On October 17, a giant beer vat burst at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery in London, killing eight people. The flood of porter smashed through walls and surged into nearby homes. An inquest later showed the victims died by misfortune, as the brewery continued to operate for many years.
A giant beer vat burst at a brewery, unleashing thousands of barrels of porter into nearby streets. The incident, remembered as the London Beer Flood, killed eight people and became one of the strangest industrial disasters in British history.
The disaster unfolded at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, near the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, in central London. The brewery stood close to St Giles, a densely populated and impoverished neighbourhood where many families lived in cramped homes and basement rooms.
On the afternoon of October 17, a brewery storehouse clerk noticed that one of the iron hoops had slipped off the vat. Such incidents had occurred before, and the problem was not treated as an immediate emergency. The vat eventually burst, releasing its contents with tremendous force.
The escaping beer damaged neighbouring vessels, setting off a chain reaction that released even more liquid. The torrent smashed through part of the brewery's brick wall and surged into the surrounding streets and homes.
The sheer volume of liquid, combined with the force of the collapse, turned the accident into a deadly flood. Nearby buildings were damaged, and people living in the surrounding neighbourhood were caught in its path.
The tragedy was especially devastating for residents of St Giles, where overcrowding and poverty had already made living conditions difficult. The flood destroyed homes and left families dealing with both loss of life and the destruction of their belongings.
An inquest examined the deaths and returned a verdict that the victims had died “casually, accidentally and by misfortune”. The finding meant the deaths were treated as accidental rather than attributed to criminal wrongdoing.
The brewery continued operating for more than a century before relocating in 1921. The site where the Horse Shoe Brewery once stood is now occupied by the Dominion Theatre in London's West End.