Introduction
There are many things that shape a city such as culture, demand, and the vision of the city from the designer, but none are more instant and long lasting then disasters. London is one city that in this it is apparent and thus it is the topic for this essay. In order to demonstrate that the impact that disasters have on a city are the greatest shaping tools, I will focus of the Great London fire of 1666 and the Great Stink of 1858 and compare them to the Industrial revolution of 1760. I will give a short background history of the disasters combined with the direct effects that the disaster had on the city then continue to how the city then changed to combat that type of disaster.
Disasters history
The Great Fire of London
One can’t discuss the history of London without including the Great Fire of London. As many know, in September 1666 the city of London was devastated by a fire. The long hot summer joined with the largely timber construction of London left it only needing a spark which was provided at the house of Thomas Farynor, the king's baker in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge on Sunday the 2nd September.
The buildings at the time were only divided by narrow streets and therefore the fire spread rapidly. (See Figure 1) Luckily for Southwark and surrounding areas, London Bridge, which was burning by dawn, acted as a firebreak. Only a third of the bridge was burned confining the fire to the City of London. By the following dawn the fire spread north and west, consuming Grace Church Street, Lombard Street, the Royal Exchange, and continuing towards the wealthy area of Cheapside. That night the fire continued toward St Paul's Cathedral.
The following day saw the greatest destruction. With Both the King and the...
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Over the course of this semester I’ve read The Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis in which he discusses the cross-global history of the devastating famines and natural disasters that effected significant portions of the world in the late 19th century. In reading through the chapters it made clear to me that Davis placed the blame on a number of factors. However, in this paper I will only be discussing three that I found to have the most significance.
Before the fire broke out on Sunday night, October 8, 1871 there had been a large drought causing everything to be dry and extremely flammable. Many fires had been breaking out in Chicago. Records show that in 1870 the fire fighters went to nearly 600 fires. On Saturday night there had been a large fire that destroyed about four blocks and lasted for 16 hours. Another reason why everything in Chicago was so flammable was because almost the entire city was made out of wood. It was a lot worse in the middle class and poor sections of the town (19). Just about every house was made out of wood. Even buildings that claimed to be fire proof had wood roofs covered with tar. The richer part of town had stone and brick homes, but wooden interiors, wooden stables, and wooden storage buildings (Cromie, 81). Chicago was built on marshland and every time it rained the city flooded, so to help this problem the roads were made out of wood and elevated above the waterline. The day the fire started there were over 55 miles of pine-block street and 600 miles of wooden sidewalks. “Chicago in 1871 was a city ready to burn,” according to Jim Murphy, author of The Great Fire (Murphy, 18).
At the beginning of the industrial revolution in England during the mid-nineteenth century, the railroad was the most innovative mode of transportation known. The British Rail system was a forerunner in railroad technology, uses, and underground engineering. Though the rail system was extremely slow at first and prohibitively expensive to build and run, the British were not to be dissuaded in their pursuit of non-animal driven transportation. The most advanced mode of transportation prior to the introduction of the rail system was the horse drawn omnibus on a track, called a tram. This paper will examine the rail system from a cultural perspective, presenting the impact the railway had on everyday lives in Victorian London and its surrounding communities.
All throughout London’s essay, one sees that he focus’ on the destruction of the city in the 1906 earthquake. He defines the city as, “wiped out” and “all gone” which gives his essay a fearful and defeated tone at the beginning. London goes on to define the city as it is alive, “half the heart of the city was gone”. In paragraph five he again explains the city to be alive, “Wednesday night saw the destruction of
In 1834, when a fire nearly completely demolished the old Palace of Westminster, Britain had a chance to redefine what British architecture was (Richardson p. 111-112). Although throughout Europe Classicism and the Greek and Roman Revival had had a stronghold on secular buildings, by the early 1800 Neo-Gothic was starting to be seen as a nationalistic style of architecture, something that should, together with language, be national (Barry, p.114). While in France the Gothic Revival was mainly used for secular buildings, in Britain it was mainly used for ecclesiastical buildings (Barry, p. 110). It was into this world that August Welby Nothmore Pugin (1812-52) was born.
...rting again. The fire itself was seen for miles and the heat was so intense that there was “hardly a building within a one block radius that was not scorched” (Reporter Front Page). Extinguished fire brands were found in all parts of the Eastern section of the city. Some brands were even found in Lakeside Park. The force of the gas explosions in the garage blew debris from E 2nd and Marr to half way down Ellis St. This shows just how large the fire actually was.
The Great Fire of London, as documented by Samuel Pepys and other writers, began on the early morning of Sunday, September 2nd 1666 when a fire erupted at Pudding Lane in Thomas Farriner’s bakery (Dailey and Tomedi 43). Farriner, who was the king’s baker, went to fetch a candle some time close to midnight. While going to get the candle, Farriner observed that his oven was not lit and that there were no embers. However, two hours later Farriner and his family awoke feeling “almost choked with smoked” (Shields 80). Farriner quickly dashed over to the top of the stairs and found flames making their way up from the shop below. According to Farriner, the fire was not in the proximity of his over nor the pile of wood close to his house (Shields 81). However this and the actual cause of the fire in the house are debatable due to Farriner possibly attempting to remove any blame placed on him from the fire by lying in his testimony of the in...
To build his magnificent hall, Holte got John Thorpe to design and construct it. John Thorpe was seen as a fashionable architect in those days and only the people with wealth would be able to use him and this too, showed off Sir Thomas’s wealth. Sir Thomas met John when he was in London during his us...
In the excerpt from “The City in History”, the benefits and disadvantages of Middle Ages living are expressed. In early European cities, people would not dispose of their waste in a sanitary way. This caused many diseases and awful odors. One technique early Europeans used to get rid of germs was by using fire as a means of germicide. Public bathhouses became a large part of European life around the fifteenth century. These baths were a large part of everyday life and they became very social areas for people to “mix and mingle”. Drinking water was gathered from wells that had to be guarded and kept clean. Fountains were built in the middle of towns to attract people’s eyes and to provide water. The authors make an argument that the sounds and
Riding, Christine; Riding, Jacqueline, eds. (2000). The Houses of Parliament: History, Art, Architecture. London: Merrell Publishers. ISBN 978-1858941127.
Sunday September 2, 1666 at 2 a.m. was the day when the fire began (Cowie, 59). It had all began in a baker’s house due to a spark that was “left” in one of his ovens. ‘”, all that was needed was a spark. This was provided at the house of Thomas Farynor, the King’s baker in Pudding Lane…”’ (“London’s Burning: The Great Fire”, 1). In this area was known as a poor area and it was also very dirty. All the houses were made out of wood, which fed the fire and it started to spread. The baker’s house was the first house to burn down and that is also where the first tragedy took place. The wind was strong during this time and as it blew it would push the fire and help it spread through the city. The people started waking up due to the smell of the smoke and they tried to put the fire out as fast as they could. The fire fighters even tired to stop the fire but it was to big for one truck to handle. One of the residents ran to the Mayors house to warm him of what was happening. When told of what was happening, “…the L...
The Beauty of Maps, (2010- ), BBC series, Part 1, Medieval Maps: Mapping the Medieval Mind.
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