1861 Tooley Street fire
The 1861 Tooley Street fire, also called the Great Fire of Tooley Street, started in Cotton's Wharf on Tooley Street, London, England, on 22 June 1861. The fire caused £2 million worth of damage, and during the fire, James Braidwood, superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment, was killed.
The fire started at Cotton's Wharf on Tooley Street, near to St Olave's Church, Southwark, London. The wharf was around 100 by 50 feet (30 m × 15 m), and contained around 5,000 tons of rice, 10,000 barrels of tallow, 1,000 tons of hemp, 1,100 tons of jute, 3,000 tons of sugar and 18,000 bales of cotton at the time of the fire. The cause of the fire is believed to have been spontaneous combustion. There had been fires nearby in 1836, when Topping's Wharf was destroyed, and 1841. The fire was first noticed around 4 p.m., and by 6 p.m., 14 fire engines, including one steam engine, from the London Fire Engine Establishment were at the scene. Over 30,000 people watched the fire burn, and the fire took two weeks to put out, during which time around 20 police officers remained present at the scene. In total, the damages from the fire were around £2 million. The fire caused damage to buildings up to 0.25 miles (0.40 km) away from Cotton's Wharf, and destroyed 11 acres (45,000 m2) of land. The London Bridge railway station also caught fire in the blaze. At the time, the fire was described as the worst London fire since the Great Fire of London. In his diary, Arthur Munby described the scene as:
"For near a quarter of a mile, the south bank of the Thames was on fire: a long line of what had been warehouses, their roofs and fronts all gone; and the tall ghastly sidewalls, white with heat, standing, or rather tottering, side by side in the midst of a mountainous desert of red & black ruin, which smouldered & steamed here, & there, sent up sheets of savage intolerable flame a hundred feet high."
During the fire, a section of a warehouse collapsed on top of James Braidwood, the superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment (later the London Fire Brigade), killing him.
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