BIFHSGO January meeting

The meeting is early this month, January 7, so you don't have to wait for it. Again it looks like a good one -- and that's the opinion of a prominent member who is selective about the meetings she chooses to attend.

The Tooley Street Fire – A 9/11 Moment for Victorian Londoners
Presented by Myra Conway
There are a very few events in our lifetimes when we remember exactly where we were when we heard about them. For Myra Conway two events stand out –the Kennedy assassination and the 9/11 attacks. The Tooley Street Fire and its aftermath would have been one of those events for the people living in Victorian London. In telling the story of that event Myra hopes to show how exciting it is to blend family history with social history – Myra’s ancestors lived just a block away from Tooley Street at the time of the fire. Not only was the fire itself a spectacular event but the funeral of one of the firefighters killed during the blaze rivalled that of the great Duke of Wellington. The fire led to major changes in the way fire insurance was managed and, if that wasn't enough, the sight of the fire converted a villain to become one of the saints of the London poor.

That presentation gets underway, after announcements, at 10am. At 9am Susan Davis, BIFHSGO Director of Communications, will give an update on the BIFHSGO Website Members Only section, Twitter, Facebook.

BIFHSGO meetings remain at Library and Archives Canada thanks to the decision of Minister Rona Ambrose to continue to make the facility available to the community.