London Earthquake. That had been a much more serious business. Within two or three weeks, Londoners began to forget the strange experience. Near Holland House, in west London, the bailiff of Henry Fox, while counting his sheep, observed the dry, solid ground move like a quagmire or quicksand, causing much alarm among the animals and some crows nesting in nearby trees. In Southwark, a slaughterhouse collapsed, and a chimney fell in Leadenhall Street. Almost exactly four weeks after the first shock, at 5:30am on 8 March, came the second. An economic powerhouse rose from the rubble of this natural disaster. Earthquake felt in London . As for the ball of fire, another observer claimed that there was “a correspondence between the subterraneous air and the atmosphere. A slight tremor occurred on 9 March, and then came a powerful rumour: a third shock, exactly a month after the second one, would swallow up London. On Thursday, February 8, about noon, the first earthquake of the year struck. The convulsion caused terror, but passed off with only the loss of some slates, chimney parts, and a few items of glassware. The warmth and dryness of the spring, and probably the smoke from the coal-fires of the city, had increased the accumulation of sulphurous exhalations, and thence of meteors, which he believed to be composed of 'inflammable vapours'. If you subscribe to BBC History Magazine Print or Digital Editions then you can unlock 10 years’ worth of archived history material fully searchable by Topic, Location, Period and Person. Part of an old wall in Northampton was thrown down, a lady in Kelmarsh was tossed from her chair, and all over the shaken district people ran into the street. In A History of British Earthquakes, Charles Davison notes that “cats started up, dogs howled, sheep ran about, a horse refused to drink, the water being so much agitated, in several ponds fish leaped out of the water and were seen to dart away in all directions”. "In the UK, we experience an earthquake … The shock was more violent than that of February 8. On the evening of January 23, a fiery mass, described as an aurora borealis, moved very slowly from north to south directly over the city of Cork in Ireland. John Wesley, "Some Serious Thoughts Occasioned by the Late Earthquake at Lisbon," (1755) (From the Works of John Wesley, vol. Those that are felt generally cause very little damage. One, musing in a ruined abbey during a thunderstorm, asked rhetorically; Again – another – a repeated shock...Where fly the threaten'd wretches? It shook London. Windows and beds had been shaken sideways, and, just before the shock, a 'vast ball of fire' had been seen in the sky to the west of London. When London failed to fall, there was a general air of sheepishness in society. Still rose the morn; Security had lull’dThe scatter’d sons of vice in false repose,Heav’n of its dread intent no portents gave;…When, instantaneous, earth’s huge, cumb’rous massHeav’d, with strange pang, and deep resounds her groan.Anon., 1750EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA. on ----- next'. No 92 was that there would occur a terrible – but, to good men, a joyful – earthquake, which would destroy one tenth of an eminent city. This article was first published in the April 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine. In England, the interest of the press grew as well after the first news from Lisbon had arrived and was sustained through to the spring of 1756. disdained those explanations involving sulphur, explosions, or electrical fire, “which our modern philosophers make use of on all occasions, in explaining all the phenomena that appear in heavens above, or are felt in the earth beneath”. Battle of Arcot (India) between the Britsh and French East India Companies . Horace Walpole, man of letters and politician, was in bed in central London. Did Venezuela’s agony lead to a political revolution? So, indirectly, the 1812 Caracas earthquake may have led to the birth of new South American nations – through Bolívar’s liberation of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru from Spanish rule in the 1820s. The sudden destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake and tsunami in 1755 exerted an influence on 18th-century Europe as far-reaching as the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs in the 20th century. I got up and found people running into the streets, but saw no mischief done: there has been some; two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much china-ware.”, The president of the Royal Society, antiquarian Martin Folkes, was also in bed. At Leicester House, home of the Prince of Wales, the foundations were believed to be sinking. In the 1950s, it spawned the nearby industrial area, today known as Silicon Valley, also located on the San Andreas fault. By Bolívar’s own admission, the earthquake directly precipitated the republic’s collapse four months later under attack by Spanish forces. The poets also had their say. “This frantic terror prevails so much, that within these three days 730 coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park corner, with whole parties removing into the country,” reported a sceptical Walpole. It seemed that the tremor was confined to the London area; it was 'just perceived' at Richmond in Surrey and Bromley in Kent, and not felt at all at Barnet, Deal, and Canterbury. 61 issues of five newspapers included several reports from the disaster zone, 12 significantly more than had been reported about five years previously on two – though only weak – tremors in February and March 1750 in London itself. The lawyers in Westminster Hall were alarmed, and in Grosvenor Square residents ran out of their houses. Description 16 p. : ill. ; 23cm. Dogs howled. How Thomas Becket’s feud with Henry II led to murder, 2020 round-up: we choose our top HistoryExtra podcasts of the year, 6 of the most catastrophic weather events in British history. Some citizens, to the annoyance of the clergy, professed to be careless about the business, and sent each other cards: “I invite your ladyship to the. By 4 April, doomsday had somehow advanced to the very next day, and panic took hold. Puzzled MPs were halted in their tracks, jolted against walls or felt papers and briefcases jerked from their hands. Two other earthquakes in 1750 took place within a month of each other. After a few minutes the cone turned white and faded away. And no attempt was made to introduce anti-seismic emergency and building regulations. On February 8, 1750, London was hit by a significant, but not catastrophic, earthquake. Sherlock urged his readers to repent, and to ignore “little philosophers, who see a little, and but very little into natural causes… not considering that God who made all things, never put anything out of his own power”. Save over 50% on a gift subscription to their favourite history magazine. Where? It was also felt in Lincolnshire. Several chimneys fell, and the earthquake claimed a victim, a maid in Charterhouse Square, who was thrown out of bed and broke her arm. A rumour was propagated that earthquakes would occur monthly, which led to a mass exodus from London (and gridlock on the roads) on 8th April 1750. He pointed out that the shocks were confined to London and its environs, and were therefore 'immediately directed' at that city, and sneered at the 'little philosophers', who saw earthquakes only as natural phenomena. There were two types of earthquake wave, he said: a “tremulous” vibration within the Earth, followed by an undulation of the Earth’s surface – once again coming close to the truth. At Leicester, a rushing noise was heard, and the houses heaved up and down. On Tuesday, March 8, a month after the London earthquake, at about one o'clock in the morning, wakeful persons in the city thought to feel another quaver. Earthquake felt in London . On Sunday, March 18, at about 6 pm, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight were shaken, and, as they trembled, the air vibrated to a noise like the firing of great guns. The Essex Field Club the leading society for wildlife and geology enthusiasts in Essex, England, UK. You're now subscribed to our newsletter. ', who was shaken by it as he lay awake in bed, as “a sound from the earth, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it shook all the house with every thing that was therein.” E.A. Meanwhile, in London, a 'crazy lifeguardman' (Trooper Mitchell, of Lord Delaware's regiment of Life Guards) had joined with the Bishop of London in predicting disaster. Were they a warning from God? He believed that, as the shock was accompanied by a sound like rushing wind, it must have actually been caused by such a wind, which burst out of the earth somewhere in the 'dreary fens' of Lincolnshire. On Thursday, August 23, on a fine bright morning, the windows of Nottinghamshire rattled in another earthquake. On February 8, 1750, London was hit by a significant, but not catastrophic, earthquake. An airquake was no more to be feared than a clap of thunder; it might throw down a few tottery structures, but also brought benefit by purifying the atmosphere. I awaked a little after Five; I Open'd my Curtains, and observed the Sky hazy. The judge followed close behind with the public prosecutor hard on his heels. A vast semi-circular arch, like a rainbow, but very much larger and of a vivid red colour, sent up wavering streams almost to the zenith. The damage happened to be worst in the areas controlled by Simón Bolívar’s recently proclaimed First Republic of Venezuela and relatively light in areas sympathetic to the colonial ruler, Spain – a fact immediately exploited by the local Catholic authorities, who supported Spain. where, now?For wish'd relief? The fire that destroyed three-quarters of San Francisco over three days in 1906 was started by an earthquake that disabled the water supply of the city, including its fire hydrants. So, strange as it is to report, seismology began not in seismic California or Japan but in stable Britain. By entering your details, you are agreeing to HistoryExtra terms and conditions and privacy policy. This wasn’t the first, nor the last, year in which the earth would move under London. Foundation of the British Museum. Nothing happened. In Portugal, the devastation accelerated the long-term decline of the country in Europe and the colonial world, which had been caused by its over-reliance on gold revenues from its colony Brazil and what many saw as the pernicious influence of Jesuit orthodoxy. Others were not so sure. The last, and strongest, English earthquake of 1750 shook Northamptonshire and several other counties, just after noon on September 30. Westminster Bridge is opened . One 'little philosopher', however, sought to reassure Londoners that the second shock had not been an earthquake at all, but an 'airquake', caused by an 'explosion of combustible matter in the atmosphere'. 11; quoted in Wiesner, ed., Discovering the Western Past). It was later proved that this appearance had been seen from almost the whole of the British Isles, from as far south as Deal. In Southwark, a slaughterhouse collapsed, and a chimney fell in Leadenhall Street. 1755. Little did they know it, but Londoners … Just after 12.30pm on 8 February 1750, Britain’s lord chancellor was sitting in Westminster Hall with the Courts of King’s Bench and Chancery when the room began to shake. The shock had been felt in France, Belgium, and Holland. It was visible for about an hour, “and was tinged with so deep a scarlet, that it looked as if the city was in flames.” At Oxford on the same evening, a deep red light rose slowly in the north-east, sending out streamers of yellow and red light until it formed an 'iris' round the zenith. So the city received a considerable jolt. He pointed out that the sound before the shock was more like distant thunder than a subterranean explosion. 8/3/1750. Then this ceased, and a minute or two later, the earthquake came. The Resource London (England) -- Earthquake, 1750 Label London (England) -- Earthquake, 1750 Focus. Thomas Sherlock, the Bishop of London, was sure of it. Better known than the medieval quake were two which struck a month apart in 1750. Many fashionable persons, wracked by 'superstitious fears, or their guilty conscience', waited in their coaches till dawn, expecting then to hear of the destruction of wicked London. - To suppliant penitence?...Ah! The poets also had their say. The warm season was not confined to London, yet no-one else had experienced a quake. In a letter to the clergy and inhabitants of London, he called on them to “give attention to all the warnings which God in his mercy affords to a sinful people...by two great shocks of an Earthquake”. Little did they know it, but Londoners were being shaken and stirred by the first of several earthquakes that would strike England that year. People felt the chairs in which they sat shaking, and heard crockery rattling on their shelves. © 2010 Chris Chatfield Contact Mevar _rwObsfuscatedHref0 = "mai";var _rwObsfuscatedHref1 = "lto";var _rwObsfuscatedHref2 = ":ch";var _rwObsfuscatedHref3 = "ris";var _rwObsfuscatedHref4 = "top";var _rwObsfuscatedHref5 = "her";var _rwObsfuscatedHref6 = "cha";var _rwObsfuscatedHref7 = "tfi";var _rwObsfuscatedHref8 = "eld";var _rwObsfuscatedHref9 = "@ho";var _rwObsfuscatedHref10 = "tma";var _rwObsfuscatedHref11 = "il. Sherlock’s A Letter to the Clergy and Inhabitants of London and Westminster… on Occasion of the Late Earthquakes apparently sold 10,000 copies in two days, was reprinted several times, and is said to have sold more than 100,000 copies in less than six months. Affecting an area of ca. To plays, to sports!To midnight revels! 3.6 magnitude earthquake 2011-01-03 21:03:09 UTC at 21:03 January 03, 2011 UTC Location: Epicenter at 54.169, -1.652 8.2 km from Ripon (5.2 miles) But it was the warnings of the bishop of London, Thomas Sherlock, that attracted the most attention. The shock was at half past five in the morning. However, Londoners were not heeding a shock that was beyond living memory; it was their recent tremor that worried them. With one accord, the jury sprinted for the court-room door. In Leadenhall Street, part of a chimney fell. The cause of the outburst was the rarifaction of subterranean air by the heat of the season, for “such a dry and hot summer has not been known in the memory of man.”. The warm season was not confined to London, yet no-one else had experienced a quake. The earthquakes that rocked Georgian London. The clergy began to prepare their sermons. Imprint London: : Printed for Tim. Those anticipating divine wrath were somewhat disappointed by the earthquakes of 1750. • 17 January – John Canton reads a paper in the presence of the Royal Society on a method of making artificial magnets. 18/11/1750. The earthquake, minor though it was, alarmed London. 1750. By the year’s end, almost 50 articles and letters on the subject had been read before the Royal Society, which were promptly published as an appendix to its Philosophical Transactions. A poet of Norwich fired the first shot; “Britain! It was also felt in Lincolnshire. 800 000 km 2 and killing up to 100 000 people, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 is probably the greatest seismic disaster to have struck western Europe. You will shortly receive a receipt for your purchase via email. In Lincolnshire, the earthquake was described by a, correspondent, 'E.A. Thanks! It seemed that the tremor was confined to the London area; it was 'just perceived' at Richmond in Surrey and Bromley in Kent, and not felt at all at Barnet, Deal, and Canterbury. The servant found Knight busy investigating the signs of disturbance in his own residence, including a bed that had moved. no. A poet of Norwich fired the first shot; Despite the minor damage, Londoners were worried. The last significant tremor to shake the capital had been 170 years earlier, in 1580. Charles Wesley, a founder of the growing Methodist movement, bluntly sermonised: “God is himself the Author, and sin is the moral cause.”. Others were not so sure. Everything you ever wanted to know about... What was Christmas like in Britain during the Second World War? In Leadenhall Street, part of a chimney fell. On Monday, April 2, at about 10 pm, Liverpool and an area about 40 miles round vibrated to 'a smart shock of an earthquake' for two or three seconds. The. Captured by the Spanish, Bolívar was sent into exile, and settled in Cartagena. By the 19th century, images of a shaking Lisbon were icons of natural disaster comparable with the smothering of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the eruption of Vesuvius. The clergy began to prepare their sermons. About 8 p.m., a not unfamiliar sight appeared in the north. The summer was also remarkable for its thunderstorms. The shock had been felt in France, Belgium, and Holland. One of the society’s fellows was John Michell, a Cambridge astronomer who had After a short time it disappeared, leaving the sky glowing with a faint eerie light. It was more pronounced, and covered five times the area – a circle with a diameter of 40 miles ,with its centre roughly three miles north of London Bridge. Natural philosophers, however, remained fascinated. Within a decade, San Francisco was rebuilt and its economy was expanding. The shock was even felt, though faintly, at Bath. O that our repentance may prevent heavier marks of his displeasure!” Ten days earlier, another aurora had been seen, very red, whose rays met at the zenith; a description suspiciously reminiscent of the phenomenon seen at Liverpool on April 2. As for the ball of fire, another observer claimed that there was “a correspondence between the subterraneous air and the atmosphere. Despite being a clergyman, Michell boldly left the divine out of his analysis: the first thinker about earthquakes to do so since the ancient Greeks. He believed that, as the shock was accompanied by a sound like rushing wind, it must have actually been caused by such a wind, which burst out of the earth somewhere in the 'dreary fens' of Lincolnshire. You have successfully linked your account! Cover label: Earthquake of April 5, 1750 (two letters from a gentleman in town to his friend in the country) Edition The eighth edition. Crockery was thrown from household shelves; a lady of Piccadilly, a connoisseur of old china, had her collection instantly ruined. 14/11/1751. Many people simply blanked the earthquakes from their memory, and no attempt was made to protect London’s buildings from future shocks. What happened in January 1750. But it seemed that the Supreme Being's displeasure was not only with sinful London. Reporting to the society that very day, he noted that the vibration and noise could not have been that of a passing cart or coach – to which many compared it – because everything was quiet at such an early hour. Please enter your number below. In Southwark, south of the Thames, a slaughter - house with a hay-loft collapsed. Another philosopher called the airquake notion 'whimsical'. Some citizens, to the annoyance of the clergy, professed to be careless about the business, and sent each other cards: “I invite your ladyship to the Earthquake on ----- next'. On the 8th of March, 1750, an earthquake shook London. For a more detailed introduction to this collection, see Karen Beth Westerfield Tucker, “‘On the Occasion’: Charles Wesley’s Hymns on the London Earthquakes of 1750,” Methodist History 42 (2004): 197–221. The earthquake, minor though it was, alarmed London. Thank you for subscribing to HistoryExtra, you now have unlimited access. The Gentleman's Magazine described for them an earthquake of 1692 in Sicily, 'the most dreadful in all history', which 'swallowed up...an incredible number of villages, and sixty thousand people'. Although Lisbon was gradually, and impressively, rebuilt under the near-dictatorship of the marquess of Pombal, the country continued to weaken economically, especially after Brazil gained its independence in 1822. There he unexpectedly became the leader of a much wider independence movement than the one he had led in Venezuela. Earthquakes are far more common in the likes of Nepal (Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images) While those quakes started a “year of earthquakes” across Britain in 1750, London … One earthquake was remarkable, but two earthquakes in a month was unprecedented. Part of Dover cliffs had collapsed into the sea. It is probable that...great concussions of the air do often, if not always, owe their origin to...exhalations lifting from below.” While the philosophers disputed, clergymen insisted that “Earthquakes are under the divine management, and are made use of by God to fulfil his pleasure”. The roads were thronged with vast numbers of people leaving the city. Language English. Windows and beds had been shaken sideways, and, just before the shock, a 'vast ball of fire' had been seen in the sky to the west of London. Browse historical events, famous birthdays and notable deaths from Jul 28, 1750 or search by date, day or keyword. A leading clergyman, William Whiston, successor to Newton as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, expressed his belief that the end of the world was close at hand, as predicted by 99 signals. 1753. For a moment everyone thought the great edifice was going to collapse on their heads. On April 20, between 8 and 9 pm, an auroral arch rose in the east-north-east at Biddeford and formed a 'scarlet cone' near the zenith. Earthquake occurred in London on 8 February, 1750. He pointed out that the shocks were confined to London and its environs, and were therefore 'immediately directed' at that city, and sneered at the 'little philosophers', who saw earthquakes only as natural phenomena. 1750. by Mr. The shock waves of the earthquake placed a temporary brake on the emerging rationalism of the European Enlightenment and attempts to explain the disaster in terms of human sinfulness coloured many … The rumour was started by an army trooper who would eventually be despatched to Bedlam, London’s lunatic asylum. San Francisco recovered remarkably quickly, largely because the city authorities, local businesses and even the insurance industry treated the disaster as incendiary rather than seismic, so that residents were permitted to claim on their fire insurance and investors were not discouraged from financing reconstruction through fear of future earthquakes. which was interested in everything, told its readers that there were three kinds of earthquake; the 'Inclination', which was a vibration from side to side, the 'Pulsation', up and down, and the 'Tremor', “when it shakes and quivers every way like a flame.” Scholars were agreed that the origins of earthquakes were to be found in the underground voids with which the earth was believed to be honeycombed, especially in mountainous regions; but whether it was the surges of air, water or fire within these caverns that were the actual cause of the shock was still disputed. Some hailstones were three inches round, and flat, like ice cakes. The lawyers in Westminster Hall were alarmed, and in Grosvenor Square residents ran out of their houses. One earthquake was remarkable, but two earthquakes in a month was unprecedented. In 1692, another thronged the streets of London with confused crowds. Given his standing in London society, Whiston’s ideas were seriously discussed. A seismic event that dealt Portugal’s empire a grievous blow. The Gentleman's Magazine, (founded by Edward Cave, alias 'Sylvanus Urban', in 1731) which was interested in everything, told its readers that there were three kinds of earthquake; the 'Inclination', which was a vibration from side to side, the 'Pulsation', up and down, and the 'Tremor', “when it shakes and quivers every way like a flame.” Scholars were agreed that the origins of earthquakes were to be found in the underground voids with which the earth was believed to be honeycombed, especially in mountainous regions; but whether it was the surges of air, water or fire within these caverns that were the actual cause of the shock was still disputed. Just after 12.30pm on 8 February 1750, Britain’s lord chancellor was sitting in Westminster Hall with the Courts of King’s Bench and Chancery when the room began to shake. A boy and girl had been killed by falling masonry in London. Then a second fiery cloud, larger than the first, rose to the apex of the sky. Editions: [Charles … Part of Dover cliffs had collapsed into the sea. During the 1750s, Michell examined eyewitness reports from England in 1750 and from the devastating Lisbon earthquake in 1755, and analysed them according to Newtonian mechanics. The Church of England attributed the 1750 earthquakes to God's displeasure at the publication of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure ("Fanny Hill", by John Cleland, 1748-9). It is probable that...great concussions of the air do often, if not always, owe their origin to...exhalations lifting from below.” While the philosophers disputed, clergymen insisted that “Earthquakes are under the divine management, and are made use of by God to fulfil his pleasure”. However, the well-known theologian William Whiston (who had already one failed prediction to his name; the Earth was not destroyed by a comet on 16 October 1736) had not given up what might be described as hope. On Thursday, August 23, on a fine bright morning, the windows of Nottinghamshire rattled in another earthquake. founded by Edward Cave, alias 'Sylvanus Urban', in 1731). Was it another warning, delivered with more force? 1751. They suspected a Guy Fawkes-style explosion, perhaps set off by the notorious Dynamiters then being prosecuted for their Irish nationalist activities. Thus, the English ‘Year of Earthquakes’ led to the first recognisably scientific steps in understanding this influential, but still embarrassingly unpredictable, phenomenon. A boy and girl had been killed by falling masonry in London. At first, an earthquake was not accepted as an explanation for the 8 February tremor – so improbable did it appear to be. It was 'much stronger than that felt in London”, and lasted nearly a minute. A faint aurora sent up its beams for an hour or so before fading; then, about 9 p.m., an 'extraordinary phenomenon' took form in the southern sky. 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