A contemporary account of the disaster in George Cruikshank’s _Omnibus_, edited by Laman Blanchard, gives the following description of the destruction of the Armoury:—“There stood the keeper himself, his wife at his side, partaking the peril; and the warders whom he had summoned to the rescue. We must, however, pourtray the stifling heat and smoke; the clamour of the soldiers outside the closed portal, which the fires of the Armoury were striving to reach; nor the roar of the still excluded flames, the clang of the pumps, the hissing of the water-pipes, the gathering feet and voices of the multitude. They are beyond the pencil. The pressure from without increased. Again the clamours rose high, and the furnace heat rose higher. But the keeper abided his time—the crowbars were raised in a dozen hands awaiting his word. It was given! The first blow since the days of King Charles descended on the iron fence; and Queen Victoria’s crown safely deposited in its case, and sheltered therein from smoke and flame, and the common gaze, was removed to the Governor’s house. Orbs, diadems, and sceptres—dishes, flagons, and chalices—the services of court and of church, of altar and of banquet, were sent forth in the care of many a sturdy warder, gallant John Lund being the leader. The huge baptismal font, soon to be called into use for the Prince of Wales, was last removed. The Jewel Room was as bare as if Blood the First had left nought behind him for Blood the Second. How must the spectators have gazed on the bright procession, as from window, and roof, and turret, the Armoury blazed out upon it!... Next in sublimity to the spectacle of the blazing pile, was the scene afterwards presented, when, as the fire lessened, and the smoke cleared off, the whole space of the enormous armoury was opened to the straining eye—a sight of awe and wonder. Above was the sky of a November morn, and below, covering the immense sweep of the floor, heaps of fused metal, of dimensions scarce to be credited, with bayonet points bristling up everywhere, close-set and countless, like long blades of grass.” The buildings destroyed in the fire were the Armoury, a hideous William III. building, the upper part of the Bowyer or Chevener Tower, which was also hideous and modern. The only relic of much interest destroyed in the Armoury was the wheel of Nelson’s ship _Victory_; the arms destroyed were modern, and were all soon replaced. [Illustration: _Bragg & Ash 231 Strand_ _Printed by Kohler Denmark Sᵗ_ _The Conflagration as seen from Tower Hill before the destruction of the Roof of the Armoury._ DESTRUCTION of the ARMOURY in the TOWER of LONDON. _by fire on Saturday night October 30ᵗʰ. 1841._ Published by W. Spooner 377, Strand.]