This blog post was originally written for the The
Pharos Blog, sponsored by Pharos
Teaching & Tutoring Limited. It was published on 10 April 2014. Some of
the information was used in my book, Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests. I thought
it appropriate to reproduce it again as I have been posting about natural phenomena,
major storms being one such type of event.
I have already posted about a couple of other deadly storms
(1950
Appalachian Storm and some deadly hail
storms). There are a few other examples that I will comment on in later
posts as they had significant impact on people and communities.
The lives and livelihoods of our ancestors were
controlled or affected as much by natural conditions and events as by political
and societal constraints. In many cases the latter were strongly influenced by
the former. Natural phenomena directly affected the environment in which people
lived and worked affecting both the physical health as well as the economic
well-being of people.
Every generation has stories about living through the
worst weather or natural disaster to befall mankind! And yet each generation
only repeats similar stories told by previous generations. Today, through
instant, world-wide communication technologies, we can see the results of major
natural disasters and how they affect people locally, regionally and globally.
Reports of the devastation caused by these events are readily available on
television, in newspapers and, especially, on the internet, almost as they
happen.
In past centuries, there is no doubt that similar disasters
caused significant death and destruction, often over wide geographic areas and
across broad socio-economic groups of people:
- Storms,
floods, earthquakes and disease all had immediate impacts on people and
communities.
- Volcanic
activity, erosion of coastal margins, infilling of estuaries, drought and
famine all affected living conditions and economies lasting from several
months to several years.
- Gradual changes related to climate change occurred over hundreds of years and had much longer-term effects on the environment and human habitats.
In the study of the history of families and the
communities in which they lived, it is instructive to consider how people were
affected by, or reacted to conditions we have witnessed in more recent
situations. Would your great-great-grandparents have been forced to give up
their farm if they were flooded out? Would your carpenter ancestor have moved
to a location where there was a great deal of work available to repair the
damage caused by a major windstorm? Did any of your ancestors lose their lives
when tragedy struck in the form of a natural disaster?
Major storms – one example of natural events – have
inevitably resulted in significant mayhem. As a maritime nation, Britain has
had its share of such events coming ashore from both the Atlantic Ocean and the
North Sea.
A much-written about storm, called The Great Storm,
struck the south of England and parts of Europe bordering the English Channel on
26 November 1703 (7 December 1703 on the Gregorian calendar, already in use in
continental Europe but not introduced to Britain until 1752). The Great Storm
occurred during the height (or depth) of the Little Ice Age (1350-1850), a
period of much cooler global temperatures and extremes of weather conditions.
 |
Title page of The Storm by Daniel Defoe
|
(Used with permission of the British
Library)
|
The storm was part of a massive counter-clockwise,
very deep, low pressure trough that moved across the region, from west to east,
affecting areas as far north as Birmingham and
Norwich. Some of the devastation dealt to the country over the space of just a
few hours included the following:
- Wind gusts possibly
topping 120 mph at the peak of the storm, levelling almost everything in
its path
- Over 700
ships wrecked while docked or at anchor in harbours around southern
England and while still at sea, with an estimated death toll of up to
10,000 sailors
- Thirteen Royal
Navy warships sunk, with the loss of over 1,500 lives; many others severely
damaged
- Over 120
lives lost, and hundreds more injured on land across England and Wales
- Significant
damage in towns and cities – in London over 2,000 chimney stacks blown
down, demolishing parts of the houses to which they had been attached
- Tens of
thousands of head of cattle and sheep lost on farms along the storm’s path
- Major parts
of forests levelled
- Areas around
major estuaries impacted by floods from storm surges, in many cases more
dangerous than the accompanying winds
- Severe disruption
to local economies just emerging from decades of recession, the effects of
which felt for years afterward
- Mercantile
shipping, involving fleets serving major cities like London and the export
markets, disrupted for many years until replacement ships could be put to
sea
- Immediate inflation
of prices in foodstuffs and other goods – building materials in particular
- On the plus
side, work multiplied for tradesmen such as carpenters, masons and
plumbers, the latter being expert in the installation of lead sheet
roofing
Losses during the storm have been estimated at about
£6 million, representing about 5% of the total value of the building stock in
England and Wales at the time – a very significant proportion! The potential
loss for such a storm if it were to strike today might be well in excess of £10
billion.
Could it happen again? There have been other, major
storms which battered Britain, causing significant property loss and numerous
deaths – in October 1987 as an example. Modern improvements to sea defenses
around harbours and estuaries, beach stabilization methods, inland flood
control measures, early storm warning systems and rapid response of disaster
teams all have aided in preventing the same levels of devastation as occurred
during The Great Storm of 1703, however.
Was your family impacted by The Great Storm of 1703 or
from other types of events? I am compiling examples of natural disasters and
their impact on people and communities in past centuries. If any readers have
such stories of events that affected their own ancestors, I would very much
like to hear about them.
References:
Brayne, Martin. (2002). The Greatest Storm. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing.
Defoe, Daniel. (1704). The Storm or, a Collection of the most Remarkable Casualties and
Disasters which happen’d in the Late Dreadful Tempest, both by Sea and Land.
Downloaded through University of Adelaide website 30 March 2014 under Creative
Commons License from http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/defoe/daniel/storm/complete.html
Lamb, Hubert & Knud Frydendaho. (1991). Historic Storms of the North Sea, British
Isles and Northwest Europe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
