Burning of Parliament
Encyclopedia
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
, the home of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
, on 16 October 1834. The blaze, which started from overheated chimney flues, spread rapidly throughout the medieval complex and developed into the biggest conflagration to occur in London since the Great Fire of 1666
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
, attracting massive crowds. The fire lasted for many hours and gutted most of the Palace, including the converted St Stephen's Chapel
St Stephen's Chapel
St Stephen's Chapel was a chapel in the old Palace of Westminster. It was largely lost in the fire of 1834, but the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the crypt survived...
(the meeting place of the House of Commons), the Lords Chamber, the Painted Chamber and the official residences of the Speaker and the Clerk of the House of Commons
Clerk of the House of Commons
The Clerk of the House of Commons is the chief executive of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and before 1707 of the House of Commons of England...
. Westminster Hall and a few other parts of the old Houses of Parliament survived the blaze and were incorporated into the New Palace of Westminster, which was built in the Gothic style over the following decades.
The fire
The fire was caused by the destruction of tally sticks. The mathematician Tobias DantzigTobias Dantzig
Tobias Dantzig was a Baltic German Russian American mathematician, the father of George Dantzig, and the author of NUMBER: The Language of Science and Aspects of Science .Born in Latvia, Dantzig studied mathematics with Henri Poincaré in Paris...
, in his book Number: The Language of Science, remarked on how a counting-device had brought about the destruction of both Houses of Parliament, and he quotes from a speech given by the English novelist and advocate of social reform, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, in 1855 (Charles Dickens, Speech to the Administrative Reform Association, June 27, 1855). Long before his time, the now-literate clerks of the Exchequer
Exchequer
The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...
no longer had need of tally sticks; and in 1724, Treasury officials had ordered that their use be discontinued: but they remained valid, and were not completely abolished until 1826.
Dickens wrote:
... it took until 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten, rotten old bits of wood? The sticks were housed in Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for firewood by the miserable people who lived in that neighborhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they should never be, and so the order went out that they were to be privately and confidentially burned. It came to pass that they were burned in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, over-gorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the paneling; the paneling set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; and we are now in the second million of the cost thereof.
The responsibility for disposing of the tally sticks fell to Richard Whibley, the Clerk of Works at the Palace. He decided against burning them on a bonfire out in the open, as he feared such an action would upset the neighbours. The decision was made to burn the sticks in the underfloor coal furnaces that heated the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
chamber. On the morning of October 16, Whibley assigned the task to two workmen, Joshua Cross and Patrick Furlong. The work went on all day; witnesses recalled seeing the men throw great handfuls of sticks onto the fires, despite the risk of the burning wood overheating the copper-lined brick flues.
The first indication that something was wrong came that afternoon when the housekeeper at the palace, Mrs. Wright, was showing round a party of visitors. She complained that the House of Lords' Chamber was full of smoke; whilst her visitors noted the exceptional amount of heat coming up through the floor. Nonetheless she did not pursue the matter any further. Cross and Furlong clocked off in the late afternoon, having completed their task. Mrs. Wright locked up the Lords chamber at 5pm. Within an hour it was discovered to be ablaze. It is believed the over-stoked furnaces heated the flues to such an extent that their copper linings collapsed, causing the exposed brickwork to heat up, and bursting through the stone floor of the chamber above. This allowed the fire to spread to the vast range of combustible wooden and fabric furnishings inside the Chamber itself.
The fire was the biggest conflagration seen in London since the Great Fire
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
of 1666, and an enormous crowd flocked to Westminster to witness the spectacle, including Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, and many of his cabinet. Firefighters belonging to the London Fire Engine Establishment, the newly professionalized service under James Braidwood
Braidwood
-Places:* Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia* Braidwood, South Lanarkshire, Scotland* Braidwood, Illinois, United States of America-People:* Thomas Braidwood , founder of a school for the deaf in Scotland...
, arrived at the scene but, realizing they would be unable to stop the fire spreading around the palace site, concentrated on saving Westminster Hall. The House of Commons chamber, housed within the former St Stephen's Chapel
St Stephen's Chapel
St Stephen's Chapel was a chapel in the old Palace of Westminster. It was largely lost in the fire of 1834, but the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the crypt survived...
, soon caught fire and Westminster Hall was under threat. Heroic efforts by firefighters and civilian volunteers, who dampened the Hall's great 14th century hammerbeam roof with water, prevented it from catching fire and ensured its survival. The fire was eventually brought under control; but not until the majority of the old Palace had been destroyed.
While the fire was regarded by many as a national tragedy, it was also the occasion for ribald songs and jokes. 'Oh, What a Flare Up!' was published (c.1838).
The English landscape painter J. M. W. Turner
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
(1775–1851) painted the burning of the Palace of Westminster from memory, having witnessed it at first hand.
The Palace of Westminster was rebuilt according to a design by Sir Charles Barry
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...
with Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
detailing by A.W.N. Pugin. It was opened in 1844. Though Dickens deplored the cost, the building is one of the most familiar landmarks of London.
See also
- Gunpowder PlotGunpowder PlotThe Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.The plan was to blow up the House of...
, the failed attempt in 1605 to blow up the Houses of Parliament - List of historic fires
External links
- UK Parliament podcast with Parliamentary Archives about the fire
- Manchester Guardian report on the fire