American Reacts to the Great Fire of London

As an American I don't know much about the history of London. Today I am very interested to learn about the famous fire of London and what exactly happened. If you enjoyed the video feel free to leave a comment, like, or subscribe for more!

[cpmahon]

To add a bit more context the total population of England in 1666, was approximately 5 million people. That means more than 1 in 50 of the entire population became homeless virtually overnight.

[annedunne]

Pepys, the man who described the fire wrote a diary which described the everyday life of the 17th century and was invaluable as a source on cultural, political, economic and social norms of the time.

[cireenasimcox]

In the beginning, when it showed the maid carrying her candle to bed you had a little fit which made me giggle: "Oh no! She has a lighted candle!!" Give it a little think: electricity was centuries into the future & gas wasn't yet discovered as a source of light. EVERYbody - from the lowest to the highest - used candles. What else could they use? There were many places candles were used right into the 20thC.

Sadly, because of contemporary ideas about royalty, what was left out was that the King, Charles II (Not "Charles Eye Eye"😂 as the narrator said!🤣) rather than sitting in his palace as shown in the cartoon, was in the thick of it, with his brother - they spent 30 hours non-stop at the scene, helping - and taking part in - making chains for water buckets. It was Charles who insisted on making fire breaks by pulling down buildings. It was Charles who was behind all the strategies imposed to quell the fire. (Yeah, as stated, the Mayor was reluctant to take such steps with the wealthy.) And it was Charles who, with Wren, designed the "new" London which rose from the ashes.

It's impossible for historians to piece together the train of events of the Fire without referencing Charles. Whereas it would seem that Wikis and pop-history just cross him out of the picture. Which of course backs up the idea of Monarchy being indolent, non-caring, cut off from the common people and only caring for their own well-being.

[lisadowsett]

What they didn't tell you was, that King Charles II and his brother James, actually took to the streets themselves to help the people by rolling up their sleeves and throwing buckets of water on the buidings. My ancestor George Peowry was one of the glaziers that installed the windows in the new building of St Pauls for Sir Christopher Wren.

[claregale]

After the Great fire they was no longer allowed to build wooden structures and that's why you see so many stone or brick buildings in the u.k . the Tower of London has one of few preserved Tudor residents left as the stone structure of the Tower of london protected it . 😊

[ollielowe]

Pepys, the most famous diarist in the English language! Wrote his diaries in a shorthand code, which was not deciphered for several hundred years. Take a look.

[Diablo_Himself]

Fun fact: The Mayor of London at the time was told of the fire, said "some prostitute will probably piss it out", and went back to sleep.

Apparently this is true.

[Lily_The_Pink]

The first video you were watching was part of a three hour documentary shown over three nights on TV. Well worth trying to find more of it.

[danielferguson]

In those days all sources of ignition in the wooden houses had by law to be extinguish at curfew, because of the danger of fire. The Farriners were bakers, with large ovens to bake bread for the neighbourhood. There was a large water tower in the middle of the City, but this was near the start of the fire, so was destroyed before anything could be done. When the Mayor was first told about the fire, he looked out the window & said "that's nothing, a woman could piss it out". He later fled the City. Many livelihoods were lost, because the goods of hundreds of merchants from all over the country stored their yearly products within the city, & many of these, cloth, wines, cereal, timber etc, were all highly flammable.

[ct]

I've always wondered why this story hasn't been turned into a Hollywood disaster movie. It has so much potential.
You have the class divides, you have the scale and scope, you have the history, notable figures and interesting little anecdotes from so many different people in society at the time.
The fact that King Charles II was directly involved in fighting the fire, the mayor being the upper-class villain, the explosions taking down houses... all you really need is a sympathetic hero and a love interest (Jack Dawson and Rose) and you have a potential blockbuster on your hands.

[ScpDrRisha]

I'm a Brit and the great fire of London is still, surprisingly, a topic still spoke of today!
Fun fact:The fire of London eliminated the rest of the plague so it did both good and bad!
Normally, the fire shouldn't have been that bad but because everything was out of wood back then and it was too late to get water so that's how it started as they never had fire extinguishers back then!

[ethancantwell]

The fire I believe also outlawed thatch roofs. The only building in London still allowed to have a thatch roof is Shakespeare's globe theatre.

[malcolmhumphries]

The original video is about 3 hours long. The St Paul's portion mentioned the booksellers stored their stock in the building, but there was scaffolding outside, and this caught fire resulting in the roof lead melting and running along the street to the river.

[debbielough]

The irony is that things improved after the fire. The buildings were rebuilt out of safer materials, with the streets made wider, and because of the ban on the overhanging upper stories, there was more light in the street below. Although it's not true that the plague was eradicated (outbreaks continued for some years), with cleaner wider streets, it was easier to control.

You should look up the Second Great Fire of London. 1940, during the Blitz. Hitler wanted to raze London to the ground, and some have said to start a firestorm. St Paul's was a key part of that too, with Churchill giving the order to save St Paul's at all cost. There's a famous photo of St Paul's standing proud above the rubble, called 'St Paul's Survives'. (No mean feat, as the dome is built from wood.)

[angelabushby]

Nobody has mentioned the King helped trying to put the fire out

[ShellieWatkins-prwd]

You should look at the topic of the plague across Europe & the Uk.

[alfresco]

The artist of that thumbnail painting didn't do his research. Prominent on the skyline is Christopher Wren's St Pauls...which replaced the old St Pauls, which was burnt to the ground in the fire.

[riverraven]

If you are wondering how a stone cathedral burns down, the embers carried on the strong winds and settled in the wooden rafters of the roof, starting the fire from the top and raining burning ashes onto the wooden benches inside. Stuck in the heart of the Great Fire the temperature grew so intense that the water trapped inside the stones of the cathedral began to boil and londoners reported explosions as the stones cracked and blew apart.

[TerryD]

The family were bakers in Pudding Lane. Interesting fact: the family were called the Fariners and the French word for wheat flour is 'farin', so they would have been named after their craft, like a smith, or fletcher (arrow maker), miller etc. However bad the fire was it's thought that the fire killed off the Black Death (the great plague)

[Dasyurid]

The Monument is minor visitor attraction and has a tight spiral staircase inside that takes you up to an outdoor viewing platform around the top. It’s a bit nippy up there in the winter though. The nearest Tube station is, conveniently enough, Monument station on the Circle and District lines.