River Thames Frost Fairs
During the winters when the Thames froze over solidly Frost Fairs were held, sporadically and somewhat spontaneously, up until the early nineteenth century. These were not the only such fairs held in England, other streams would freeze over and be the site of a community celebration. Canals were also the site of winter festivals and frost fairs. They seem to have arisen from a desire to make the best of circumstances, and in a time when the chill of winter was often bitter cold, at least it was a brief period outdoors, in daylight, or at least in what daylight could penetrate the fog, coal, and wood smoke. Forecasting the weather was virtually unknown, and frost fairs could end as quickly as they began.
In 1789 one such Frost Fair, on the Thames, ended in a disaster when rapidly rising temperatures and faster than normal ice melting created dangerous conditions and resulted in at least five deaths. A ship in the Thames had tied itself up to a Public House along the banks of the river. As the ice rapidly receded the ship was pulled along with it. Although a watch had been left aboard, he preferred the warmth and conviviality of the Public House and by the time it was realized what was happening the ship was trapped in the flood and it pulled down the building as it was carried downriver. At least five people were killed.
Just a few days before, in January of 1789, the Bishop of London recorded in his diary of the Thames being completely frozen over, with businesses erected on the river and people, horses, carriages, drays, pushcarts with peddlers pushing their wares, all intermingling across it as if it were a public park. The Bishop, Beilby Porteus, (who would later refer to Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason as ungodly and dangerous doctrine) took the opportunity to go for a stroll on the river in the company of his wife. He recorded that they walked along the surface from Fulham, where they lived, to Putney, a distance of just less than a mile.
Following the American Revolution and throughout the Industrial Revolution improvements were made along the Thames. Embankments were created, which increased the flow of the river, making it less likely to freeze. In the early 1830s the medieval London Bridge was removed, and future bridges there and other places crossing the river featured more open archways, which offering less impediment to the current. Many of the old docks and wharves, where ice floes formerly gathered and encouraged freezing over, were replaced. But most of all, as the nineteenth century wore on, the climate began to warm and the winters became more moderate.
In February 1814, as the Napoleonic Wars were entering their final phases, the River Thames froze over and for five days hosted a Frost Fair which proved to be its last. A printer named Warner built a stall on the ice, equipped with his printing press, and produced Frostiana: Or a History of the River Thames in a Frozen State. The fair was mostly concentrated between Blackfriars and London Bridges, and according to Frostiana, a feature of the fair was the leading of an elephant across the frozen river beside Blackfriars Bridge. The final (so far) Frost Fair was over by February 6, as the river quickly resumed its normal state of flowing to the sea.