One hundred years ago
On Monday night and in the small hours of Tuesday, the strength of the London Fire Brigade was taxed to its utmost by three bad fires, — one in St. Mary-Axe, one in Aldgate, and one in Brompton. The first was by far the most destructive, burning-out the whole block of warehouses bounded by St. Mary- Axe, Bevis Marks, Bury Court, and Bury Street, and doing damage which has been estimated as high as £2,000,000. The fire raged with extraordinary fierce- ness and rapidity, in spite of the 167 firemen, with thirty-one steam-engines and two manuals, who were drafted to it. The feeling that London narrowly escaped a great disaster, owing to the fact that three fires were raging at once, has induced the County Council, it is said, to add to the Brigade a special depot of fifty men, who are to be sta- tioned on the Embankment, to act as a sort of flying-column, available for cases of exceptional urgency. It is curious to note that the "quadrilateral" burnt in St. Mary-Axe was half composed of new buildings of stone and iron, and half of old ones of brick and timber. The stone- and-iron fabrics have fallen in utter ruin; those in brick and timber still stand erect, though gutted.
The Spectator 22 July 1893
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