“The River Seemed Almost Turned to Blood”: The Tooley Street Fire

Abstract

This article considers representations of a fire that broke out at Cotton’s Wharf in Tooley Street, London, in 1861 as a case study that reveals a debate about the status of Britain as a global power. Such discussions were fuelled by the three influences of extractive imperial capitalism, a financial system predicated on speculation, and a new investment in the authority of images as records. On multiple levels, images of the Tooley Street fire––a spectacular blaze demolishing the spoils of empire––thematised material transformation in ways that vacillated between reassurance and doubt about the foundational, if shaky, Victorian tenet that nothing was ever lost but rather was in a state of perpetual metamorphosis, infinitely renewable and replaceable. Two new practices of risk-taking––speculation and fire insurance—were likewise predicated on a structure of perpetual substitution, which was also the structure of representation itself. After establishing the various types of illustrations of the Tooley Street fire in terms of their purpose and audience, this article evaluates the principal goods lost in the blaze––cotton and tallow––with regard to their cultural and economic meanings in 1861. It concludes by suggesting that mid-century conceptions of the element of fire resonated with the institutional logic of certain structures of modernity.

Keywords

• tooley street
• river thames