The London Beer Flood (1814)
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Mikefule
Justified & Ancient
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What a way to go.
Thank you for sharing.
As Johnny Cash sang: Hey, Porter, Hey Porter!
This incident has some similarities to the Great Molasses Flood, about 100 years later in Boston, Mass.
Opening paragraph of linked article:
The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster or the Great Boston Molasses Flood,occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. A large storage tank filled with 2.3 million US gal (8,700 m3) weighing approximately 13,000 short tons (12,000 t) of molasses burst, and the resultant wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event entered local folklore and residents claimed for decades afterwards that the area still smelled of molasses on hot summer days.
Molasses, is a viscous syrup that the English usually call "black treacle". Despite the sound of the word, it is a singular. As a kid, I didn't understand that and I assumed that a "jar of molasses" must be something like a jar of figs or dates.
However, I have just discovered that "molasse" as a singular is a geological term referring to a certain category of rocks, so I guess you can have this kind of "molasses" as a plural. Every day's a school day.
Link to The Great Molasses Flood (Wikipedia)
Our Boston Molasses Flood thread:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/boston-molasses-flood-remembered.12991/
Interestingly on the beer flood, the brewery was found not liable and the incident was deemed "act of God." The law changed a few years later in the 1860s, in the case of Rylands vs Fletcher:
"The judges held thus, “we, the judges of the exchequer think that correct rule of law is that, any person, who for his own intentions brings on his land, accumulates and keeps on the land anything likely to cause trouble if it escapes, must keep it at his own risk, and, if he does not do so, is prima facie (without need for further information), answerable for all the damage which is the natural effect of its escape."
Thank you for sharing.As Johnny Cash sang: Hey, Porter, Hey Porter!
This incident has some similarities to the Great Molasses Flood, about 100 years later in Boston, Mass.
Opening paragraph of linked article:
The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster or the Great Boston Molasses Flood,occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. A large storage tank filled with 2.3 million US gal (8,700 m3) weighing approximately 13,000 short tons (12,000 t) of molasses burst, and the resultant wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event entered local folklore and residents claimed for decades afterwards that the area still smelled of molasses on hot summer days.
Molasses, is a viscous syrup that the English usually call "black treacle". Despite the sound of the word, it is a singular. As a kid, I didn't understand that and I assumed that a "jar of molasses" must be something like a jar of figs or dates.
However, I have just discovered that "molasse" as a singular is a geological term referring to a certain category of rocks, so I guess you can have this kind of "molasses" as a plural. Every day's a school day.
Link to The Great Molasses Flood (Wikipedia)
Our Boston Molasses Flood thread:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/boston-molasses-flood-remembered.12991/
Interestingly on the beer flood, the brewery was found not liable and the incident was deemed "act of God." The law changed a few years later in the 1860s, in the case of Rylands vs Fletcher:
"The judges held thus, “we, the judges of the exchequer think that correct rule of law is that, any person, who for his own intentions brings on his land, accumulates and keeps on the land anything likely to cause trouble if it escapes, must keep it at his own risk, and, if he does not do so, is prima facie (without need for further information), answerable for all the damage which is the natural effect of its escape."
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bugmum
Justified & Ancient
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According to my sister (family genealogist), one of our x-great-grandfathers left Ireland around the time of the potato famine, and ended up in St Giles Rookery - he was a Kelly from Cork, so it's said.
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Apologies that I don't have time to transcribe this article from Country Life, but I thought that you'd enjoy a retelling of one of the greatest London disasters that nobody's ever heard of. The scale is considerable: 323,000 gallons, a 15ft beer wave that ripped through the densely populated St Giles rookery and killed eight people.
Another version here:
The London Beer Flood of 1814
by Ben Johnson
On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people in St Giles, London. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets around Tottenham Court Road.
The Horse Shoe Brewery stood at the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road. In 1810 the brewery, Meux and Company, had had a 22 foot high wooden fermentation tank installed on the premises. Held together with massive iron rings, this huge vat held the equivalent of over 3,500 barrels of brown porter ale, a beer not unlike stout.
On the afternoon of October 17th 1814 one of the iron rings around the tank snapped. About an hour later the whole tank ruptured, releasing the hot fermenting ale with such force that the back wall of the brewery collapsed. The force also blasted open several more vats, adding their contents to the flood which now burst forth onto the street. More than 320,000 gallons of beer were released into the area. This was St Giles Rookery, a densely populated London slum of cheap housing and tenements inhabited by the poor, the destitute, prostitutes and criminals.
The flood reached George Street and New Street within minutes, swamping them with a tide of alcohol. The 15 foot high wave of beer and debris inundated the basements of two houses, causing them to collapse. In one of the houses, Mary Banfield and her daughter Hannah were taking tea when the flood hit; both were killed.
In the basement of the other house, an Irish wake was being held for a 2 year old boy who had died the previous day. The four mourners were all killed. The wave also took out the wall of the Tavistock Arms pub, trapping the teenage barmaid Eleanor Cooper in the rubble. In all, eight people were killed. Three brewery workers were rescued from the waist-high flood and another was pulled alive from the rubble.
All this ‘free’ beer led to hundreds of people scooping up the liquid in whatever containers they could. Some resorted to just drinking it, leading to reports of the death of a ninth victim some days later from alcoholic poisoning.
Continues:
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-London-Beer-Flood-of-1814/
Another version here:
The London Beer Flood of 1814
by Ben Johnson
On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people in St Giles, London. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets around Tottenham Court Road.
The Horse Shoe Brewery stood at the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road. In 1810 the brewery, Meux and Company, had had a 22 foot high wooden fermentation tank installed on the premises. Held together with massive iron rings, this huge vat held the equivalent of over 3,500 barrels of brown porter ale, a beer not unlike stout.
On the afternoon of October 17th 1814 one of the iron rings around the tank snapped. About an hour later the whole tank ruptured, releasing the hot fermenting ale with such force that the back wall of the brewery collapsed. The force also blasted open several more vats, adding their contents to the flood which now burst forth onto the street. More than 320,000 gallons of beer were released into the area. This was St Giles Rookery, a densely populated London slum of cheap housing and tenements inhabited by the poor, the destitute, prostitutes and criminals.
The flood reached George Street and New Street within minutes, swamping them with a tide of alcohol. The 15 foot high wave of beer and debris inundated the basements of two houses, causing them to collapse. In one of the houses, Mary Banfield and her daughter Hannah were taking tea when the flood hit; both were killed.
In the basement of the other house, an Irish wake was being held for a 2 year old boy who had died the previous day. The four mourners were all killed. The wave also took out the wall of the Tavistock Arms pub, trapping the teenage barmaid Eleanor Cooper in the rubble. In all, eight people were killed. Three brewery workers were rescued from the waist-high flood and another was pulled alive from the rubble.
All this ‘free’ beer led to hundreds of people scooping up the liquid in whatever containers they could. Some resorted to just drinking it, leading to reports of the death of a ninth victim some days later from alcoholic poisoning.
Continues:
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-London-Beer-Flood-of-1814/
Ogdred Weary
ᛟᛒᛊᛏᛁᚾᚨᛏᛖ ᚲᛁᛗᚱᛁᚲ
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It's how we would all like to go.