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Speaker 1: Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff You

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Speaker 1: Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore

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Speaker 1: the past one day at a time with a quick

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Speaker 1: look at what happened today in history. Hello, and welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and it's October.

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Speaker 1: The London Beer Flood took place on this day in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen. This flood started when a three story tall

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Speaker 1: vat of fermenting beer broke at a brewery in London,

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Speaker 1: and accounts about the day, there are two different companies

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Speaker 1: described as being responsible for this vat of beer. One

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Speaker 1: was the Mrs Henry Mew and Company on Bainbridge Street.

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Speaker 1: The other was the Horseshoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road.

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Speaker 1: Now those two roads, Bainbridge Street and Tottenham Court met

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Speaker 1: at an intersection, and Mrs Henry Mew and Company had

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Speaker 1: bought a brewery that same year. That's why there's a

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Speaker 1: discrepancy and who exactly was responsible for this broken vat.

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Speaker 1: When the vat ruptured, it released a fifteen foot high

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Speaker 1: wave of porter which broke the taps off of other

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Speaker 1: vats in the brewery, causing a huge chain reaction that

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Speaker 1: completely flooded the surrounding area. This sounds like the set

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Speaker 1: up for a joke, but it was a tragedy. Many

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Speaker 1: buildings were completely destroyed. There wasn't any kind of drainage,

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Speaker 1: so the beer just plowed through everything in its path.

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Speaker 1: At least eight people were killed. This included a mother

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Speaker 1: and a daughter who were having tea together. It also

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Speaker 1: included a family who had been gathered in their basement

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Speaker 1: mourning the death of their two year old. Because this

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Speaker 1: was a tragedy and because there was so much property damage,

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Speaker 1: there was an inquest. One of the hoops that was

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Speaker 1: holding that vat together had broken and slipped off earlier

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Speaker 1: in the day, but that apparently wasn't all that unusual

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Speaker 1: and occurrence. George Crick, who was a seventeen year old

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Speaker 1: employee of brewery, reported the broken hoop to his boss

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Speaker 1: and was told that it wouldn't be a problem. He

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Speaker 1: was instructed to delegate replacing the hoop to another employee

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Speaker 1: in spite of that. Though the inquest determined that this

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Speaker 1: was pretty much an act of God, it cleared the

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Speaker 1: brewery of all wrongdoing. The brewery never had to pay

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Speaker 1: any kind of reparations, and the taxes that it had

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Speaker 1: already paid on the beer it was brewing were waived.

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Speaker 1: This brewery did eventually reopen after the catastrophe, but it

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Speaker 1: closed again in ninety one. There were a lot of

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Speaker 1: rumors following this, and you'll still see this in accounts

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Speaker 1: written more recently up to today, claiming that people rushed

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Speaker 1: into the streets with their pots and pans and other

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Speaker 1: vessels to try to scoop up some of this free beer.

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Speaker 1: It is true that there are people out there who

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Speaker 1: will try anything, but this idea of a chaotic rush

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Speaker 1: out into the streets to scoop up beer with any

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Speaker 1: vessel handy was almost certainly false. It was more meant

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Speaker 1: to insult the predominantly Irish population of the neighborhood by

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Speaker 1: playing on negative stereotypes. There are also elements of this

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Speaker 1: story that sound really similar to the Boston molasses flood,

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Speaker 1: which happened just over a hundred years later and killed

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Speaker 1: twenty one people in Boston's North End. That may indeed

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Speaker 1: wind up being its own episode of the stay in

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Speaker 1: history class at some point in the future. So I

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Speaker 1: will avoid going into all the details of it here today.

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Speaker 1: You can learn about this in the February four episode

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Speaker 1: of Stuff You Miss in History Class called six Impossible Episodes,

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Speaker 1: which is six brief stories that weren't quite enough to

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Speaker 1: stand on their own as a podcast. You'll notice this

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Speaker 1: particular story is barely long enough to cover this podcast,

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Speaker 1: which is only five minutes long. That's pretty much all

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Speaker 1: the detail that we know about it. Thanks to Tari

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Speaker 1: Harrison for audio work on the show, and you can

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Speaker 1: subscribe to the stand History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: and where a Realty get your podcasts. Tune in tomorrow

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Speaker 1: for a Battle and What's Now Alabama