The Great Fire of London

by Walter George Bell

In 1666 the London citizens saw one fire where thousands died and more than one-fifth of the population became homeless. This book tells the devastating story of disease, and losses .

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, 17th Century, London

886 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

1867-1942

Reviews

[Richard Cubitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

2003 Folio Society Edition. Another excellent work by Walter Bell. Well supported with appendices including letters (contemporary accounts) from some residents of London describing the fire, maps, and paintings; Lieve Pieterzoon Verschuier's imaginative reconstruction being one of the most impressive.

Conditions seemed perfect for such a blaze to begin and be sustained. The Mayor, Bludworth, on seeing the fire at an early stage was reported to say 'a woman could piss it out', and then refused to start pulling down house to prevent the fire from spreading. 'Thereby he brought down upon himself universal blame,' says Bell, for the fire doing as much damage as it did.

A detailed account covering the fire's progess, the emergency actions taken, the costs, and the rebuilding of the city, which took 44 years, not 3 as stated on Wren's monument.

[Pam Shelton-Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book which was in the bibliography of Peter Ackroyd's "London Under" and this ended up being very interesting. I'm quite familiar with the layout of London, but ended up reading much of this twice so I could use maps to follow the course of the fire and the rebuilding. The author gives us a good picture of pre-Fire London and then an absorbing and descriptive chronology of the Fire. It must have been apocalyptic for the Londoners. The discussion of the rebuilding and aftermath were not as gripping as those things rarely are, but was very important detail how and why London was rebuilt as it was. I've been to some of the areas where the fire started and the Monument and this book helped to bring that all to life. Just fascinating.

[Jim Buzbee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting account of the Great Fire. Parts of the book assumed knowledge of London neighborhoods, streets, churches, etc. when the author would say "In 'X', the fire spread up street 'Y', burning St. 'Z' church". Without geographic knowledge of these landmarks, at times it was hard to follow. Nevertheless, an interesting book.

[Sean McDevitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can practically smell the smoke wafting up from the pages of this book. Thousands of lives lost, entire families and boroughs cremated. Church bells that melted in the heat. An almost unbelievably apocalyptic tale that needs to be a TV miniseries.

[stephanie suh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The great city of London was burning. The noble and the humble were all in together in the face of furious fires that looked something of the eternal flames of Inferno. It took from September 2 to September 6, 1666 for Old London to disappear into the past. It was a scene to behold, it was a scene to record. The medieval City of London inside the old roman city wall became a gray detritus of ashes and more ashes, which changed the face of London forever – in a far better way that improved the conditions of living in the scandalously popular city, the city that had no regards for the lowly and the lowest. For out of the detritus of the devastation, came a phoenix hoovering over the gray skies of London with golden opportunities for all to reconstruct new lives of better todays for the Londoners and even better tomorrows for the progeny and the citizens of the world as magnificently illustrated in this telling book by Walter George Bell.
It all happened on the morning of Sunday, September 2nd, 1666 at the shop and house of one Farynon, King Charles II of England’s baker, stood in Pudding Lane, ten doors from Thames Street due to his lack of due care of the oven. Although the baker later vehemently disavowed such negligence that caused the Inferno, Bell confirms the tortious act on the part of the baker on the ground of “a calm consideration of the evidence” collected afterwards. However, at the time of and the immediate aftermath of the Fire, the public fueled by the demotic uproar of the angry mob decided that it resulted from a concerted plot of the Roman Catholics and Frenchmen. Even the supposedly judicious members of the Council were prejudiced against foreigners and Catholics in London despite the King’s speech to the homeless in effort to assuage such outrageous public agitation. In consideration of the ethos of the period, the speculated causes of the Fire related to religious motivations that all called for God’s punishment for heresy (especially Catholicism) and other cardinal sins that looked particularly rampant in “sinful London”. Most of all, the unanimous vengeance upon Catholics and subjects of any Catholic countries was all the rage under the misbelief that they set fire on the city as punishment for the impudent English heresy against the Papacy. Nevertheless, the Council finally relented by proclaiming that the cause of fire was no other but “God’s will, a great wind and the seasons so very dry.”

What seemed to be a scourge of God turned out to be a seismic labor pain of birth of a new city that was beneficial to those at the low rungs of a social ladder because the ecclesiastical city of bell towers and spires would be transformed into a commercial city of buildings and merchants. Bell expounds that post-Fire London is a new breed of commercialism, making London culturally vibrant and famously cosmopolitan as a uniquely quaint city where modernity and traditionality are fashionably blended. Moreover, Bell points out that rebuilding of London after the Fire also improved living qualities of the inhabitants in terms of unhealthy housing and inconvenient pavement conditions with the reconstruction of the streets of London designed by Sir Christopher Wren. It also generated a plethora of trades that contributed to the betterment of economic conditions of people living in and coming to London for better life.

This book is at its most compelling when assessing the consequential events of the Fire drawn on a multitude of historical records and the author’s calm objective analysis of the Fire without a hint of religious proclivity or partisan social commentaries. It doesn’t turn out to be a stuffy history book that the topic indicates but an engaging nonfiction narrative that combines Orwellian journalistic perspectives with Thucydides’ standard of historical realism, all in the perspicacious use of plain English communicative to all. All in all, if you are curious about post-Shakespearean London or want to know about the history of London, this book will not disappoint you.

[Killian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since I read Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth last year, I've wanted to know more about the London of the past. It just seems like such a juxtaposition for this city to have been one of the most powerful seats in the world, and yet also one of the most nasty and unsafe ones at the same time. This book is about the Great Fire of 1666, which is distinguished from it's many predecessors only because those didn't basically wipe out the entire city.

Now this particular book was originally published in the 1920's, but from what I can tell it's the best resource out there for combined information about the fire. I haven't managed to find anything modern that looks better. That being said, you need to be aware of this because the author refers to "modern times" which was very different from ours now. He also makes a lot of assumptions of his readers knowledge, assuming that there is at least a basic understanding of medieval English culture and economics. I found myself needing to google several concepts he brought up because I couldn't make sense of them in his context. For instance, apparently "plate" was something the "guilds" had made to coalesce their riches. I had no idea how important the guild system was before reading this history.

The first part of the book focuses on the four days of the fire itself, how it started (a hapless baker), how it ended (a fortuitous lack of wind), and all of the many buildings that were destroyed. He goes to great lengths to tell the history of many of these buildings, at times to the narratives detriment. The second part takes a look at how long it took to rebuild, who did the rebuilding, and how it happened since there was basically no money to pay for it. The endless names and references to apparently famous people I might know of if I had ever taken a British History course, the depth of history surrounding the churches and the contemporary political climate all added together made for a slow read. I did enjoy googling the various places he mentioned surviving to his era so I could see the architecture though! Fascinating to see the modern architecture right alongside the medieval.

And did anyone else realize that the London Bridge used to have all kinds of buildings on it? Like it was basically a street of buildings over water. Insanity.



Even though this was a very slow read for me, I did enjoy all of the care Bell took to include as many details as he could of the aftermath and fire itself. Super interesting stuff, and I would highly recommend it if you have any interest in reading about the history of The City of London (which isn't the same as the city named London, don't cha know).

Copy courtesy of Endeavour Press/Albion Press, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Susan Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Princess Fuzzypants here:
On Septmber 3rd (my purrday) 1666, the City of London was changed forever. A small fire started in Pudding Lane and turned into a conflagration that destroyed most of medieval London.
The hot dry summer and the strong winds did not help. Nor did the claustrophobic streets of wooden buildings built so tightly together that two carts could not pass each other at the same time without getting stuck.
Plague had ravaged the city the previous year and there were those quick to accuse all sorts of wickedness on the any number of boogie men. That the fire was an accident, caused by carelessness, was not accepted at the time. That the fire cleansed the city of many of the sources of plague and gave the city an opportunity to rebuild ever greater and more beautiful was lost in the sorrow of what had been lost.
Chaos prevailed for a long time as things were sorted out and buildings rebuilt. It is when some of the most striking buildings that survive today rose up, many of which were thanks to Sir Christopher Wren. It was not easy nor was it perfect but it changed the Square mile forever.
This is a good and detailed account with many references from source material of the time. It is a long book but once worth the time.
The book, written in 1920, adds an additional layer of interest. Many of the buildings that are discussed in the book, having survived to the 20th Centruy, were damaged or destroyed during the Blitz. Since then, the rebuilding of London has continued apace. So the reader can look at this book with no small amount of regret that some of what stood as a testament at the time exists no longer.
This is definitely a good book for lovers of History particularly the history of London.
I give it four purrs and two paws up.

[E Vikander · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Great Fire of London in 1666 was originally written in 1920 by Walter George Bell, who makes the observation that the fire served to rid London of the last vestiges of its medieval ecclesiastical and monastic roots toward commercialism. The fire began before sunrise on Sunday, September 2, burnt through the city for four days, and left more than 100,000 people homeless by consuming 13,200 houses with 373 acres burnt within the city walls. No doubt residents must have felt accursed having escaped the plague only a year before. After the fire followed drought, torrential rains, and then a severe winter with exorbitant coal prices. One of the many interesting bits of information Bell includes, in this very informative account, is how wooden houses were brought down in the fire’s path. Bell also includes an excellent review of the plans presented for London’s rebuild and the Rebuilding Act itself. Bell does an excellent job of detailing the good that arose out of such devastation. I especially appreciated the appendices, which included contemporary accounts. The Great Fire is a well-researched and very readable account of both the fire and its aftermath.

[Errol Cavan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb book which despite (or becasue of) its age remains one of the finest accounts of the Great Fire. Bell, who was not an academic historian, devoted an enormous amount of energy to compiling facts and figures about the disaster which befell London. London was Bell;'s subject throughout his writing life and the reader should also look at the Great Plague and Unknown London and other works by this author

Unlike some other reviewers I did not find this a dry read, but an exhilarating one. Unlike some modern writers Bell does not fall into the trap of resorting to the twin traps of 'imaginative history' and banal cliche. This excellent book stands as a reminder to the contemporary reader to explore beyond the most recently published work on the subject. Many of the best works of history are not the latest, and most of the latest depend heavily on past masters

For once I would not recommenmd the Folio edition (nor that on the Plague), since it is an abbreviated version, leaving out a lot of the scholalry aparatus

[Jane Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Folio Society reprint of a book from 1920, edited by Belinda Hollyer. It is still, she claims, one of the best books on the Fire, and I can see that it is. I particularly like the details of the aftermath of the Fire, and the rebuilding of the city. Bell was the first historian, I think, to insist that much of the received wisdom, for instance that hardly anyone died in the fire and it only took three years to rebuild, was completely wrong.
It's interesting that the writing sounds somewhat archaic now, when it was written less than a century ago.

[Lizzy Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea this book even existed. Bell presented a well researched volume on the Great Fire of London in 1666. He took pains to refute the claims made by previous work, using primary sources and his narrative is very well written. I'm still processing all of what I read. I'll definitely be adding this book to my personal collection when it becomes available.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The chapters dealing with the fire itself were good, but I had trouble slogging through those that dealt with the aftermath. It's an interesting read just for the author's voice. Historians in 1923 were very obviously emotionally attached to their subjects.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this book in a second hand book store. A bit dated but a very concise account that brings the event to life.

[Ted Parkhurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

The edition edited by Belinda Hollyer is priceless. What a heart wrenching story, so vividly told.

[Allison6876 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for paper for HIST 3704W

[Tomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a travelogue than anything...