The fire began in a bakery on Pudding Lane, they say. There have always been voices against this theory. Catholics were blamed for arson of the “protestant city”. But evidence may prove that neither is true and that it was an insider job which had been carefully planned; perhaps the year 1666 was not a coincidence either. The planning of a malicious attack on a great population sounds familiar to anyone who understands the events of 2020, which is why the following (published in 2019) is an interesting analysis.
It is now 353 years since the Great Fire of London, a fire that caused the destruction of 436 acres of London including 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches (out of 109), St Paul’s Cathedral, and most of the buildings of the City authorities. In all, it is estimated that around 100,000 people, one third of London’s population, were made homeless since the start of the five-day fire on 2 September.
The official story
It is widely held that the fire started in Pudding Lane (see illustration 1) in the bakery of Thomas Farriner, provider of the bread for the Royal Navy’s nearby Victualing Office. Negligence was held out as a primary factor despite Farriner’s subsequent assurances that at midnight, a few hours before the fire broke out, only one grate had any smouldering embers and these had all been raked over. He claimed, moreover, that he had gone through every room in the bakery after midnight and that all the doors and windows had been closed to prevent draughts.
So, is there more to this story than meets the eye? Farriner maintained his innocence until his death in 1670 swearing in court that his house could only have been set alight maliciously. For the first time, we ask what evidence there is to support his claim, suggesting in fact that the balance of probability lies in his favour. A word first about the responsibilities for fire fighting at the time.
Fire-fighting
Responsibility for putting out fires lay with streets, parish or wards and preventative measures included pulling down buildings, dislodging the superstructure from its foundations and causing the framework to collapse. This approch will have been known to the authorities in London but the authority of the Mayor of London was needed before this could be done.
Unfortunately, the then post-holder, Thomas Bloodworth, was the man who declared that the fire was so small, ‘a woman might piss it out’ and so forcible demolition of buildings was not used until the third day of the fire when it had already spread extensively. Note also that Bloodworth declined the supply of additional soldiers on the first day of the fire.
Beyond the Mayor, responsibility for fighting fires lay with men at fire posts throughout the City but on the first day of the fire, 2 September, the diarist and clerk of the Privy Seal, Samuel Pepys, noted ‘nobody to my sight endeavouring to quench it’, remarking that the Mayor of London had stated that he needed no more soldiers to help with the fire (Milne, 1986, p.31). Why would he take that view?
Read the full article here: https://off-guardian.org/2019/09/01/the-great-fire-of-london-cui-bono/