Homeschool History – The Great Fire of London

BBC Sounds – Music, Radio, Podcasts

Hello and welcome to “Homeschool History”. I'm Greg Jenner, the historian behind TV's “Horrible Histories” and the host of the BBC podcast “You're dead to me”, although that one's mostly for the grown-ups. I'm here to deliver a snappy history lesson to entertain and educate the whole family. Who says that homeschooling can't be fun?

Today we are journeying back to 1666 to get to grips with a calamity that changed the City of London forever:

The Great Fire of London.

Let's fire away!

The London of the 1660s was way smaller than today's capital city but at the time it was one of the biggest cities in the world.

So, what caused this disaster?

(– Music: We didn't start the fire…)

Well, loads of things, really. In 1666, buildings were so tightly packed together that they blocked out the light. And these buildings were made of wood. And what does wood do?

Yeah, it goes on fire.

There was no electricity back then either, so the only way to light or heat these buildings was with a fire – yeah, so far, so flammable.

A deadly disease known as the plague had also spread through London the summer before and people believed that a good way to ward it off was with smoke – from lighting fires and smoking tobacco pipes and even from setting off guns!

Not only was this useless, it was a massive fire hazard.

Also, the country was at war with the Dutch Republic, meaning the Royal Navy, who usually did quite a lot of the fire fighting when fires broke out, weren't around because they were off at sea, shooting at Dutch people.

Anyway, London had already caught fire several times before. In fact, there was even a “Great Fire of London” in medieval times.

So this one was going to be a sequel.

(– Woman: Not another one?!)

London was a disaster waiting to happen. Not just in terms of fire safety but also people felt edgy. They were looking for signs that there was a disaster on the way. There had been a comet that they had seen which people said was a bad sign and the year ended in 666 which was said to be the number of the Devil. And weirdly people were also really freaked out by a chicken in Poland that had laid an egg with a cross on it.

Plus there had been a plague and now war with the Dutch. There was a lot to fear. In fact, the year before, plague had shut down lots of places, including schools. Sound familiar? Yeah.

One young person in a similar situation to you was called William Taswell. The year before, seeing as he wasn't in school, his parents had decided it would be a good idea to send him into plaguey, plaguey London to deliver a message.

And, I mean I know they didn't have Joe Wicks in those days, but surely there had to be a safer way to get some exercise.

(– Let's get our heart rate to the max!)

William was one of many people who witnessed the fire and wrote about his experiences. And we will talk about him more later on.

So, let's get to it.

The fire began in the early hours of December 2nd, 1666. But who did start the fire?

(– Music: We didn't start the fire…)

Technically it was an accident at Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane. It's believed that he hadn't put out one of his ovens properly, causing a fire which tragically killed one of his servants. And then things got a whole lot worse. There was some basic fire-fighting gear around but a lot of it was broken or missing and the poor areas of London couldn't even afford that. The best way to stop a fire was to pull down the wooden houses either side of the flames so there wasn't extra fuel to burn.

But this meant asking the posh people who owned the buildings for permission to tear them down. And as the fire started at 1 a.m., all of the posh people were either asleep or they had been drinking too much.

(– Oh, go away, I'm sleeping!)

They did manage to wake up the mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, but he took one look at the fire and decided it was too small to be worth his time. He even said: “A woman could wee it out!”

(– Ugh!)

It's no wonder the famous diarist Samuel Pepys described Mayor Bloodworth as “a silly man”. Um, I agree.

Worried, King Charles II sent Pepys to give Mayor Bloodworth royal permission to pull down the houses as the fire was now quickly spreading due to strong winds. Pepys described the mayor “running around in a big, flappy panic“ and “crying a lot“.

Soon, the fire spread to warehouses on Thames Street which were unfortunately full of Londoners' most flammable goods: hay, animal fat, coal, alcohol. If it was guaranteed to make a fire ten times worse, then chances were they kept it in Thames Street. Now, when you know what that meant.

Yes, by now it was clear that the fire could not be stopped. All Londoners could do was to get out of their homes and save whatever valuables they could. Lots of people ran to Moorfields, a big, open space where they'd usually do their laundry and here they camped out in tents.

Some rotters tried to earn a profit out of the disaster. Cart drivers massively raised their prices, so desperate families had to pay a fortune to transport their belongings to safety. And some people even broke into houses or stole from those people escaping.

(– Boo!)

Remember William Taswell? Well, while he was witnessing the fire at Westminster, his family home was robbed – horrible!

(– Booh!)

London Bridge meanwhile, over the River Thames, was covered in wooden houses, so it soon went up in flames as well. The only thing that stopped the fire spreading to the other side of the river was that parts of it had already burned down thirty years ago. So, thanks, Previous Fire!

Even the water wheel near London Bridge burned down, so those who'd managed to find fire-fighting equipment had to go down all the way to the riverbanks to get water. And due to the fact it was low tide, the river was mostly just squelchy mud.

And then the fire spread to St Paul's Cathedral which at this point was covered in wooden scaffolding. And it had loads of important documents inside.

Some people felt lucky they'd stored their valuables in the Tower of London instead.

(– Phew!)

Except the fire had also started spreading towards the Tower of London! and that is where the government stored its gun powder.

(– Uh-oh!)

Yeah, that's not good, is it?

King Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, wanted to show Londoners that they were handling the situation. They made sure the people saw them acting heroically.

(– I can be your hero, Baby!)

And they handed out loads of money to grown-ups and even to kids to help form a fire-fighting team, a sort of fire based “Put Out to Help Out” scheme.

One of those people was young William Taswell. He and his teenage schoolmates were helping to stop the Tower of London from going “Kaboom!”.

Well done, William!

Luckily the wind also started blowing in the other direction, too.

Well done, Wind!

After three days the fire finally went out but it was still horrible. Eighty percent of the old city was destroyed, smoke was in the air and young William even fainted from the heat. The ground was too hot to walk on. He said it nearly scorched his shoes.

(– Ow, ow, ow, ow, oow!)

Thousands of people were homeless and tired and scared. Lots of people camped in the burned ruins of their homes because they were worried that they would lose their land if they left. It was terrible and people were upset. They were starting to turn on each other as well. And they were saying the fire had been a deliberate terrorist attack by England's enemies, perhaps started by Dutch spies or Catholics or anyone with a foreign accent. Nasty violence now broke out against these innocent people in spite of King Charles II calling for calm.

William Taswell witnessed a blacksmith hitting a Frenchman with an iron bar – very, very nasty.

Another Frenchman called Robert Hubert got confused and confessed to starting the fire on purpose. The judge had him executed even though Robert was totally innocent. He hadn't even been in London on December 2nd. He couldn't have started it.

It's said that only six people officially died during The Great Fire of London but historians think it was many more than that, either from dying in the fire or from the cold and shock and the disease afterwards because they'd lost their homes and they had nowhere to live.

You may have heard that at least the fire stopped The Plague but actually Plague was already becoming less common anyway so it probably made no difference. And scary memories haunted people. Poor Samuel Pepys had nightmares for years afterwards, sigh.

But now it was time to think about rebuilding.

Step forward Christopher Wren, who enjoyed designing buildings, dabbling in medicine and was also professor of astronomy, meaning he studied the stars. He was what we call a polymath which is a very fancy word for someone who is very, very clever at lots of different things.

(– I am ever so clever!)

Christopher Wren was so excited about his new city plans that he submitted them before the fires were even out.

(That's a bit keen, Chris, calm down!)

But there were other plans, too, with radical ideas of big, wide boulevards being suggested. The problem was: All the landlords and property owners just wanted their previous stuff back as it was. So, although Christopher Wren got to rebuild loads of churches in a new style, much of London was just kind of, well, put back as it was, really.

(– Oh…)

Oh, well. At least now the buildings were stone-clad, so a little bit less flammable and Wren did at least get to make huge changes when rebuilding his new St Paul's Cathedral. His famous dome was very modern for its time, inspired by designs that Wren had seen from France and Italy. And he even decorated the towers with shiny, golden pineapples.

(– I have a pen, I have pineapple! Oh, pineapple pen!)

Whatever floats your boat, Christopher.

He also teamed up with another sciency clever clog called Robert Hooke to design a huge monument to the fire which is still there today in a part of London called – erm – Monument.

(It's not very imaginative, is it? Come on, let's do better!)

Still, despite the rebuilding, a quarter of the Londoners made homeless by the fire never returned. You can't blame them for not feeling safe. Another fire ignited only a few months later in Whitehall although this one was thankfully extinguished much quicker.

But what about young William Taswell, the melty-shoed schoolboy who'd been on the Royal fire-fighting team? Well, don't worry about him. He grew up and lived a happy life as a country vicar, but I think he'd had enough adventure to last a lifetime.

And that brings us to the end of our story about the Great Fire of London. So now it's time for the quiz.

We have five questions. Are you ready?

(– We didn't start the fire…)

OK, here we go:

Question 1: Before 1666 buildings in London were mostly made from what material?

Question 2: In what type of shop did the Great Fire of London start?

Question 3: What was the name of the schoolboy who witnessed the fire and helped save the Tower of London?

Question 4: At the time of the fire, which country was England at war with?

And Question 5: Which brainy architect rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral?

OK, now it's time for the answers!

The answer to Question 1: London was mostly made from wood.

The answer to Question 2: The fire had broken out in a bakery on Pudding Lane.

The answer to Question 3: Our young school hero was William Taswell.

The answer to Question 4: England was at war with the Dutch Republic.

And the answer to Question 5: The architect was Christopher Wren.

How did you do? If you didn't get all five, that's OK. Why not listen to a different episode from series 1 or 2 on BBC Sounds. Hopefully you've learnt lots and are all fired up to learn some more. Tune in next time for some more Homeschool History and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode.

Thank you for listening, take care and goodbye!

Homeschool History was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

The script was by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, Emma Nagouse and me, the producer was Abi Paterson, the research assistant was Hannah MacKenzie and the historical adviser was Rebecca Rideal.