I
don’t know how the people of London,
England bear up under the sorrow of the anniversaries of two deadly disasters
every October 17. Yet they bravely
soldier on. Their slogan is “Keep Calm
and Carry On [Sargent, Nurse, Etc.]”
For
the first of these unfortunate occurrences we have to reach back all the way to
October 17, 1091. No that isn’t a
typo. On that date the first tornado ever recorded in the British Isles—and one of damn few since—stuck
and destroyed the heart of London. And
it was a dilly, too. Scientist believe
it would have a rating of a T-8 storm—described
as severely devastating with rotating winds in the 210-240 mile per hour
range. That is right up there with a
major Oklahoma hair raiser.
A
small tornado struck London again on September 11, 2007 injuring 7, reviving
interest in the earlier visit.
What
is most surprising is how small London was at the time. Not quite a back water, but long passed its
glory days as Londinium, the Roman capital of Britannia. Before the Romans high tailed it out, it
had swarmed with an estimated 45-60,000 inhabitants in a city filled with “modern”
Roman conveniences and architecture.
But
as Britain commenced its long slide into the Dark Ages after 140 CE (AD for you old timers and Christo-centrics
out there.) The island fell into squabbling
petty kingdoms then had to contend with waves of invaders—the Angles, Saxons, and eventually the Danes.
London no longer served as a real capital. Kings with the upper hand ruled usually from
their home strongholds, surrounded by reliable knights and men-at-arms.
By the end of the First Millennium only 5,000-10,000 inhabitants remained and most
scholars put the population on the low end of that scale.
In
1043 the Danish/Norse King Cnut died
and a Saxon, Edward the Confessor became
King, more or less, with his base in the southeast around London. Although he seldom lived there, he began to
use the city once again as a ceremonial capital and to that end commissioned
the construction of Westminster Abby—the
biggest public works project since the Romans.
People began to filter back. Edward died in 1066 and was laid to rest in
the unfinished Cathedral and succeeded by the unfortunate Harold, who lost the kingdom to yet another invader, Norman William the Conqueror the same
year at the Battle of Hastings.
William
marched on London and the town surrendered in December of that year. He built a castle there and continued work on
the Abby, where he had been crowned.
When he wasn’t on the continent or in the field beating down some
rebellion or invasion, he ruled from the city.
When William died in 1087, the population was on a modest upswing, with
maybe 18,000 inhabitants.
But
except for some Roman ruins, the Abby and William’s castle, most of the city
was built of timber, wattle, and thatch.
More than 600 homes and the wooden London
Bridge over the Thames were
destroyed as were several churches when the tornado struck. Among the devastated churches was the
original building of St Mary-le-Bow,
famous in a later incarnation as the home of the bells of which all true Cockney’s
are born in earshot. The power of
the tornado was so strong that four of the church’s massive 26 foot long rafters were driven into the ground and
buried with only 4 feet exposed.
Remarkably,
only two deaths were recorded from the tornado, because the flimsy
construction of most homes did not lead to death by crushing when they were
destroyed. Likely, however, there were
many unrecorded deaths in the confusion of the aftermath. Commoners crowded into hovels were not all
documented, and many church records were lost.
The lowliest may not have even been deemed worthy of note.
The
city, of course, rebounded, with more substantial buildings replacing those
destroyed. Population continued to grow
steadily despite numerous “great fires.” Long bouts with the Black Death in 1337 and again in 1665
did actually threaten to depopulate the city again.
But
by 1814, London was not only the largest city in Europe and probably in the world, it was the cocky capital of a
robust and expanding worldwide Empire. Yet once again tragedy struck on the
fateful date of October 17 only 723 years after the tornado.
In
the Parish of St. Giles—in the heart
of the district ravaged by the storm—a135,000 imperial Gallon vat of beer at
the Meux and Company Brewery on Tottenham Court Road suddenly ruptured
sending out a torrent that knocked over additional vats. 323,000 imperial gallons surged out of the
buildings and into the streets in a wall of beer.
The
brewery was located in a poor area—some of the homes may actually have dated
back to the reconstruction following the tornado. Families in rags crowded into rooms and into
cellars. Many of those cellars flooded,
drowning several victims. Official records note 6 deaths by drowning
and 16 year old Eleanor Cooper, a
serving wench at the Tavistock Arms Pub
who died when the wall of beer collapsed the walls of the place upon her. Scores were injured.
Officials
prosecuted the Brewer, but the accident was ruled an Act of God. Since taxes had
already been paid on the lost beer, they petitioned Parliament for relief and the return of the paid duties. No known payments were made to any of the
victims or their families.
The
brewery was finally razed in 1922 and today the Dominion Theatre occupies a part of the site.
Amazingly,
there are no public commemorations of either tragedy scheduled—except at the Holborn Whippet, a pub near the site
which began serving a specially brewed porter
to be served only on October 17.
There, if you can make it today, you can at least raise a glass to the
lost victims of London’s disasters.
Nice stories. Past disasters are always interesting, and a tornado in London is fascinating. I've been trying to imagine the wall of beer filling the streets; I like beer, but this isn't really a pleasant picture. Also, a minor correction: CE = AD, not BC. BC would be BCE.
ReplyDeleteThanks. And and I fixed the stupid error.
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