The fire put an end to
Whitehall as a royal residence and St. James Palace was used
instead. But at least one fire hazard remained. That was the
practice of lighting new fires by taking buckets of hot coals from
one room or house to another. This was faster than the several
minutes it took to use a tinder box to start a flame, i.e.
striking a piece of flint upon a piece of steel making a spark
which was dropped onto tinder and then blown upon. Matches were
invented in this period, but expensive and unsafe.
Nicholas Barbon began fire insurance in the 1670s. If fire broke
out on an insured premises, the insurance company's firemen would
come with leather buckets and grappling irons, and later small
hand pumps. Barbon also redeveloped many districts in London,
tearing down old buildings without hesitation. He started the
system of selling off leases to individual builders, who hoped to
recover their building costs by selling their houses before they
were completed and before substantial payments on the lease became
due. Entrepreneurial master-builders subcontracted work to
craftsmen and took a large profit or a large loss and debt.
Aristocrats bought large parcels of land on which they built their
own mansions surrounded by lots to be rented to building
contractors and speculators like Barbon. The houses built on these
lots were sold and the underlying land rented. These rentals of
land made the mansions self-supporting.
Pages:
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837