This is the first page of Henrietta Liston’s 1812 travel journal. It describes the start of her three-and-a-half month journey to Turkey. [Library shelfmark: MS.5709].
Shared only with her friends and family, her private journals describing their voyage and her life in Turkey have remained virtually unknown for 200 years.
Henrietta was an informed, biased, and curious observer. Through her writing, she explored the strangeness of the Ottoman Empire as she saw it.
Her travel writing includes accounts of fires, assassination, the lives of Turkish women, political characters, local customs, landscapes, gardens, Ottoman wealth, and much else.
The fire at Pera, 1814
This manuscript is Liston's vivid account of a fire which broke out around the British Embassy in Constantinople (Istanbul) in the early hours of 5 October 1814. [Library shelfmark: MS.5708, ff.1-2].
Henrietta describes the 'increasing blaze', 'the houses burning like paper' and the 'miserable wretches' driven out of their homes who had 'no other place to lay their heads' than the Embassy.
Fires were common in Constantinople. The British Embassy was damaged in 1810 when there was a large fire in Pera, and later, in 1831, it was entirely destroyed.
During the Listons' residency, the Embassy kept its own fire engine and wooden structures in the grounds, such as the porter's lodge, were rebuilt in stone.
To prevent fires in Constantinople, watchtowers, night-patrols and a fire firefighting unit (a 'tulumba ocağı') were established.