The Book of Lists London by Nick Rennison

Author:Nick Rennison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2010-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

13 LONDON DISASTERS

1. The Fatal Vespers, 1623

In the early part of the seventeenth century, the French ambassador’s residence was Hunsdon House, Blackfriars. On the afternoon of 5 November 1623, more than 300 people were gathered in an upper room of the house to take part in a religious service conducted by two Jesuit priests. The floor beams, not designed to support the weight of so many, gave way and large numbers of the congregation were plunged into the room below. Ninety-five people, including the two priests, were killed and dozens more injured. The disaster, which has been variously called ‘the Fatal Vespers’, ‘the Blackfriars Downfall’ and ‘the Doleful Evensong’, was assumed by many Londoners at the time to be the judgement of God on the French Catholics who had offended the Almighty with their idolatrous practices.

2. Execution of Lord Lovat, 1747

The Jacobite Lord Lovat, the last man to be executed by beheading in Britain, faced his death on Tower Hill in 1747. Huge crowds had gathered to see him die and grandstands had been erected to allow spectators a better view of the executioner’s block. One of these stands became so crowded that it collapsed and twenty people were killed. Lovat, waiting to approach the block, witnessed the disaster and appeared to be grimly amused by it. ‘The mair mischief, the mair sport’, he is reported to have said.

3. The London Beer Flood, 1814

On 17 October 1814, in the Horseshoe Brewery in Tottenham Court Road, a huge vat burst its hoops, rupturing other vats, and more than a million litres of beer swept through the brewery walls and into the streets. The sea of beer carried away neighbouring houses and drowned nine people. After the disaster the brewery was brought to court but the judge, deciding that the beer flood qualified as an Act of God, refused to hold it responsible for the deaths. The site of the Horseshoe Brewery is now occupied by the Dominion Theatre.

4. The Sinking of the Princess Alice, 1878

On the evening of 3 September 1878 the pleasure steamer the Princess Alice was returning from a day-trip down the Thames with more than 700 passengers aboard. Near Woolwich, a collier called the Bywell Castle approached the pleasure boat and the captain of the Princess Alice made a tragic mistake in manoeuvring his ship. He ran directly across the path of the collier. The Princess Alice was almost cut in two and sank in less than five minutes. More than 640 people drowned in what was the worst ever river disaster in Britain.

5. Hebrew Dramatic Club, 1887

In March 1886 the Hebrew Dramatic Club, the first purpose-built Yiddish theatre in London, was opened in Princes Street (now Princelet Street), off Brick Lane. Less than a year later, disaster struck the theatre. During a performance of an operetta called The Gypsy Princess on 18 January 1887, a fire was mistakenly believed to have broken out. As the audience panicked and stampeded for the exits, seventeen people were crushed to death.

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