hackney coach from my Lord treasurers to hobin The Coachman did seem to drive slower and slower and at last Stood Still he got down hardly able to stand and told me that he was suddenly struck very sick and almost blind and he could not see so I Al lighted and went into another coach with a sad heart for the poor man and trouble for myself lest he be struck with the plague God have mercy upon us all many doctors fled London to avoid the plague but some stayed bravely risking their lives in an attempt to apply their pitifully limited knowledge to the Cure of the stricken here is shown a plague doctor's uniform a frightening attire which was supposed to protect the wearer against the disease the hat and gloves are made of leather and the Hideous beak contains spices or perfumes his all a gown is a waxed cloth and he carries a stick to drive people away the arrival of this appalling Vision can have done little to comfort the plague victim or his distressed family in truth there was little to be done for the sufferer save for the traditional practice of bloodletting which involved cutting open a vein or the application of leeches to the body this was believed to correct the balance of humors in the body these being four liquids thought to be directly linked with the elements they were black bile with the Earth yellow bile with fire fleem with water and blood with air let blood in cases of great distress until patient faints ordered one doctor of the time believing that balance of humors to be thus restored and the patient set on the road to recovery various noxious potions were also recommended powdered bones or frog or snake puses were administered to affected parts of the body and in an attempt to make a patient vomit hermetics were supplied of course none of these cures had any effect whatsoever on the progress of the disease and the desperate popular soon turned to the ever growing number of quack doctors who set themselves up with their cure all medicines sold at a thumping profit for the heartless purveyor Dr Nathaniel Hodges wrote in disgust of the Behavior nothing contributed more to the common destruction more than the practice of chemists and quacks and of whose audacity and ignorance it is impossible to be altogether silent they were indefatigable in spreading their anecdotes and although equal strangers to all learning as well as physic they thrust into every hand some trash or or other under the disguise of a pompous title No Country surely ever abounded with such Wicked imposters for all events contradicted their pretentions and hardly a person escaped that trusted to their delusions their medicines were more fatal than the plague and added to the numbers of the dead but these blowers of the pestilential flame were caught in the common ruin and by their death in some measure excused the magistrates in suffering their practice the awful effect of the plague upon the population was recorded Faithfully in bills of mortality as shown here these depressing documents were published weekly and informed the people as to the exact manner in which their fellow citizens had been carried off and in what number in some people with relative immunity the disease won't actually develop at all but at The Other Extreme those who have no uh immunity at all um there will be a very high mortality rate indeed which will be in fact overall mortality rate in this disease untreated is something of the order of 50% the figures attributed to death from the plague make Grim reading in the week beginning September the 19th 1665 7,165 people died from its effects the previous week had seen 6,978 to come then in that terrible September the plague raged at its most furious in sweltering London in the face of the unrelenting pestilence the citizens of London attempted to organize themselves to protect those as yet unaffected and to help those stricken officials were appointed by William Lawrence the Lord mayor of London to carry out various unpleasant tasks examiners noted and marked with a red cross every house visited by the plague while Watchmen were posted outside day and night to prevent contact except with a doctor Searchers and surgeons were employed to ascertain cause of death for which they were paid the princely sum of one Gro per corpse while corpse bearers clattered through the streets in open carts to collect the many bodies from houses for burial and once the cart was fully laden with its Grim load it would proceed to the outskirts of the city to one of the Great Plague pits the bodies were then quickly dumped and covered with quick climb although the pit itself was not covered over until it was completely full no relatives or friends of the Dead were permitted near the plague pit before during or after the burial of a body Daniel defo in his famous Journal of a plague year described a plague pit in the later outbreak of plague in 1722 but the procedure had changed not a lot in 57 years he wrote the cart had in it 16 or 17 bodies some were wrapped in linen sheets some in rugs and others were little other than naked or so loose that what covered them fell from them in the shooting of the cart and they took fell naked among the rest not that the matter mattered much to them or the indecency much to anyone else for they were dead and were soon to be huddled together in the common grave of mankind as we may call it for here there was no difference made but the rich and the poor went together well there was no other way of burials neither was it possible there should be coffins for there were none to be had for the prodigious numbers which fell in a great calamity such as this in 1655 the dead cart made its horrible Journey Through The Streets of London night after night for over 8 months the number of the Sextons was not sufficient to bury the dead the bells seemed horse with continuous ringing the bearing places would not hold the dead but they were thrown into large pits dug in waste grounds in heaps 30 or 40 together and it often happened that those attended the funerals of their friends one evening were carried the next to their own long home some of the infected ran about staggering like drunken men and fell and expired in the streets others fell dead in the market where they were buying the Necessities for the support of Life others lie half dead in Kos never to be waked but by the last trumpet some lie vomiting as if they had drunk poison the Divine was taken in the very exercise of his Priestly office to be enrolled among the saints above and some Physicians could not find assistance in their own antidotes but died in the administration of them to others many of their old age others in their Prime slunk under its cruelties of the female sex most died and hardly any children escaped and it was not uncommon to see an inheritance pass successively to three or four hirs in as many days nor in this are we to neglect that the Contagion spread into the neighboring countries for the citizens which crowded in multitudes into the adjacent towns carried the infection along with them where it raged with equal Fury so that the plague that once crept from Street to street now reigned over whole counties leaving hardly any place free from its insults such was the rise and such was the progress of this cruel Destroyer that first began in London This calamity melts me into tears and as yet the worst was not certain although the city was near drained by her funerals for the disease as yet had no relaxation as the plague raged on through throughout 1665 new orders were issued by the Lord mayor to clean up the filthy streets and keep the air sweet smelling teams of men were contracted to exterminate the thousands of dogs and cats which roam the streets and fed on the Mounds of rubbish it's estimated that over 60,000 cats and dogs were killed in this way during 1665 1665 was a terrible year for young and old rich and poor and there are many good Tales of immoral and evil Behavior as the disease refused to release its grip on the population some parents abandoned their sick children and clothing and bed lining were taken from people as they Lay Dying peeps also noted scores of sufferers deliberately trying to infect others by breathing into their faces and throwing plasters which had covered weeping SS Through the Windows of plague-free houses some official barriers were seen to strip corpses of their linen winding sheet should it appear of decent quality it is sure that during 1665 London suffered not only the pestilence of disease but also of debauchery as the fabric of society was stretched to its very limit John eelin another contemporary diarist recorded walking through the city from Kent Street to St James a dismal passage and dangerous to see so many coffins exposed in the streets and the streets thin of people the shop shut up and all mournful silence as not knowing whose turn it might be [Applause] next ring ring roses the nursery rhyme probably um came about uh to describe the plague um but this would have been the pneumonic plague almost certainly because it it talks about tissue tissue uh and this was this is a different form this is not not bubonic um so this was spread by um droplets by sneezing and so [Applause] on these words so innocent in the mouths of children refer to the red blotches on the bodies of sufferers of one form of the plague to the sweet smelling herbs which were thought to protect against the disease to the sneezing which heralded the onset of the infection and to its conclusion which saw people fall down literally in their thousands from the December of 1665 the Great Plague of London was virtually over from October that year the number steadily reduced owing in the first instance to the onset of the Colder Weather although the plague remained a threat for the next several years killing many people it never again in the 17th century struck with such severity there were many reasons for its eventual decline improved public sanitation greater awareness of personal hygiene an advancement in medical expertise and importantly the appalling black rat which carried the disease via ships and into people's homes was chased out by the aggressive brown rat inhabit of sewers and Fields at last high-risk shipping routes were redirected away from the great danger areas of the East and as we shall see later many of the infested Abominations people called home were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 there was a recurrence of uh plague in Europe in the 19th century um and that particular pandemic is still still smoldering on we've got fosi uh in various parts of the world still in Asia and Africa and in the Americas um so that there are odd um outbreaks still occurring the last um case in this country was brought 1910 um so it's it's still with us in fact it has a bacterial infection which is still with us by the spring of 1666 people crowded back into the city as thick as they had fled the houses which before were so full of the Dead were now inhabited by the living and the people cheerfully went about their wed Affairs of trade and employ some traces of the contagion remained which were easily conceived by The Physicians and ended in healthful recovery the city returned to a perfect health and a new city arose out of the ashes of the old much better able to stand the like flames and another time the Great Plague carried off approximately 110,000 people during 1665 between a quarter and 1third of the population of London however Dr Nathaniel Hodge's choice of words were to be strangely prophetic for before the summer of 1666 was out a new threat had emerged from a small bakery in Pudding Lane to send the city into turmoil once again this terrifying scene took place in the early hours of Sunday September the 2nd 1666 in a small bakery in Pudding Lane near East chep in London the king's Baker Thomas farino with his daughter Hannah lived above the shop and were awoken by the Frantic cries of a young Bakery worker finding their escape downstairs sealed off by the Flames which had now seized the entire building they were able to escape onto an adjoining rooftop and were thus delivered from the Raging Inferno however Faro's unfortunate maid servant became utterly Paralyzed by fear and despite Faro's desperate cause for her to follow them onto the roof died screaming in The Cauldron of smoke and Flame the poor girl had become the first victim of the Great Fire of London the early hours of the fire were recalled vividly by the ubiquitous Samuel peeps who kept his famous diary between 1660 and 1669 a Navy Board official who sometimes reported directly to King Charles II said Peep's writings are rich in detail and flavor of 17th century life at first he was unconcerned about the fire a feeling probably typical of the majority of londoners only as the Flames spread inexorably through the streets and Lanes of Timber framed houses did his bewilderment and sadness increase Sunday the 2nd of September Lord's Day Jane called us up about 3: in the morning to tell us of a great fire they saw in the city so I Rose slipped on my night gown and went to her window and thought it to be on the back side of Mark Lane at the farthest being unused to such fires I thought it far enough off and so went to bed and to sleep about 7 a.m. rose again to dress myself and there looked out at the window and saw the fire not so much as it was and further off by and by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned down tonight by the fire we saw and that it was now burning down all fish Street hill by London Bridge so I made myself ready presently and walked to the Tower and there got up on one of the high places and there did see the houses at that end of the bridge all on fire and an infinite great fire on this and the other side and end of the bridge which among other people did trouble me for poor little Mitchell and our Sarah so down with my heart full of trouble to the lieutenant of the tower who tells me that it began this morning in the king's Baker's house in Pudding Lane and that it has burned down St Magnus church and most part of fish Street Hill already so I down to the water side and there got a boat through the bridge and there saw a lamentable fire poor Mitchell's house as far as the old Swan already burnt that way and the fire running further in a very little time it got as far as the steel yard while I was there everybody endeavoring to remove their goods and flinging them into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off poor people staying in the houses as long as till the very fire touched them and then running into boats or clambering for one pair of stairs by the water side to another and among other things the poor pigeons I perceive were loathed to leave their houses but hovered about the windows and balconies till they were some of them burned their wings and fell down that London should fall victim to a great fire had been the fear of government and Kings for many centuries as early as in 1189 a law had been passed ordering Builders to construct at least in part with brick and to roof dwellings with tiles or slates furthermore in 1665 Charles II made it an offense for houses to be built of Timber but in Stuart times such laws were never enforced the high cost of these alternative materials meant that despite the orders and decrees Poor People's housing continued to be built of Highly combustible timber in addition the only light and heat available to householders and Industry were via the naked flame indeed a law had been passed only 4 years earlier compelling people to place a lighted Lantern in their Windows during the winter months in the dark streets of the period this was the only way to provide illumination for centuries timberframe dwellings and the naked flame were an easy bed fellows London was quite literally a Tinder Box waiting only for a deadly spark the buildings were made of um very combustible materials uh these uh very often the roofs were sometimes shingles or even thatch uh and it was sort of brick up into the first floor after that it was usually wood and wle which is uh small LS and covered with plaster so if anything caught fire there would be no actual break for it it could just burn through and very often if you had a row of houses very often the uh walls between each house weren't solid they were wattle as well so if a house caught fire at each end or in the middle the fire could burn very very quickly right through the house uh roadways also were quite not as broad as they are today but very often the houses would overhang at the top and sometimes in some streets you could actually shake hands with a person opposite because the buildings used to hang over so much the situation was exacerbated by The Summer's awful drought which had laid the level of water extremely low although at last pipe water through wooden or lead pipes had been made available to most of the principal London streets the drought had all but dried their sources the river the springs and the wells there was therefore little water for firefighting they fact the first people to pipe water into London were the Romans and they used Stone troughs uh after the fall of the Roman Empire uh we went back to our sort of barbaric ways and then in later years a system of wooden tree trunks which were hollowed out and placed end to end usually fed from High Ground into the city to uh feed pumps where people would get their domestic water from uh these were mainly under the main thoroughfares and we think that's why we get the name Trunk Road because the tree trunk was under the main Thorofare there were many other factors which aided the rapid spread of the fire as seen on this map pudding Lane where the fire started ran between T Street and little East Jeep and T Street in particular was comprised almost entirely of warehousing stocked full of combustibles tar Brandy oil and sugar as so often happens when Misfortune strikes the elements conspired to compound the problem and the strong wind which blew from the East soon ushered the Flames down temp Street and towards fish Street Hill with every minute that passed the fire took a firmer grip on the city becoming ever Wilder even more beyond the control of the Watchman battling to put it out they were not helped in their Endeavors by the unfortunate attitude of the Lord mayor of London Sir Thomas Bloodworth he had seen many minor fires start in the city none of which had caused more than superficial damage or caused any major concern to make matters worse Bloodworth had enjoyed an excellent supper the evening before and had washed it down with liberal amounts of wine he was therefore singularly displeased to be disturbed early on Sunday September thei with an urgent request to come and inspect yet another fire no doubt after much grumbling and cursing The Reluctant mayor finally agreed to journey to pudding lane from his home in aldergate to view the situation for himself to Bloodworth however the problem was not at all serious pish a woman could piss it out having thus pronounced the mayor still befuddled by drink returned to his home and to his Slumbers no organized fire brigade existed in the middle of the 17th century it was up to the ordinary citizen to respond to the peeling of church bells to hurry to their local church to collect firefighting equipment and to help fight the fire in the 17th century there were no Fades as we know them today uh each Parish had to by law um buy Fire Equipment but of course it there was nobody to go around and make sure that it was in full workking order and very often nobody was actually trying to use it uh pumps of a very sort of basic nature were built basically the fire engine of that time was uh a bucket uh with a pump in it some didn't even have wheels they were either carried like a sedan chair to the the fire or pulled on a sled uh the then you had to find your water supply uh you had to fill them with water and the people whose house was on fire and probably the neighbors would actually pump the handlers to help you put your fire out um each Parish of course in those days had a gentleman called a beetle and very often he was a man who had toot round up people to actually get them to pour the appliance to the fire to fight it by Sunday evening the full extent of the Calamity which had befallen London was becoming painfully apparent what had initially concerned only the area around pudding Lane itself had now spread through the surrounding streets unchecked causing people from a much wider area to panic and flee their houses writing in 1667 the Reverend Thomas Vincent an eyewitness to the fire remembered the desolation of the people it would have grieved the heart of an UNC concerned person to see the pale cheeks the sorrowful looks the tears trickling down the eyes to hear the Sigh and groans the doleful and weeping speeches of the different citizens when they brought forth their wives some from their child bed and their little ones some from their sick bed out of their houses and sending them into the country now the hopes of London are gone their hearts [Music] sunk now there is a general remove in the city and that in a greater hurry than before the plague their goods being in Greater danger than by fire than their persons were by sickness King Charles II and his brother James Duke of York were greatly concerned by the course of events as peeps recalled having for an hour seen the fire Rage in every way and nobody to my sight endeavoring to quench it but to remove their goods and leave all to the fire and having seen it get as far as the Ste yard and the wind Mighty High and driving it into the City and everything after so long a drought proving combustible even the very stones of the churches so I to whiteall and there to the king's closet in the chapel where people came about me and I did give them an account which dismayed the all and word was carried to the king so I was called for and did tell the king and Duke of York what I saw and that unless his majesty did command houses to be pulled down nothing could stop the fire they seemed much troubled and commanded me to to go to my Lord mayor from him and command him to spare no houses but to pull down before the fire every way the Duke of York bid me tell him that if he would have any more soldiers he shall it was however Monday the 3rd of September more than 24 hours after the start of the fire before any sort of organized action was taken the king ordered the establishment of fire poost throughout the city in an attempt to stop any further spread of the Flames crewed by 30 soldiers and 100 ordinary citizens these were set up on Fleet Street feta Lane and Sho Lane and at Smithfield St Martin's Lane and the London Wall King Charles also immediately rescinded the law which forced people to shoulder the costs of rebuilding houses pulled down to make a fire Break The Sovereign faced with an impossible situation probably did all within his power to help peeps remembered delivering the king's message to S Thomas Bloodworth whose demeanor had now changed from the early hours of Sunday morning at last met my Lord May in Cannon Street Like a Man spent with a scarf around his neck to the king's message he replied like a fainting woman Lord what can I do I am spent the people will not obey me I have been pulling down houses but the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it that he needed no more soldiers and that for himself he must refresh himself having been up all night so he left me and I him and walked home seeing people all almost too distracted and no manner of means to quench the fire the hous is too so very thick thereabouts and full of things for burning such as tar and pitch and warehouses full of oil and wines and Brandy and other things Thomas Vincent also remembered the Lord mayor comes with his offices a confusion there is Council is taken away and London so famous for its wisdom and dexterity can find neither brains nor hands to prevent its ruin on Monday September the 3rd the Lord mayor Thomas Bloodworth was replaced by the Duke of York as man responsible for coordinating the firefighting in London and the jke appears to have performed the task diligently the great far of London was actually stopped by the intervention of um the King King Charles II who actually got the Duke of York uh to bring in the Army and the Navy and they started started to blow up and make a blow up houses and make a fire break uh by this time more people of higher authority got together and finally decided that they would actually stop the fire contemporary accounts recorded James himself supervising the work he exposed his person to the very flames and the ruins of the buildings to fall upon him and sometimes laboring with his own hands to give example to the others this map shows how the fire had spread from Sunday the 2nd to Monday the 3rd and to Tuesday the 4th of September on Tuesday the Flames engulfed two of the city's most impressive buildings St Paul's Cathedral and the Royal exchange the elegant portals and Courtyard of which had provided a delightful Center for Commerce in London since 1568 these once imposing constructions were now shapeless burnt out Hulks on that terrible Tuesday the fire at last consumed the better part of the city and showed no sign of abating despite the efforts of the people to Halt its progress for the Reverend Thomas Vincent this was the worst day of the Great Fire of London for he recalled and if Monday night was Dreadful Tuesday night was more Dreadful when the greatest part of the city was consumed many thousands now have no where to lay their heads and the fields are the only receptacle they can find for themselves or their goods the fire is still making towards them and now threatens the suburbs at last on Wednesday the 5th of September came the help from the elements that London had prayed for the wind which had fanned and fed the Flames from the East for three whole days suddenly died down and changed Direction and began to blow gently to the the South the fire was checked in its march westwards across London and much to their relief the fine houses of the rich who lived at the end of The Strand were saved by the end of the day apart from sporadic outbreaks of fire notably at the temple and at cripplegate the worst of the configration was over and the shocked citizens of London were able to survey the terrible damage caused by the Flames Samuel peeps recalled with relief the moments when he realized the fire was under control home and whereas I had expected to find our house on fire it was not so to the fire and there find Greater Hope than I had expected my confidence of finding our office on fire was such that I dare not ask anybody how it was till I came and saw it not burned but to the fire and there fined by the blowing up of houses and the great help given by the workmen there is a good stop given to it at Mark Lane's end as well as ours so I lay down and slept me a good night about midnight then when I Rose I find there has been a great alarm of French and Dutch being risen which proved nothing but it is a strange thing to see how long this time did look since Sunday having been full of variety of action and little sleep at like a week or more and I had forgot almost the day of the week peeps remembered clearly in his Memoirs the rumor which swept among the poor battered people of London almost as quickly as the Flames which had wrecked their homes and their lives that their mortal enemies the French and the the Dutch with whom Britain was at War were on their way in ships to take advantage of The londoners Misfortune it was as if fate had summoned up one last effort to bring panic and fear to thousands of bewildered and homeless people the cost of the great fire to the city of London was of course immense it had forever changed the face of the capital 13,200 houses 87 Parish Church es six chapels three City Gates and four stone Bridges were lost to the Flames also destroyed were St Paul's Cathedral the Royal exchange the Guild Hall Bridewell and Newgate jail estimated Financial losses were over10 million a disaster to a city whose annual income was a mere 12,000 The Great Fire of London in 1666 uh destroyed the complete City uh 13,200 houses 400 streets most of the liy company's halls and approximately one3 of the lond the old London Bridge and over 100,000 people were made homeless considering the ferocity of the fire it's recorded that very few people were killed it's thought perhaps that only eight died in the Flames including fara's poor maid servant what cannot be calculated is how many perished as they slept in the open during the harsh winter of 1666 and 1667 still homeless some with nothing except the clothes they wore within 3 weeks of the fire ending a citizen's inquiry was set up to investigate the causes of the Great Fire of London The Firm suspicion held by bitter londoners that the fire had been started deliberately by papist plotters was given substance when Robert Hubert a 26-year-old French watchmaker made a detailed confession after his detention at Romford in Essex Hubert claimed to have fired Thomas fara's Bakers deliberately by throwing a fireball through the window farino for his part denied there ever being a window in the bakery claiming the whole fire resulted from an accident but Hubert insisted he had willfully started the blaze despite the prospect of certain death as a result of his confession however Hubert changed his story many times much to the confusion and annoyance of his judges who had him hanged anyway even though his story was palpably untrue notably Thomas farino placed his signature swiftly on the warrant for Hubert's execution thereby Shifting the weight of responsibility for the fire away from himself and onto the Frenchmen it afterwards transpired that Hubert had not even been in the country when the great fire started there was no insurance against fire whatsoever uh so the merchants and people lost their houses lost everything unless they had actually money in the bank uh their goods their property were completely destroyed by fire and they had no means of of getting money to actually rebuild their premises or their buildings and so devastated London made its plans to rebuild and regenerate the city a massive task which did not begin until 1667 the housing program was not completed until 1672 but important centers of Commerce places such as the Royal exchange were swiftly reconstructed and opened for business if any good at all came from the tragedy of the fire it was surely that it gave the architect Christopher Ren the opportunity to display his great genius by 1685 Ren had rebuilt over 50 of the church church is lost to the fire but it was not until 1710 that he completed his most famous work the Magnificent reconstruction of St Paul's Cathedral to this day London's most beautiful and Best Loved place of worship and so ends the story of two momentous years in the 17th century which saw London and its people devastated by fire and fever but despite its awful trials and tribulations the spirit of the city remained intact its heart and soul Unbroken by the events of 1665 and 1666 and although it had received the harshest of lessons it had learned perhaps the determination and pride of the New London is best summed up by the inscription on the south side of Sir Christopher Ren's Memorial to the great fire the Monument built a short distance from where the blaze started in Pudding Lane the words proclaimed while the ruins were yet smoking parliament passed an act that Public Works should be restored to Greater Beauty with public money to be raised by tax on coals the churches and the Cathedral of St Paul should be rebuilt from their foundations with all magnificence that Bridges Gates and prisons be made a new the sewers cleansed the streets made straight and regular and those too narrow made wider and markets and slaughter houses removed to separate places that every house should be built with party walls all of square stone or brick London is restored in 3 years time the world saw finished that which was supposed to be the work of an age [Music] the [Music] he [Music]

Channel: Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries

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Keywords: 17th-century London, Chronicle - Medieval History Documentaries, Great Plague of London, archival documents, burial customs, cultural impact, deadly illnesses, deadly plagues analysis, devastating plague, disease prevention, epidemic control strategies, healthcare systems, historical documentaries, history documentary, medieval history, medieval history documentary, mortality rate, pandemic history, public health crisis, rapid spread of the plague, tragic events

Id: IktIx8PiQzI

Length: 52min 32sec (3152 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2024