Religion and Ethics Forum

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: jeremyp on September 03, 2024, 12:03:38 PM

Title: Burning Down the House
Post by: jeremyp on September 03, 2024, 12:03:38 PM

It is a common belief that, during the 17th and 18th century, insurance companies had their own fire brigades and, on attending a fire, if they found that the building was not insured by their company, they would stand by and watch it burn down.

I recently stumbled across this video from Tom Scott in which he claims that this is a myth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wif1EAgEQKI

Furthermore he paid a researcher to look into it and the researcher has produced quite an interesting report about the history of fire fighting in London.

https://www.tomscott.com/corrections/firemarks/

I found it quite an interesting read.

Title: Re: Burning Down the House
Post by: Nearly Sane on September 03, 2024, 12:38:56 PM

Thanks for that. Very interesting.