Creative History

  On June 22, 1861 the day of the fire, Arthur Munby, a local resident who was attempting to get back to his home via horse drawn omnibus in London that night, wrote in his diary, “ From Epsom and Cheam we saw a great fire in the direction of London.   A pyramid of red flame on the horizon sending up a column of smoke that rose high in the air and then spread like that over Vesuvius.” What Munby was describing as he rode towards his home that summer night was the infamous 1861 Tooley Street Fire--the largest conflagration to consume London in nearly 200 years since the Great Fire of 1666.   The Tooley Street Fire of 1861, parts of which would burn continuously for up to two weeks, was started sometime around what we today would call rush hour at about 5 in the afternoon on Tuesday, June 22.  It is believed that at about that time, as a warehouse worker was closing up shop for the day along one of London’s many wharves packed with textiles, specifically at a ...

            Bernard John Dowling Irwin wan an Irish-born American army surgeon who on February 13, 1861 found himself the unlikely commander of a contingent of 14 soldiers of the United States Army’s 7th Infantry Division dispatched on a rescue mission to save 60 American cavalrymen who were surrounded and under siege by the great Apache warrior chief Cochise. For his brave actions on that day Assistant Surgeon Bernard Irwin would go on to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.  And although, the Medal of Honor was not established as an award for bravery and valor above and beyond the call of duty in service to the United States until 1862 at the height of the American Civil War, Irwin’s deeds in defeating the great Apache warrior Cochise and rescuing his fellow cavalrymen on February 13, 1861 while surrounded by hostile Apaches, would make his Medal of Honor the earliest awarded for bravery in combat by date of action as it pre-dated the o...