Pugin’s gothic masterpiece on the north bank of the Thames is a remarkable achievement – the Palace of Westminster is one of the must-see places in central London for tourists from near and far. That comes at a price however – it weighs so heavily on the public consciousness that today nobody ever stops to think about what came before it…
Caroline Shenton, the Clerk of the Records at the Parliamentary Archive, attempts to correct that with ‘The Day Parliament Burned Down’, her first book. It’s 300+ pages recount the huge conflagration which consumed the warren of buildings, from medieval to Georgian, that constituted the Parliamentary estate up until one fateful night in October 1834. A series of oversights and mistakes would come together and lead to a calamitous blaze that in 48 hours would wipe it almost completely off the map – only Westminster Hall survived.
Turner’s contemporary painting of the blaze.
There’s lots of colour to be found in ‘The Day Parliament Burned Down’ – through the course of the book the reader will become quite familiar with the major players, both heroes and villains. For example, the then Dean of Westminster is painted as a jobsworth as he was almost responsible for the loss of the irreplaceable Domesday Book - despite the advancing flames he refused to to allow it to leave the building because he hadn’t received permission to remove it – in the end it was thrown from a window into the waiting arms of a clerk despite his objections. Readers will also learn about the genius of General Rowland Hill and James Braidwood who, despite commanding competing teams of firefighters, managed to organise themselves around the task of saving Westminster Hall. Hill arranged for a firebreak to be created, while Braidwood directed groups of firefighters to continually play their hoses over the building, with many firefighters losing their lives in the process…
For such an outwardly academic tome, ‘The Day Parliament Burned Down’ is a surprisingly compelling page-turner, probably because Shenton organises the book by the hour. After the introduction readers are led through a blow by blow account of the events – an academic analog to Kiefer Sutherland’s ’24′ series if you will! The centre of the book is also crammed with a fascinating series of illustrations. Many of the artists of the day managed to capture the event, both on canvas and in print. In fact, several rushed down to the river so that they could get an unobstructed view as events unfolded, joining the crowds who by all accounts ooh-d and aah-d at what must have been an astonishing spectacle. Remember this is before the days of fantastic firework displays – Londoners would have never have seen anything remotely like it.
‘The Day Parliament Burned Down’ is a really good read, and I thoroughly recommend it. You can pick it up on Amazon right now in print for £12.34, and on the Kindle for a neat £11.11.
About Pete Stean
