damage by fire, forthwith to give notice thereof, by letter, or
otherwise, to the Directors or Secretary, at their house in London: and
within fifteen days after such fire, deliver in as particular an account
of their loss or damage, as the nature of the case will admit of, and
make proof of the same, by the oath or affirmation of themselves, their
domestics or servants, or by their books of accounts, or other proper
vouchers, as shall be required; and also to procure a certificate under
the hands of the Minister and Church-wardens, together with some other
reputable inhabitants of the parish, not concerned in such loss;
importing, that they are well acquainted with the character and
circumstances of the sufferer or sufferers; and do know, or verily
believe, that he, she, or they, have really, and by misfortune,
sustained by such fire the loss and damage therein mentioned. And in
case any difference shall arise between the Corporation and the assured,
touching any loss or damage, such difference shall be submitted to the
judgment and determination of arbitrators indifferently chosen, whose
award in writing shall be conclusive and binding to all parties. And
when any loss or damage is settled and adjusted, the sufferer or
sufferers are to receive immediate satisfaction for the same.
XIV. In adjusting losses on houses, no wainscot, sculpture or
carved-work, is to be valued at more than 3s. _per_ yard.
_N. B._ There is no average clause in the policies of this Corporation;
but the assured, in case of loss, receive the full damage sustained,
deducing only three _per cent._ according to the terms of the policy.
Persons assured by this Corporation do not depend upon an uncertain fund
or contribution, nor are they subject to any covenants or calls to make
good losses which may happen to themselves or others. The capital stock
of this Corporation being an unquestionable security to the assured in
case of loss or damage by fire, and in case of such loss or damage the
assured have as easy methods of recovery as can be had against any
person or society whatsoever.
For the timely assistance of such as are assured by this Corporation,
they have provided several engines and watermen, with proper instruments
to extinguish fires, and porters for removing goods, all cloathed in
green; and having every one a badge, with the figure of Britannia,
holding a harp, and supported by the London arms, to distinguish them
from servants belonging to other offices, and the badges are all
numbered; of which all persons are desired to take notice, who intrust
them with goods, or have any complaint to make.
The same figure as on the badges is affixed on buildings, &c. assured by
this Corporation. _The proposals printed for the Corporation, in 1758._
LONDON BRIDGE, appears to have been originally built between the years
993, and 1016, since in the first-mentioned year, Anlaf, the Dane,
sailed up the Thames, with a fleet of ninety-three ships, as far as
Stanes; and in the last, Canute, King of Denmark, caused a canal to be
formed on the south side of the Thames, for conveying his ships above
the bridge.
If the traditionary account of the origin of the ancient wooden bridge,
delivered by Bartholomew Linstead, alias Fowle, the last Prior of St.
Mary Overy’s convent, is worthy of credit, we are indebted to the public
spirit of that religious house for this structure: “A ferrie being kept,
says he, in a place where now the bridge is builded; at length the
ferrieman and his wife deceasing, left the same ferrie to their only
daughter, a maiden, named Marie, which, with the goods left by her
parents, as also from the profits arising from the ferrie, builded a
house of sisters in a place where now standeth the east part of St. Mary
Overie’s church, unto which house she gave the oversight and profits of
the ferrie: but afterwards the said house of sisters being converted
into a college of priests, they builded the bridge of timber, as all
other the great bridges of this land were, and from time to time kept
the same in good reparations; till at length, considering the great
charges of repairing the same, there was, by aid of the citizens of
London and others, a bridge builded with arches of stone.”
However, the continuators of Stow imagine, that Linstead, in this
account, exceeds the truth, in ascribing all the praise of so public a
work to a small house of religious, who might probably only consent to
its being built, upon the monks receiving a sufficient recompence for
the loss of the ferry, by which they had always been supported; the
probability of this appears from there being lands appropriated for the
repairs of the bridge so early as in the reign of Henry I. Besides, it
can scarcely be supposed, that a petty convent could be able to erect
and support such an edifice, which, besides other accidents, was burnt
down in 1136, and was again so ruinous in 1163, that it was obliged to
be new built, under the inspection of Peter, Curate of St. Mary
Colechurch, in London; a person who had obtained great reputation for
his skill in architecture.
At length, the continual and large expence in maintaining a wooden
bridge becoming burthensome to the people, who, when the lands
appropriated to that use fell short of their produce, were taxed to make
up the deficiencies, it was resolved in 1176, to build one of stone, a
little to the west of the other, which in the time of William the
Conqueror began at Botolph’s wharf; and this structure was completed in
1209.
The foundation is, by the vulgar, generally believed to be laid upon
woolpacks, which opinion probably arose from a tax being laid upon every
pack of wool, towards its construction. Mr. Stow is of opinion, that
before the bridge was erected, they were obliged to turn the Thames into
a large canal made for that purpose, which began at Battersea, and
returned into the bed of the river at Rotherhithe; but this supposition
has not the least foundation. Mr. Maitland justly observes, that the
purchase of the ground through which this spacious water course was to
run; the expence of digging and raising the banks of sufficient
strength; and the prodigious expence of damming off the river above and
below the intended bridge, would have amounted to treble the sum of
erecting the bridge itself; and that the space of thirty-three years,
which the bridge took up in building, is sufficient to destroy so wild a
notion; since if the people concerned in erecting it had dry ground to
build upon, it might have been finished in a tenth part of the time, and
in a much more durable manner.
The same gentleman observes, that having carefully surveyed the bridge
in the year 1730, in company with Mr. Sparruck, the water carpenter
thereof, he observed in many places where the stones were washed from
the sterlings, the vast frames of piles, whereon the stone piers were
founded. The exterior part of these piles were extremely large, and
driven as close as art could effect, and on the top were laid long beams
of timber of the thickness of ten inches, strongly bolted; whereon was
placed the base of the stone piers, nine feet above the bed of the
river, and three below the sterlings; and that on the outside of this
foundation were driven the piles called the sterlings.
Mr. Sparruck informed him, that he and the bridge-mason had frequently
taken out of the lowermost layers of stones in the piers, several of the
original stones, which had been laid in pitch instead of mortar; and
that this occasioned their being of opinion, that all the outside stones
of the piers, as high as the sterlings, were originally laid in the same
matter, to prevent the waters damaging the work. This Mr. Maitland
naturally supposes, was done at every tide of ebb, till the work was
raised above the high water mark.
It is remarkable, that the master mason of this great work erected at
his own expence a chapel on the east side of the ninth pier from the
north end, and endowed it for two priests, four clerks, &c. This chapel,
which was dedicated to St. Thomas, was a beautiful arched Gothic
structure, sixty-five feet long, twenty feet and a half broad, and
fourteen in height. Great part of this edifice lately remained very
perfect; it was paved with black and white marble, and in the middle was
a sepulchral monument in which was probably interred Peter, curate of
Colechurch, the architect, or master mason, who began the work, but died
before it was completed. Clusters of small pillars arise at equal
distances on the sides, and bending over the roof, meet in the center of
the arch, where they are bound together by large flowers cut in the same
stone: between these pillars were the windows, which afforded a view of
the Thames on each side, and were arched, and far from being unhandsome:
but these have long been closed up with brick-work. It had an entrance
from the river as well as the street, from which last there was a
descent to it by a winding pair of stone steps twisting round a pillar.
These stairs opened into a short passage, on the right hand of which was
a cavity in the wall for holding the bason of holy water. On the 30th of
September 1758, when we had the pleasure of seeing it, this edifice
existed in the above form, only a part of the arch was obliged to make
way for a shop floor, and some of the body was divided into an upper and
lower story for the convenience of warehouse room, it then belonging to
an eminent stationer.
But notwithstanding all this art and expence in building the bridge with
stone, it was soon in great want of repairs: for about four years after
it was finished, a fire broke out in Southwark, which taking hold of the
church of our Lady of the Canons, or St. Mary Overy’s, a south wind
communicated the flames to the houses on the north side of the bridge,
which interrupted the passage, and stopped the return of a multitude of
people who had run from London to help to extinguish the fire in
Southwark: and while the amazed croud were endeavouring to force a
passage back to the city through the flames on the north end of the
bridge, the fire broke out at the south end also; so that being inclosed
between two great fires, above three thousand people perished in the
flames, or were drowned by overloading the vessels that ventured to come
to their assistance.
By this dreadful accident, and other circumstances, this new stone
bridge was in so ruinous a condition, that King Edward I. granted the
bridgekeeper a brief to ask and receive the charity of his subjects
throughout the kingdom, towards repairing it: besides which, he caused
letters to be wrote to the clergy of all degrees, earnestly pressing
them to contribute to so laudable a work; but these methods proving
ineffectual, he granted a toll, by which every foot passenger carrying
merchandize over the bridge, was to pay one farthing; every horseman
with merchandize, 1d. and every saleable pack carried and palling over,
a halfpenny.
But while these affairs were in agitation, the ruin of the bridge was
completed, by five arches being borne down and destroyed by the ice and
floods, after a great frost and deep snow in the year 1282.
However, the drawbridge, which had at first a tower on the north side,
and was contrived to afford a passage for ships with provisions to
Queenhithe, as well as to prevent the attempts of an enemy, was begun to
be built in the year 1426; but about ten years after two of the arches
at the south end, together with the bridgegate, fell down; and the ruins
of the latter still remaining, one of the locks or passages for the
water, was almost rendered useless; whence it received the name of the
rock lock, which has occasioned the citizens to take it for a natural
rock; and indeed though these ruins have lain in the water for above
three centuries, they are still as impenetrable as a solid rock.
From that time the buildings on the bridge increased slowly; for in
1471, when Thomas Fauconbridge the Bastard, besieged the bridge, there
were no more than thirteen houses besides the gate, and a few other
buildings erected upon it.
However, in Stow’s time, both sides were built up, and it had the
appearance of a regular street, there being only left three openings,
with stone walls and iron rails over them, to afford a prospect east and
west of the Thames. These were over three of the widest arches, usually
called the navigable locks.
Thus we see that the bridge in Stow’s time nearly resembled what it was
before the houses were lately pulled down: and the continuator of Mr.
Stow observes, that it continued in the same state till the year 1632;
when on the 13th of February, the buildings on the north end of the
bridge to the vacancy on both sides, containing forty-two houses, were
burnt down by a maid servant’s carelessness, in setting a tub of hot
sea-coal ashes under a pair of stairs, at a needle-maker’s near St.
Magnus’s church: this fire burnt very furiously, and there being a
scarcity of water, occasioned by the Thames being almost frozen over,
these buildings were all consumed within eight hours.
In this condition the bridge continued for several years; the confusions
in the state interrupting the government of the city, and putting a stop
to all farther improvements. However, some of the houses next the city
were rebuilt of timber in the years 1645 and 1646; these edifices were
three stories high; they had flat roofs adorned with balustrades, and
had cellars contrived within and between the piers.
The bridge had not indeed intirely recovered from its ruinous condition
in 1666, when it again suffered in the general conflagration of the
city, most of the buildings being totally consumed, except a few at the
south end, erected in the reign of King John; and the very stone work of
the bridge was so injured and weakened by this melancholy event, that it
cost the bridge-house 1500l. to make good the damage of the piers and
arches.
The stone work was, however, no sooner secured, than a sufficient number
of tenants offered, who agreed with the bridge-house for building leases
of sixty-one years, paying to the city the annual rent of ten shillings
per foot running, and to build in such a form and manner as was
prescribed. This was carried into execution with such dispatch, that
within five years the north end was completely finished, with houses
four stories high, and a street twenty feet broad between side and side:
after which all the old buildings at the south end were rebuilt in the
same manner.
In the year 1722, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, being
sensible of the great inconveniences and mischiefs which happened by the
disorderly driving of coaches, carts, and other carriages, over the
bridge, published an order, that all carriages coming out of Southwark
into the city, should keep all along on the west side of the bridge, and
those going out of the city on the east side; appointing three persons
at each end to see this order executed: and this method is still
observed.
Three years after this order, the gate at the south end being greatly
damaged by a fire which broke out at a brush-maker’s, and destroyed
several of the adjacent houses, it was built with stone, with two
posterns for the convenience of foot passengers. This gate was finished
at the expence of the city in the year 1728.
At length the building leases being expired, the city was sensible of
the inconvenience of not having a footway, which had occasioned the loss
of many lives, from the number of carriages continually passing and
repassing, projected a plan for rebuilding the street over the bridge
with colonades on each side, by which foot passengers might be both
secured from the horses and carriages, and sheltered from the weather.
Part of this plan was a few years ago carried into execution, from the
first opening on the north-east end, and its advantages were so obvious,
that every body was desirous of seeing it completed.
However, in 1746 the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council,
considering the many lives that were lost thro’ the streightness of the
arches, and the enormous size of the sterlings, which took up one fourth
of the water way, and occasioned the fall at low water to be no less
than five feet; as well as the great expence of repairing the bridge,
which for several years had annually amounted to 2000l. came to the
resolution of taking down all the houses, and to widen and enlarge one
or more of the arches. Accordingly the Court ordered their surveyor to
draw a plan, and make an estimate of the expence; which having done, the
total amounted to 95,000l. when it was immediately agreed not to grant
or renew any lease or leases of the houses, but to let those unexpired
run out, and consequently the houses run to ruin. _Stow._ _Maitland._
Indeed this scheme was in part proposed immediately after the fire of
London, by both Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Evelyn; these
ingenious gentlemen proposing, instead of houses, to have a substantial
balustrade on each side; and after them, the author of the _Review of
the public buildings_ had the following remarks, “As some people are
ignorant enough to admire the bridge merely because it is encumbered
with houses from end to end; it will not be amiss to observe, that
nothing can be more ridiculous than this invention; nothing can possibly
offend the eye more, or extinguish so many beauties as might take place,
in case this popular nuisance was removed: suppose the present structure
of the bridge was still to continue as it is, there would, at least, be
room for a magnificent breast-work and balustrade above, and the top
would afford one of the finest prospects in the world: on one hand a
fleet of merchant ships, equal in value and importance to half a nation;
on the other, two of the most considerable cities in Europe, stretching
along the banks of a beautiful river, and ending with a distant view of
the adjacent landscape.”
At length the leaning houses on each side seemed ready to fall into the
river, and the passenger could scarcely forbear shuddering, when he
observed that any of them was inhabited. At the same time, the structure
of the noble bridge at Westminster, with the magnitude, safety, and
convenience of the arches, convinced the citizens more and more of the
advantages that would arise from the resolution of pulling down the
houses; and in the year 1756, every one was pleased, that the Lord
Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council, had applied to parliament to enable
them to put this resolution in practice. In short, an act was obtained,
and they were enabled to provide for the expence, by collecting a toll
for every horse and carriage that passed over it, except those used for
tillage, till the principal and interest of the money that should be
borrowed and laid out upon it, should be repaid.
These measures being taken, orders were soon given for taking down the
houses on both sides of the way, for a considerable distance north of
the gate. This not only pleased every inhabitant of the city of London
and the borough of Southwark, but every one who had occasion to pass and
repass over this useful bridge; and all whose business leads them to
pass in any kind of craft thro’ the arches, began to please themselves
with the thought, that their lives would hereafter be secure in the
exercise of their lawful employments.
The houses and arches that extended across the bridge being taken down,
in all the middle part of that structure a strong temporary bridge, made
of wood, was with amazing expedition erected upon the western sterlings
of the old structure, for the passage of carriages, horsemen, and foot
passengers, till the intended alterations should be completed; and this
edifice, which was rendered as safe and convenient as possible, was
opened in October 1757.
But when the pavement was dug up, and an opening made into the cavities
of all the piers; when some of them were demolished almost to the
water’s edge, and the whole space where the houses had been taken down
was a confused heap of ruins, that had not the least resemblance of a
bridge, the temporary structure burst into a flame, and was intirely
consumed.
The fire began on Tuesday the 11th of April 1758, at about eleven at
night; and by nine o’clock the next morning, the whole temporary bridge
was consumed; though the drawbridge and some pieces of timber among the
ruins of the old structure continued burning all the next day.
Various have been the reports of the manner in which this useful
structure was set on fire. Some have said, that about ten in the evening
they saw several persons who appeared in liquor, coming over the bridge
with a torch, and endeavouring to get it from him who held it, while he
strove, in play, to defend himself by burning them, at last threw it
over the boarded fence of the bridge, when the light disappeared, till
the timber below burst into a flame. On the other hand, the watchmen on
the Customhouse key on the east side, and at the Steelyard on the west,
with many others, are said to have observed about eleven, some lights
under the bridge, which appeared in several places like candles in
lanthorns; and that soon after, the bridge, from one end to the other,
burst into flames: but those who first saw the progress of the fire,
observe, that it began in one spot, and extended itself both ways
progressively.
At this disaster the citizens were filled with consternation, imagining
that the communication between the city and borough of Southwark would
for a long time be in a great measure cut off; and every body naturally
concluded, that this dreadful disaster was occasioned by some vile
incendiaries. The Lord Mayor, who had attended almost the whole time of
the conflagration, and did his utmost to stop it, waited in the morning
on Mr. Pitt with the dreadful account; and having immediately obtained
his Majesty’s pardon for any person who would discover the authors of
the calamity, except the identical perpetrators of it, called a court of
Common Council, who came to the resolution to offer a reward of 200l.
for discovering the base and villainous incendiaries. But though a
considerable time is elapsed, no discovery has yet been made.
This prudent step being first taken, the builders of the bridge were
asked, how soon they could possibly render it passable for carriages;
when they promised to complete it within three weeks, on condition of
being allowed to work on Sundays, and to employ a sufficient number of
men. This news filled the people with equal joy and surprize; but this
surprize was greatly increased, when they found that by keeping men
constantly at work day and night, this great work was completed and the
old bridge opened again in less than a fortnight; and that in this short
time those arches that had been taken down, and the deep cavities in all
the piers lately used for cellars, were covered over; the piers which
had been demolished had stages formed of large beams of timber raised to
support the upper works, and the whole track of ruins was covered with
rows of strong beams placed close together; these were gravelled over to
a considerable depth; and a strong wooden fence, on each side, raised
about six feet high, with places formed for foot passengers to stand in
at proper distances, to secure themselves from being hurt by the
carriages.
This great work was no sooner finished with such amazing expedition,
than preparations were made for a new temporary bridge, which was soon
after begun, and in a short time was opened.
The great loss the city had suffered by the burning of the temporary
bridge, induced the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, to apply
to Parliament for relief; when that body, rendering the repairing and
the beautifying of London bridge a national concern, an act was passed
the same year for granting the city 15,000l. towards the carrying on of
that work; upon which two toll booths that had been erected for
receiving the toll granted by a former act, were immediately taken down,
and all horses and carriages suffered to go toll free.