We all know so much about the Great Fire of London. Where it started, the timber-framed dried-out buildings, the devastation it caused and where Samuel Pepys buried his cheese. But there are so many other parts of the story, such as what was unfolding beforehand, what happened after, the impact on people that lasted years afterwards and the resilience that went along with it.
In almost every job I’ve had over the past 20 years I have some way or other had to work on the Great Fire. I’ve taught it to school and must have looked at archives and objects from the period with 1000s of children over the years. I curated an exhibition on it in 2015 (the 350th anniversary of the Fire) at the Guildhall Library, written blogs and articles on it, and recently discussed it in a podcast. I’ve seen so much material relating to it and it is one of the most compelling and exciting stories to tell.
This isn’t going to be a story going through what happened, but an alternative view on the periphery, the things we don’t usually see of think of, just those things we see in the corner of the eye. When you look at documents and collections, sometimes you see things that aren’t part of the main story but relate to it. It is like a figure in the background, that corner of your eye, where you think “what was that” but you have to move on and keep to the core narrative. I’ve had plenty of these in my career, and often been distracted, sometimes for the better. After a while, you start joining up dots, and for the Great Fire, this has led me to a long and deep understanding of the Fire.
The Beginning
With every great story, we need a beginning, and that usually happens with the summer of 1666, which was a long hot dry summer. In parliament’s subsequent investigation it concluded, “That Dreadful Fire: the Hand of God, a Great Wind and a Very Dry Season”. But as in the History Boys, “History is one sodding thing after another”, and the narrative can be traced well before 1666.
Fire was nothing new to the people of London, or any city or town in the world. People knew of the dangers to property, economy and life. There had been a significant fire in 1632, so 34 years before the Great Fire, in the north area of London Bridge. It caused a lot of damage, destroying buildings north of the Bridges, as well as some of those on it too. There was also loss of life. Ten years after that, a broadsheet was published by the Lord Mayor of London, detailing what to do to reduce the risk of fire. It was titled, “Seasonable Advice for Preventing the Mischief of Fire, that may come by negligence, Treason, or otherwise”. In bold and at the top it states this advice is actually:
“Orders to be observed, so that fires may not happen”, and that “it is necessary to hang in every man’s house, especially in these dangerous times.”
The broadside looked at how fire starts, for example not letting candles burn close to flammable materials, not falling asleep while guarding a fire, or being drunk. It then goes on to detail what one should do to prevent fires:
“Every house-keeper…, to see to the fire and Candle, and to shut the Sellerwindowes, dores, casements, garret-windows, and to stop holes, and sinkes, that fire may not come in by Treason, or otherwise.”
“Seeke to prevent fire at the beginning, and by the sight of smoake…, or by hearing the crackling of sticks, coales, or sparkes of fire.”
“Candles can be left, but you should place your candle in a bowl of water and in that way, it will not cause a fire. Bricklayers are advised to ensure that the foundations of hearths and ovens be well built to prevent fire.”
Fire equipment is listed. A parish should always keep:
“Hookes, Ladders, Squrts, Buckets, and Scoopes in a readinesse upon any occasion.”
In addition,
“…you may keepe great Scoopes or Squrts of wood in houses; or if you will, you may have in the Parish a great Squrt on wheeles, that may doe very good service.”
A “Squrt” is a handheld water squirt, operated by two or three people. Think of a large bicycle pump. A “great Squrt on wheels” is a larger “Squrt” on top of a large wooden tank for the water supply. It is the very early fire engine and the basic concept of it can be traced back to the Roman period.
Finally, the third part looks at what one should do in the event of a fire, by using all available manpower and water, including pipes and conduits from existing water supplies.
A final piece of advice is:
“To master the Elements, is either to increase or decrease any of them; for as ayre makes fire increase; so earth will choake it; and water will quench it.”
This broadsheet is very comprehensive and even details the human impact:
“O the miseries of Cities, Towns, Villages, and particular houses that have been burnt, where some could not recover their losses in thirty years after, and some never, which have been lamentable spectacles unto us, and many men women and children have been burnt in their houses; and multitudes of people utterly undone that saw all their wealth burned before their eyes.”
The Great Fire of London often appears to us it was the first fire in an urban place. What also strikes me, is the use of the word “Treason”. It was a dangerous place to live in 1642.
Spectators
The most famous spectators of the Fire were the diarists Samual Pepys and John Evelyn. These were educated middle class men, who kept diaries, and were probably first on the boats to get out of the City of London. There were others, Londoners, who gave evidence at the enquires after the Fire. I’ve read a few of these first-hand accounts, when working in the London Archives. I was trying to get a bit more archival material into the Year 2 workshops, and came across these transcribed accounts. The one that sticks in my head is an account of someone, who, with their friends, made their way to their roof to get a better view of the Fire. On retrospect, with the knowledge we have now, perhaps the better thing to do was to leave the house and make their way out of the City. At the time, people may not have had such an overall view of the situation and felt that fires were a common occurrence and were delt with.
What really sticks in my head is the line
“About my ears did come a great fireball”.
That striking image of a “fireball” bursting on the scene, instantly conveys the danger and intensity of the fire. The Londoners may well have not taken it too seriously at the time, and it must have some as a shock.
The personal accounts, recorded a few years after the Fire, were not eloquent, emotional and considered writings, but first-hand descriptions recorded as they were talking. A scribe would have written them down. They are vivid and packed with detail of a moment’s experience. Perhaps a pinch of salt could be taken with them, as they were from memory of a considerable experiences.
There were supposedly 350,000 people living in the City of London at that time. Every one of them would have had a personal story, and experience of the Fire, with only a fraction of them recorded. These stories were no doubt shared, distorted, handed down from generation to generation, talked about for decades afterwards, well into the 18th century. I can even imagine there would have been some form of “badge of honour” to have such stories to tell, and perhaps it separated the Londoners from the rest of the country and the world.
Shock
News of the Great Fire sent shockwaves across Europe with news reports and chronicles written. Never had a city been destroyed by fire. This was on Biblical proportions, and the Fire was treated in such a way. In Spain, Relacion nueva, y verdadera, del formidable incendio que ha sucedido en 12 dias (New, and true relationship, the formidable fire that has happened in 12 days), was published soon after. The account was written from a Catholic viewpoint, claiming the fire was a judgement from God on London for its Protestantism and the murder of Catholic martyrs.
A German Chronicle by Johann Praetorius, Zodiacus mercurialis das ist: jahrige Europaeische welt chronick, (Zodiacus Mercurialis: annual European world chronicle) in 1667, looked at events from around Europe and the world. It reported on the Fire, along with a dramatic fold-out illustration of the view overlooking London from the south with the fire raging in the city and smoke pluming above the roof tops. This fold out would have been quite an investment for the publisher, as it added extra complications and costs to the production, but it was obviously economically and editorially well worth it.
Being a geek, the one thing I love about this image, is not that it is drawn from an imaginary view, but the current detail of it. Look to the north end of London Bridge. It is devoid of buildings. It is the gap that was created by the fire of 1632.
The Impact
The impact was huge. The population of London (remember, 350,000 people) was left homeless for up to two to three years afterwards. Londoners were living in camps around the outside of London, in Moorfields and any open space. Think, the Fire was in September, so everyone was plunged into winter without a home to live in. It was said that only about 5 people were killed in the Fire, but that doesn’t account for the trauma, the injuries, smoke inhalation, the old, young and ill, who would have suffered living in tents for years afterwards, and maybe died as a result in the years after the Fire.
The Commercial City
The rebuilding didn’t begin until after the following Spring, and even then, it would take a few years for the majority of London to be rebuilt. There were grand schemes put forward by Christopher Wren and others, but they would take too long for people to long to build. It took a good 50 years to rebuild St Paul’s into what it is now. London and Londoners needed to get back up and making money as soon as. London was becoming the main international northern European port, taking over Amsterdam, with strong links to north America. The City needed to operate at a profit as soon as possible for its very survival. I’ve said before, London only exists because of trade: London is a Roman Creation.
The surveyors were in the City while the ground was still hot and the air still suffocating. A special Fire Cout was set up to deal with the issues of plot ownership. A property owner would go to the fire court, to define the area they owned, be given a certificate and that was the permission to build. There were disputes, where an owner may have pushed their boundary a bit further into the roads, or their neighbours plot. The Fire Court settled these with swiftness and the process continued
The result was that London was rebuilt at speed, on the same medieval footprint as before the fire. Within a decade it was rebuilt and trading again, attracting finance, commerce, and monied people. The Royal Exchange was up and coffee houses were established around it. The infrastructure for business and trade.
Within 15 years, fire insurance was being to anyone who owned a building, offered on a commercial basis. The Fire Office offered insurance, produced policies and fire marks, which were the visible evidence of fire ownership, and ran a fire brigade of its own with up-to-date fire equipment. It was a success, so much so that other competitors set themselves up and by the early 1700s there was a plethora of fires insurance companies in fierce competition with each other. Although this was a practical arrangement to protect your house, warehouse, business and family, I think the shock and living memory of the Great Fire and the impact of it, was ever present in London during the first part of the 1700s. Going back to those personal stories, there was a generational memory, not just of the fire, but what it caused. We detach different historical periods with our “boxes” that we create. The “Stuarts” the “Georgians”, the 17th century, the 18th century. History is a continuous flow. If you think of today, 2025, and think back to 1966; this was the same time period of 1725 and 1666. Today, have the English truly forgotten the last time England won the World Cup? In the same way, the Fire was still very much in the minds of 18th century people.
The Great Fire was still being preached about in sermons well into the 1700s. Some used the opportunity to produce anti-Catholic propaganda, such as, The Burning of London by the Papists, by John Clark in 1714. In the 19th century the Fire started to enter popular culture, being produced on the stage, in penny dreadfuls and in cheap historical pamphlets.
Today, we have not forgotten it. We are always putting it in our anniversaries, 300 years, 350 years, 360 years next year. I am sure it will be commemorated. It is taught in schools Year 2: that’s 6 and 7 year olds. The story is compelling, and the evidence is rich. It makes a wonderful entry into history for children, and even at 6 and 7 years, children get it, relate to the primary sources, and have the open minds to accept history without being cluttered by today’s perspectives.
Adults too. It is a great story. Recently I gave tour around the City of London for young professionals from Munich. As I walked to Monument, I was thinking “They are German. How am I going to start this one; the Great Fire. What’s the “In”?” I was astounded to find out that they had all heard and knew of the Great Fire of London.
Science
One other side view of the Great Fire, which I will finish with, is the Monument. Built by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. In Hooke’s diary form the 1670s and 80s, he is always talking about visiting the “Pillar” and reporting on its construction. Originally, it was not meant to be a monument to the Great Fire, but a telescope: a Zenith telescope for the measurement of small differences of zenith distance and used in the determination of astronomic latitude. They opportunistically jumped on the chance for a bit of science, which the City of London Corporation and Charles II would have been interested in. When visiting the Monument, we usually go up the stairs to the top for the view. But if you go down instead, you come to the “Laboratory” where you could view straight up the column and out to the sky. It didn’t work out though and it became a monument commemorating the Fire, near to the point where it started.
References
There is a plethora of books and refernce I’ve used over the years. The documents I talk about are held by the City of London Coporation and can be found in THe London Archives, The Guildhall Library and the London Museum. They all have excellent exhibitoins and programmes on the Fire.
In September 2025, I recroded a podcast on the Early Fire Brigades wtih Peter Mansfield for the Insruance Covered Podcast. You can hear it here: The Great Fire of London and the birth of fire insurance (With Howard Benge) – Insurance Covered | Acast
To lsiten to the experts, I’d reccoemend the In Our Time episode on the Fire, with Lisa Jardine, Venessa harding and Jonathan Sawday. In Our Time – The Fire of London – BBC Sounds
An Historier's Miscellany 
A fascinating read. Thank you.
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Thank you very much.
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