James Braidwood black plaque
Connection to This Location
# The Final Stand of James Braidwood On this very stretch of Tooley Street, in June 1861, James Braidwood—superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment and Britain's most celebrated firefighter—made his last stand against what would become London's most catastrophic blaze since 1666. For t...
Location
Tooley Street / Battle Bridge Lane
Inscription
Great fire of Tooley Street The large warehouses in this area, stacked with combustible materials, were always vulnerable to fire. Hay's Wharf was one of the earliest complexes to incorporate fireproofing, using incombustible floors of brick arches on cast iron beams. Despite this Hay's Wharf was destroyed in the great fire of Tooley Street of 1861, London's biggest fire since the Great Fire in 1666 and one that claimed more lives. It raged for two weeks and killed, among others, the superintendent of the London Fire Engine Establishment, James Braidwood, when a warehouse exploded. It was partly as a result of this that the London Fire Brigade was founded in 1866.