One Corner, Three Histories
The terrible explosion, the world religion, and the football team.
This is Bunhill Fields just north of the City of London. It is cult famous. People flock here in search of the graves of William Blake, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe, among other religious dissenters.
Less famous — indeed, almost forgotten — is the tremendous explosion that rocked the area in 1716. Seventeen people were killed in what was one of the deadliest explosions in London’s history, up to that point.
“So what?”, we might ask. The city’s annals are peppered with tragedies, many of which have fallen into obscurity. This one happened more than 300 years ago. It is background noise by this point.
Only, the Bunhill explosion deserves to be better remembered. Its reverberations can still be heard. From the ashes of that awful blast emerged a world religion and, eventually, London’s most successful football club. Millions of lives have been profoundly touched by the disaster’s causal aftershocks.
A shower of molten brass
Today, Tabernacle Street is an unremarkable back road just east of Bunhill Fields. It is lined with low-rise office space, and home to a lavish collection of potholes. No tree can grow here, for its narrow pavements are almost always in shadow. Tabernacle Street could scarcely be more urban if you wrapped it in denim and brought it a ghettoblaster.
Let’s just take a second to admire its 21st century qualities on Google Street View…
Had you visited three centuries ago, however, you would have found yourself at the northern city limits, with views across open fields towards the sleepy village of Hoxton.
The yellow pin shows the site of Matthew Bagley’s foundry, established around the turn of the 18th century. This was an ideal site for a foundry. Casting metal is a noisy business, best kept away from population centres. The industry also requires reliable transport links to get materials in, and the weighty products out. This spot is right up against City Road, as we now call it, one of the area’s widest thoroughfares. But the foundry was built here for a more specific reason. Across the road stood the Artillery Ground, home then, as now, to the Honourable Artillery Company. The foundry was deliberately placed to supply and mend cannons for the barracks nextdoor.
The business was the principle supplier of heavy weaponry to the military, and it was widely known as the King’s Founder’s. In 1716, Bagley had taken delivery of some captured French cannon. The metal was to be melted down and cast into new armaments. On 10 May, a crowd gathered inside the foundry to observe the casting process. But tragedy struck. Water had got into the mould. When molten metal was introduced, the water evaporated with explosive force. Imagine the hiss of a drip of water onto an iron, or a hob plate, but many thousands of times more powerful.
“It blew up the whole Work,” said a contemporary account:
“…and blew the Melted Metal up as lightly as if it had been the lightest Earth, throwing it about the whole Place, separated in small parts like Drops so that those People who stood farthest off, were equally overwhelmed with a Shower of Molten Brass as those that were near; and almost all that were in the place were either kill’d or terribly Hurt with it.”
The injuries must have been horrific. 17 people lost their lives, but not instantly. Many lingered on, dying days or weeks later. A whole month after the explosion, the Bills of Mortality for 5-12 June note one person “Dy’d of Wounds receiv’d by the hot Metal at the late Disaster on Windmill Hill”. Bagley and his son (also Matthew) were among the dead, as was a Clerk of the Ordnance, a Mr Hall (another clerk called Mr Carteret is also mentioned in one account).
This was one of the worst explosions by death toll in London’s history up to that point, and few peacetime explosions have surpassed it since. The foundry was also finished, its walls shattered and many of its staff perished.
Something very different would eventually rise from the ashes. But not yet. First we have to follow the firepower to the other side of London.
Foundry of football
The King’s Founder’s had gone up in smoke. This is not the sort of situation that can be left to smoulder. The defence of the realm could be in jeopardy without the ability to forge new artillery.
Within months, the Royal Brass Foundry was established in Woolwich, under Crown control. The riverfront here had been used as a dockyard and arms store for decades. Bringing the foundry work “in house”, right beside existing military stockpiles was a sensible decision. The new foundry would continue in service until late Victorian times. Clearly, it proved less explode-y than the Moorfields site, as the original Woolwich foundry house, attributed to architect Sir John Vanbrugh, still stands today.
The Royal Brass Foundry also left an important cultural legacy, which many readers will have already guessed. In 1886, a group of workers at the site established a football team named Dial Square, after the workshop immediately adjacent to the Foundry. The name was soon switched to Royal Arsenal and later Arsenal.
The club moved to north London in 1913. This was controversial at the time, but we could make the case that the move brought the club closer to the historic home of artillery. Arsenal, nicknamed the Gunners, still display a pair of cannons outside their ground in Highbury, and a gun features prominently on their logo. I managed to capture both in the photo below.
Back to Moorfields
Let’s switch back to the site of Bagley’s foundry. We left it in 1716 a smouldering ruin, tainted with tragedy. The building remained empty for more than two decades. Then, in 1739, it was recalled to life by one who had recently undergone his own reawakening. This man:
Yes, John Wesley. His “heart strangely warmed,” and presumably not by indigestion, the 35-year-old turned to god with renewed vigour. Wesley would preach a new flavour of protestantism that would come to be known as Methodism.
Within a year of his revelation, Wesley and brother Charles were in possession of the ruined foundry building, which they set about patching up as their London headquarters. It wasn’t cheap: £110 to gain the lease and some £800 to repair. But once the plaster was dry, the Methodist house could hold a congregation of 1,500 in its main hall, with room for 300 more in an annexe. They called it “The Foundery” (sometime Foundry), a clever name that paid homage to former use, but might also imply a foundation place, and a foundry of the soul.
Wesley’s charisma was infectious, and thousands would turn up to hear him preach at the Foundery. His ministry was not universally applauded, however. In 1741, we read of a “smart skirmish” outside the building. “Some of the People who were out making Holiday,” says the Gloucester Journal, “happening to find fault with [the Methodists’] Doctrine, and laughing at some Things that were deliver’d, greatly offended the Subscribers”. The slighted Methodists set aside their good grace and engaged in a spot of fisticuffs with the revellers. Several “broken Heads” ensued, and a couple of non-believers were briefly taken prisoner.
Generally, though, the Foundery and its mission were well received and the number of adherents grew quickly. In 1779, the Wesleys moved a few metres to the north-west into a larger, purpose-built chapel on City Road. This survives today as the Museum of Methodism & The John Wesley House. It is open to the public and — even if you care not a jot for the history of 18th century non-conformist movements — it is worth visiting for its toilets.
The site today
In contrast, you will be sorely disappointed if you visit the site of the Foundery. The original building was demolished long ago, and only humdrum offices stand there now. Unless you have a passion for Tesco Express delivery bays, there is nothing for you here. And yet, there *is* a plaque. It’s small, hard to spot, and on completely the wrong building. This is by design, rather than mistake, for the plaque itself says the Foundery was “forty yards south”. I guess the owners of the correct building would not give permission for the plaque, so it had to be positioned elsewhere.
Otherwise, you’d never know that this spot witnessed one of London’s worst peacetime explosions. Events here led directly to the choice of Woolwich for artillery manufacture, indirectly to the formation of Arsenal football club, and thereby even more indirectly to the name of a tube station. A world religion with 80 million adherents first arose at this same featureless location. One corner, three histories. I think that all this deserves something a little more significant than a badly positioned plaque.
Thanks for reading. As ever, please do leave your thoughts in the comments below. And contact me any time on matt@londonist.com with any stories, memories, leads, or invitations to unusual historical sites.
Just, wow! A masterly piece of historical exposition, delivered with page turning flourishes!👏🏼👊🏻🙌🏼👍🏼
Fascinating, as always. Thank you!