Justin Hardy, director of The Untold Great Fire of London, explains why the familiar tale of this famous event may not be the whole story.
You're telling the story of The Great Fire of London, but it's not the story that people are familiar with, is it?
No. If people know anything about the Great Fire, they know this: that it happened in 1666; that the fire began at a bakery in
Pudding Lane; and that it was probably an accident caused by some burning embers left by the baker, Thomas Farriner. And because
there were unseasonably hot winds and dry weather, and because London was a tinderbox accident waiting to happen, the greatest fire
in any city since Roman times took place. If they know anything, that's broadly the story they know. And the key words are: 'It was
an accident'. But the view at the time was completely different.
It wasn't thought to be an accident?
There was no mention of accident at all. The view at the time was that this was a purposeful attack by foreigners on London. Suspect
number one was the Dutch. The English had set fire to the entire Dutch merchant fleet two weeks beforehand, and had committed
atrocities against the Dutch. Therefore, The Great Fire was regarded as an act of retaliation, and that made perfect sense to them.
Londoners went out and sorted out Dutch men and Dutch women, and attacked them, and tried to get them to confess to having set the
fires.
Was there a significant Dutch community in London at this time?
Yes there was. The Dutch were merchants in almost every commodity. It was the most successful nation in Europe at the time. Dutch was
more spoken than English, and the Dutch were the pre-eminent traders in the world. London was one of the bases through which they
were making their money.
You described the Dutch as suspect number one. So there was a number two?
Yes, suspect number two was the French - particularly French Catholics. We have records of a series of incredibly brutal attacks on
French people living in London. The most brutal of them was an attack on a woman who was thought to be carrying fireballs in her
apron. She was stripped down and had her breasts cut off. It turned out that the supposed fireballs were chicks. By the time the fire
was dying down, and Londoners' rage started to abate, a suspect came forward and made a full and frank confession, and said that he
had set the fire and was part of a terrorist cell of 23 people. He was a Frenchman. He was tried and he was hanged, and the London
mob tore his body limb from limb. The reason we don't know this today is because in the 1830s it was decided that we should stop
having quite so much anger towards the Roman Catholics if we were going to absorb them back into our society, and so this story was
removed from the monument, and it was broadly agreed that we should refer to it henceforth as an accident.
Is there enough evidence to make equally strong cases for 'accident' and 'arson' as explanations?
There is much more evidence for 'arson'.
So does the programme conclude that the Great Fire really was a terrorist attack?
We will never know. Only Mr Farriner himself probably knew whether there was an attack on his bakery or whether he started the fire
accidentally. What this programme does is shows very clearly what Londoners at the time saw happening, and how history has ultimately
left their version of events untold.
And is this a choice that historians are usually willing to call one way or the other, or is it generally accepted to be an
unsolvable mystery?
Historians are still unwilling to lay blame because they feel they can't be sure. So, accident is the default judgement. However,
this is not the point. At the time, Londoners were very clear in their own minds, and for 150 years thereafter: it was a plot by our
enemies.
How different a city might London have been without the fire?
You see fragments in Fleet St, and realise what we're missing. London would be cooler if it represented more of its thousand year
history, instead of its 300 years.
By Benjie Goodhart
