Adrian Tinniswood

Poor old Thomas Blubworth.

Thomas Blubworth was one of the unluckiest London mayors, I think, in that he'd come into office in the middle of the plague.

So there was no kind of Lord Mayor show.

There was no sort of big fuss.

There was no pageant.

He was sworn in a barber shop around the back of the Tower of London.

It was all a bit of a frost for him.

And then just as he comes to the end of his year of office, he's called out two o'clock in the morning on this Sunday morning and told there's a fire because people are getting a bit anxious because the fire is starting to spread and they're starting to worry that maybe we need to do something dramatic.

We need to start demolishing houses.

So they call the mayor.

And Bloodworth, who's not a great man, bless him, he's not a great man, he says he can't authorize the pulling down of houses because he needs the permission of their owners.

And because the vast majority of property in London is rented, the landlords could be anywhere.

So he says, no, we can't demolish houses, even though the fire is spreading.

And

One of the wardens says to him, well, look, you know, this is getting serious.

And Bloodworth, memorably, famously, brilliantly, says there's fires in the thing.

A woman could piss this out.

And he went back to bed.

And a place in the history books.

We know it started in the early hours of the morning of Sunday, the 2nd of September.