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Color lithograph of the Tooley Street Fire, as seen from London Bridge on the morning following the fire's start This image, published by the Rocca Brothers in Berlin, is very similar but not identical to "The Great Fire in Southwark: Scene at Cotton's Wharf," published in the Illustrated London News. A similar scene also appears on the commemorative plaque for the event at Hay's Galleria, at the intersection of Battle Bridge Lane and Tooley Street.
Spectators, in awe of the scene, fill boats in the Thames as firefighters try to put out the raging fire.
The fire, which took two weeks to extinguish completely, became a spectacle, drawing an estimated 30,000 onlookers. Due to the enormous cost of the blaze, the insurance companies that funded the fire service London Fire Engine Establishment successfully lobbied the government to create the publicly-funded Metropolitan (later London) Fire Brigade.
Marshall, Nancy Rose. "'The River Seemed Almost Turned to Blood': The Tooley Street Fire. https://www.britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-22/the-tooley-street-fire
![[London]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/72497.jpg)
