London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 2

by Henry Mayhew

We have here, however, to deal more particularly with the causes of these fires, of which the following table gives the result of many years’ valuable experience:—

TABULAR EPITOME OF METROPOLITAN FIRES, FROM 1833 to 1849.

By W. Baddeley, 29, Alfred Street, Islington.

	1833	1834	1835	1836	1837	1838	1839	1840	1841	1842	1843
Slightly damaged	292	338	315	397	357	383	402	451	438	521	489
Seriously damaged	135	116	125	134	122	152	165	204	34	224	231
Totally destroyed	31	28	31	33	22	33	17	26	24	24	29
Total No. of Fires	458	482	471	564	501	568	584	681	696	769	749
False Alarms	59	63	66	66	89	80	70	84	67	61	79
Alarms from Chimneys on Fire	75	106	106	126	127	107	101	98	92	82	83
Total No. of Calls	592	651	643	756	717	755	755	863	855	912	911
Insuran. on Building and Contents	..	..	..	169	173	161	169	237	343	321	276
Insurances on Building only	..	..	..	73	47	59	58	92	149	116	124
Insurances on Contents only	..	..	..	104	76	128	115	104	52	112	107
Uninsured	..	..	..	218	205	220	242	248	152	220	242

	1844	1845	1846	1847	1848	1849	Total.	Average
Slightly damaged	502	431	576	536	509	582	6,574	470
Seriously damaged	237	244	238	273	269	228	2,955	211
Totally destroyed	23	32	20	27	27	28	365	26
Total No. of Fires	762	707	834	836	805	838	9,894	770
False Alarms	70	81	119	88	120	76	1,150	82
Alarms from Chimneys on Fire	94	87	69	66	86	89	1,307	94
Total No. of Calls	926	875	1022	990	1011	1003	12,351	882
Insuran. on Building and Contents	313	313	302	263	310	368	3,718	266
Insurances on Building only	138	107	137	125	120	163	1,508	108
Insurances on Contents only	94	73	125	157	134	72	1,453	104
Uninsured	217	214	270	291	241	235	3,215	230

Thus we perceive that, out of an average of 665 fires per annum, the information being derived from 17 years’ experience, the following were the number of fires produced by different causes:—

	Average No. of Fires per Annum.
Candles, various accidents with	169
Flues, foul, defective, &c.	75
Unknown	63
Gas	46
Stoves over-heated	37
Linen, drying, airing, &c.	30
Accidents of various kinds, for the most part unavoidable	27
Fire heat, application of, to various hazardous manufacturing processes	26
Fire sparks	21
Shavings, loose, ignited	20
Carelessness, palpable instances of	18
Furnaces, kilns, &c., defective or over-heated	16
Children playing with fire or candles	14
Tobacco smoking	14
Spontaneous combustion	13
Wilful	12
Lucifer-matches	11
Ovens	7
Fires, kindled on hearths and other improper places	7
Suspicious	7
Lamps	5
Drunkenness	5
Lime, slaking of	4
Apparel, ignited on the person	4
Fireworks	4
Hot cinders put away	3
Incautious fumigation	3
Reading, working, or smoking in bed	1·33
Hearths defective	1·25
	665

Here, then, we find that while the greatest proportion of fires are caused by accidents with candles, about one-ninth of the fires above mentioned arise from foul flues, or 75 out of 665, a circumstance which teaches us the usefulness of the class of labourers of whom we have been lately treating.

It would seem that a much larger proportion of the fires are wilfully produced than appear in the above table.

The Board of Health, in speaking of incendiarism in connection with insurance, report:—