Eyewitness accounts

Many eyewitness accounts of the fire have survived in the form of diaries, letters, books and statements.

John ‘Jo’ Morgan was staying with friends in Five Foot Lane (near what is now Upper Thames Street) in London on 3 September 1666. His friends requested that he go with them to see how close the fire was, and they climbed to the attic.

The fire was still quite far away, in Thames Street, but as they stood and watched, a fireball flew past Jo’s ear and fell into the corner of the room, making a hole in the floor. Jo and his companions rushed down the stairs and jumped out of the window as the house caught fire.

Letters provide a valuable insight into people’s thoughts and feelings during the fire. Lady Anne Hobart wrote two letters to her cousin during the fire and says she is ‘almost out of my wits’ with fear and that ‘we did look to be killed every hour’.

James Hicks, a senior post office clerk, fled from the fire to Barnet with his family, taking as many letters as he could. He wrote a letter from there to the postmasters between London, Chester and Holyhead telling them about the fire. He said that he was ‘in reasonable good health, notwithstanding great loss and sufferings by the distraction of our office’. He signed the letter ‘Your sorrowful friend’.

Henry Griffith wrote to his relative on 18 September with a detailed description of the fire and its immediate aftermath. He revealed that his relative’s trunk was stolen after it was carried out to the fields for safety. Their cousin Edwards and a Mr String have lost everything and another cousin, John Jones, ‘has extremely suffred’.