London 1666 facts

While investigating facts about London 1666, I found out little known, but curios details like:

On September 2, 1666 a house caught fire in London. Mayor Thomas Bloodworth refused to permit pulling down surrounding buildings to prevent spread saying that, "a woman might piss it out," and returned home to sleep. The fire then destroyed more than 75% of the city.

Following the Great Plague and then Great Fire of London, Parliament enacted the Rebuilding of London Act 1666. Streets were widened, open sewers abolished and many famous buildings constructed. Out of the fire and pestilence flowed a renaissance in the arts and sciences in England.

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 12 of the best facts about London 1666 I managed to collect.

1. Modern insurance originated from the Great Fire of London in 1666

2. Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, an early proponent of women's right, published in 1666 an early work of science fiction, The Blazing World, the first of the genre written by a woman and used London's first woman printer, Anne Maxwell, to produce the book.

3. Property insurance as we know it today can be traced to the Great Fire of London, which in 1666 devoured more than 13,000 houses.

4. The Great Fire of London in 1666 led to the creation of modern property insurance. With the estimated £1.5 Billion (in today’s money) in damages, people realised financial safety measures were needed. By 1690, one in ten houses in London were insured.

5. The oldest building in the City of London, and the only one to survive the Great Fire of 1666, is 400 years old.

6. The Mayor of London during the Great Fire in 1666, Thomas Bloodworth, did not take the blaze seriously when it broke out and stated that "a woman might piss it out" before going back to bed.

7. Robert Hubert, a French watchmaker, was hanged on the charge of starting the Great Fire of London in 1666. Hubert falsely confessed to have thrown a fire grenade through the window of a bakery, which in fact had no windows, even though he arrived in England two days after the fire had started.

8. There was a huge fire in the city of London in 1666. 13,200 houses and 87 parish churches were consumed by the fire, an estimated 70 to 80,000 people were left homeless yet only 6 confirmed death were recorded

9. Tomorrow, the 4th of September marks the 350th anniversary of the great fire of London. To commemorate the occasion a 120m long sculpture depicting the London skyline in 1666 will be set ablaze on the Thames