London Beer Flood 16/17th (?) October 1814

I was reminded the other week by a friend (cheers Rod!) of the London Beer Flood, which I have written about before. This was a distressing event that happened close by what is now the Dominion Theatre in London's West End, and occurred on the 17th of October 1814; however, with some reports recording the tragedy as happening the day before, but the evidence to support the 17th as the anniversary looks to be stronger.

In those days, London drinkers were supplied their beer by dozens of competing breweries, which resulted in some breweries building enormous vats in which to ferment and condition their ales. Indeed, the enormous porter vat of Maux & Company had a capacity of over a million pints! At about 6pm, on the 17th of October, 206 years ago, one of the steel restraining bands that enveloped that gigantic vat broke and released the contents. Together with the million plus pints of porter released from this vat, other vessels in the brewery were damaged and released even more beer into the flood. The resulting deluge damaged the brewery and a nearby pub, the Tavistock Arms and, sadly, flooded the basements of nearby homes...

Depending on which reports you read, between 7 and 9 people died as a direct result of the flood, most of them drowning in their own basements, and many more were seriously injured, including some of those who came to help rescue survivors... 

R.I.P. to those who sadly died... 😢

Images, with thanks to www.history.info, and I cannot find the source again for the photograph of Maux & Company brewery, my apologies to that source!