1815 represented a pretty good year for the United Kingdom. The “damn close run thing” at Waterloo had seen, finally, Napolean’s defeat. Peace had come, and the UK was on the winning side of it. Life looked good, the future looked bright.

But the next year, disaster came, and 1816 came to be known as “The Year Without a Summer”.

There were serious consequences all over the world, particularly for Northern Europe and North America. This post looks at the disaster and the consequences in this country.

Why no summer?

In April 1815, however, there had been a massive explosion. Mount Tambora volcano, in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), has been erupting since 1812, went bang.

38 cubic miles of pyroclastic material was ejected into the atmosphere. The ash column rose to about 140,000 feet. It was probably the largest ash explosion since the last Ice Age.

This followed four other serious volcanic events, which had taken place over the previous 4 years, so there was already a fair amount of volcanic dust and ash in the atmosphere.

In addition, solar activity had hit a periodic low point. So there was a confluence of damaging events.

The ash and dust in the atmosphere took a while to circulate, therefore there was a “summer” in 1815 (although it had been cold and wet for a few years, because of the other eruptions and the solar minima).

The vast quantities of volcanic debris in the atmosphere restricted the amount of sunlight which reached the earth’s surface, and there was a huge quantity of sulphur floating around the earth.

There is an article here, from History Magazine, about the effects of various volcanic eruptions.

The weather in England in the summer of 1816

It was cold, wet, and miserable. It snowed near London at Easter, in May and at the end of July, for example - a long way from typical weather in the south of England.It rained most days from May to September - 142 out of 153 days in the Lake District. There were snow drifts in the Lake District in July, and ice on London ponds in September.

World-wide temperatures dropped significantly, and it was one of the coldest summers in English records (from the 16th century onwards).

Agriculture and crop failures

Crops were damaged by cold rainfall, and didn’t grow properly because of a lack of sun. Many crops rotted in the fields before they could be harvested, and more rotted after harvesting, because it was so damp.

In western England, Wales and Ireland, there were near-total crop failures in some areas. Farm labourers found themselves out of work in large numbers, and added to the soldiers who had been demobbed after the end of the Napleonic Wars.

Social consequences of the year without a summer

All hell broke loose, not surprisingly. Unemployment rose sharply, and famine threatened. The price of basic food stuffs soared, and many people went very hungry. Disease and infection rose, because of malnutrition and the wet conditions.

Riots and disturbances occurred all over the country. In one riot, over 100 food shops were broken into and ransacked, and the Luddite movement, which had been suppressed by 1813, re-gained power - in one attack on a factory in Loughbrough, over £6,000 worth of machinery was broken.

Mary Shelley, on holiday with friends in Switzerland, took advantage of the foul weather to write Frankenstein. And the wonderful sunsets inspired artists, including Turner.

The Frozen Thames in London - an Introduction

Between 1400 AD and 1814, the last time it happened, the River Thames in London froze over 26 times. And when it froze solidly, Londoners made the most of it, and the “Frost Fairs” developed.

The tidal, somewhat salty Thames is a deep, fast-flowing river today, but before the Old London Bridge was demolished in 1831, the river’s waters were pooled slightly behind the medieval arches, which probably helped the ice take hold.

It was also the time known as the “Little Ice Age”, when winters were colder and more severe than they have been since 1800 or so.

The huge, medieval bridge, with houses and shops above the numerous archways, is shown in the background of the woodcut to the right of this text, depicted during the Frost Fair of 1683.

The text accompanying the woodcut says:
An Exact and lively Mapp or Representation of Boothes and all the variety of Showes and Humours on the ICE of the River of THAMES by LONDON During that memorable Frost in the 35th yeare of the Reigne of his sacred Maj King Charles the 2nd

The embankments had not yet been built, either, and so the River Thames was wider, shallower, and probably a little slower.

The Frozen Thames in the 16th century

The Thames froze over several times in Tudor England. Henry VIII is known to have travelled from Whitehall, next to Westminster, to Greenwich by sleigh, along the River Thames, in 1536. Greenwich was one of Henry’s favourite palaces; he married there more than once, and his daughter Elizabeth I was born there later in 1536.

In 1564, Elizabeth I practised her archery on the frozen Thames, and boys and men played football on the ice.It was said of this winter:

On the 21st of December, began a frost, which continued so extremely that on new year’s eve people went over and along the Thames on the ice from London Bridge to Westminster. Some played at the foot-ball as boldly there as if it had been on the dry land; diverse of the court shot daily at pricks set up on the Thames; and the people, both men and women, went on the Thames in greater numbers than in any street of the city of London.

On the 31st day of January, at night, it began to thaw, and on the fifth day was no ice to be seen between London Bridge and Lambeth, which sudden thaw caused great floods and high waters, that bare down bridges and houses, and drowned many people.

English summer weather and the legend of St. Swithin’s Day

England, it is sometimes said, doesn’t have climate, it has weather. There is quite a lot of truth in this - while it is obviously colder and darker in the winter than in the summer, on any given day it could be bright and sunny in December, or grey and pouring with rain in August.

So over the years, a large number of myths, legends and signs have been said to foretell what the weather will be.

There is an old legend, trotted out every year, that the summer’s weather can be predicted by observing what happens on St. Swithin’s saint’s day, 15th July.

If it rains on St. Swithin’s Day, the tradition says, it will rain every day for the next 40 days.

Not great news for London, as it rained pretty heavily on 15th July this year. Oh, and it’s rained every day since, so far!

A traditional version of the weather forecasting properties of St. Swithin’s Day says:

St Swithun’s day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain

St Swithun’s day if thou be fair

For forty days ’twill rain na mair

In the 18th century, John Gay recorded the ancient tradition thus:

Now if on Swithun’s feast the welkin lours
And every penthouse streams with hasty showers,
Twice twenty days shall clouds their fleeces drain
And wash the pavement with incessant rain.

A plan of Winchester Cathedral from 1911 - St. Swithin was Bishop of Winchester

Who was St. Swithin / St. Swithun / St. Swithhun?

St. Swithin (the most common spelling) was an Anglo-Saxon, and was bishop of Winchester from 852 AD until he died in 862.

In 9th century records, not a lot is said about him. He was one of the two main advisors of Egbert, King of Wessex. He signed a few charters which are still extant, and his death was reported in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, and that’s about it.

There are a lot more sources about him from the 10th century, but how much they actually knew and how much was just more or less made up is anyone’s guess!

Winchester Cathedral is still dedicated in part to him - to the Holy Trinity, St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Swithin.

How the legend came about

William of Malmesbury, an 11th and 12th century historian, wrote about St. Swithin in his 1125 book Gesta pontificum Anglorum (Deeds of English Bishops). William said that, when dying, St. Swithin said, “ubi et pedibus praetereuntium et stillicidiis ex alto rorantibus esset obnoxius”, or that he should be buried outside the Catherdral, where passers-by could walk and raindrops fall on him. This indicates that the rain-forecasting potential of the saint was already know by the 12th century.

In the 10th century, over 100 years after his death, St. Swithin’s body was “translated”, or moved. Most of his body was buried in a new shrine to him in Winchester Cathedral, but later his head went to Canterbury, and an arm to Peterborough Abbey.

It is supposed to have rained heavily on the date of the translation of St. Swithin’s relics, and the legend may originate from this.

Any truth in this saying?

To some extent, yes. Obviously, it’s not the case that the 15th July sets out the weather for the next 40 days for sure.

But there is a pattern whereby the weather in mid-July sets the stage for what is to follow.

The jet-stream’s position, for example, greatly affects British weather in the summer, and its position is often fixed by mid-July for several weeks thereafter.

So the weather for a week either side of St. Swithin’s Day is indeed a general indication of what the rest of the summer’s weather may be like.