For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.
Dark Satanic Mills (19.03.13)
Food producers adulterating our food is a recurring problem. When the Albion Flour Mills opened the traditional millers – who feared the factory would drive their wind and water mills out of business – had for a long time been spreading rumours that flour from the factory was adulterated with all manner of unpleasant substances.
Since bread was the main diet of the poor millers were often portrayed as the greedy cheating baddie. At times of high wheat prices bakers and millers would be the target of rioters, often accused along with farmers and landowners of hoarding to jack up prices. Bread riots could involve the whole community, though they were often led by women, rioters would often seize bread and force bakers to it at a price they thought fair.
The Albion Mill was the first significant factory built in London. It was situated east side of Blackfriars Road on the approach to Blackfriars Bridge close to the Thames. Inside this modern wonder of its day, vast steam engines powered mill wheels which ground the flour on a huge scale.
Before the fire grinding 10 bushels of wheat per hour, by 20 pairs of 150 horsepower millstones, the Mills were the industrial wonder of the time, quickly becoming a fashionable sight of the London scene, they were regarded as the most powerful machines in the world. The trendy middle and upper classes had liked to drive to Blackfriars in their coaches and gawp at the new industrial age being born.
But in 1791 the factory dramatically burned to the ground in very suspicious circumstances.
The Mills stood in Blackfriars, an area together with neighbouring Southwark long notorious for its rebellious poor and for artisan and early working-class political organisation. At one time the Thames Bank at Lambeth was littered with windmills – eventually, they were all put out of business by steam power. When the Albion opened London millers feared ruin.
It was hardly surprising that when the mill was an inferno, they made their joy immediately apparent. A huge crowd gathered and made no effort to save the Mills, but stood around watching in grim satisfaction. Later in the day locals and mill workers danced around the smoking ruins, ballads of rejoicing were printed and sung on the spot and millers waved placards which read ‘Success to the mills of ALBION but no Albion Mills.’
After a soldier and a constable got into a row, a fight broke out leading to a mini-riot; but firemen turned their hoses on the crowd thus the first recorded use of early water cannon. To further make their point, the millers labelled the factory Satanic.
William Blake lived a short distance from the factory and it is thought the event inspired the line ‘Dark Satanic mills’ in his poem And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time, later made famous as the hymn Jerusalem.
On 26 April 1921 the first motorcycle police patrols went on duty on the streets of London, it’s not recorded how many speeding offences were booked that day
When Scotland Yard’s foundations were being built the headless torso of a woman was found, the murderer was never caught
Crutched Friars, Tower Hill takes it’s name from Fratres Cruciferi a Roman Catholic religious order that settled in the street in 1249
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital is the oldest hospital in London having been founded in 1123 by a monk named Rahere
The first Lord Mayor of London (who is an officer of The City of London) was Henry Fitz-Ailwin de Londonestone who held the position in 1189
At Guildhall’s Art Gallery the eastern entrance of a Roman amphitheatre can be viewed underneath the artworks
Princess Elizabeth (before becoming Queen) was first seen with Philip Mountbatten in public at the recently re-opened Savoy Hotel in 1946
A tennis ball was discovered in 1922 in the rafters of Westminster Hall dating from before 1520 it was stuffed with dog hair
The Ryde to Shanklin train line on the Isle of Wight uses for its rolling stock 70-year-old London Tube trains from the Northern Line
Performed at 10 pm for 700 years The Tower of London’s The Ceremony of the Keys is the world’s oldest surviving continuous military ceremony
Over 25 per cent of all people living in London were born in another country and more languages are spoken than any city in the world
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