Wikipedia:Peer review/London Beer Flood/archive1

London Beer Flood

The London Beer Flood is something of a footnote to a footnote of history, even for London.one of the massive vats used to ferment porter burst sending a 15-ft tidal wave through the back wall of the brewery and into one of the London slums. It killed eight and hospitalised others. The brewery was situated in the centre of London, no the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Any and all constructive comments are welcome. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 11:51, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments from TR

I sometimes worry about you and your predilection for death and destruction, though in this case, given the frightful things they put on at the Dominion, I think we'd be better off with a one-megaton exploding brewery. As it is, here are my meagre gleanings:

• General: I came close to losing the will to live at the irruptions of barrels/GB gallons/US gallons. Would it be completely out of the question to stick to barrels in the text and give the equivalents as footnotes?
  • Tim, And I nearly lost it adding the templates every other sentence! I've left the full string in the lead (given that's where most people will stop), but added the rest as footnotes. Does that look better now? - SchroCat (talk) 12:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
    • Gosh! That's so much better. All the information is there, easily accessed, but doesn't clog up the narrative. A great improvement! Tim riley talk 12:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
• "The brewery was nearly bankrupted by the event; they avoided collapse" – singular noun followed by plural pronoun.
  • *How very Greasy-Mogg of you! - SchroCat (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
• "on Liquor-Pond Street" – in London, Ohio, presumably. If in England and using BrE "in L-P Street", if you please.
• "and the most popular drink in the capital" – most popular alcoholic drink? I mean, there must have been a fair bit of tea and, a fortiori, water downed, as the cholera outbreaks indicate.
  • Tea was way too expensive for the hoi polloi! ("Let them drink tea!" is probably another of the Greasy-Mogg's rules) - SchroCat (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
    • Hardly! The loony MP known for drinking tea was Wedgie Benn. Tim riley talk 12:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
• "Tavistock Arms on Great Russell Street" – another creeping Americanism. Resist!
• "on New Street" – ditto
• "All those in the brewery survived, although three workmen were rescued from the rubble" – doesn't read quite right to me. Perhaps instead of "were", "had to be"?
• "crowds were well-behaved" – I don't think this wants the hyphen. I think we have well-behaved crowds who are well behaved.
• "the tabloid press of the time" – I see what you mean by this, of course, but "tabloid" has a very specific C20th meaning. I think another word for the gutter press is wanted, though I confess I can't think of one at the moment.
• "on Bainbridge Street" – and again

That's my lot. This article seems to me to be in excellent shape, and well worth putting up for FAC. Tim riley talk 19:08, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

• Many thanks for your comments. All tweaked, including the Mogg-isms. - SchroCat (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Splendid stuff! On to FAC. Meanwhile I am consulting my solicitor with a view to suing for libel. Tim riley talk 12:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Cass

Did someone mention Mr Rees-Mogg...wonderful man. Reading through today. Cassianto^Talk 06:51, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• "The London Beer Flood was an accident at the Horse Shoe Brewery, London on 17 October 1814. -- is there a comma missing after "London"?
• "At the rear of the Horse Shoe Brewery ran New Street a small cul-de-sac,..." comma misplacement. Would it be better placed after "Street" rather than "cul-de-sac"?
• "...died when she was buried under the ruins of the collapsed wall" -- "the ruins" seems redundant.
• im seeing a pattern forming with, what I think are, missing commas. I came across this one: "In one of the houses a four-year-old girl, Hannah Bamfield was having tea..." but then saw this one: "Another child, Sarah Bates, was found dead" a bit later on. I see no difference.
• "The first witness was George Crick, who had witnessed..." witness/witnessed
• "his brother was one of the men who hd been injured at the brewery." typo.
• "Evidence was also heard from Richard Hawse—the landlord of the Tavistock Arms, whose barmaid had been killed in the accident—and several other witnesses." -- I'd say Hawse gave more of a witness account rather than an evidential one, as he wasn't in the brewery at the time. Today, in our court of law, "evidence" is usually reserved for eye-witnesses and not witnesses to the aftermath. Evidence also suggests proof, which a non-eyewitness account cannot be because of the possibility of subjective interpretation.
• "...it meant Meux & Co did not have to pay compensation to the victims." Who else? Redundancy of "to the victims".
• "The Horseshoe Brewery was back into production soon afterwards." -- doesn't read correctly. Suggest: "The Horseshoe Brewery went back into business soon afterwards." And I would merge with the following line to read thus: "The Horseshoe Brewery went back into business soon afterwards but closed in 1921 when Meux moved their production to the Nine Elms brewery in Wandsworth, which they had purchased in 1914." For no other reason other than to reduce stubbiness.
• "The brewery was demolished the following year. The Dominion Theatre is now where the brewery used to stand." -- again, here. "The brewery was demolished the following year and the Dominion Theatre was later built on the site". This also blitzes the "where the brewery used to stand" redundancy.

• Just one other thing: "Stories later arose of hundreds of people collecting the beer, mass drunkenness and a death of alcohol poisoning a few days later" -- was the poisoning a few days later, the stories, or all of the above?

Please feel free to adopt or disregard at your leisure. A cracking little article and one that evokes fond memories of our frequent meet-ups, although in that case it's often the Pinot noir that floods the saloon and causes equal mayhem. Cassianto^Talk 07:30, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• All taken on board. Thanks as always: excellent suggestions. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 08:55, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Caeciliusinhorto

Only one picky comment on the prose, as Cass and Tim have already gone over it with a fine-tooth comb:

• "according to Richard Kirkland, the Professor of Irish Literature": Kirkland's title is Professor of Irish Literature, but here it looks just like a simple noun phrase, and I would expect therefore the lower-cased "professor of Irish literature".

A rather shorter article than Jane Grigson, but interesting all the same! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:00, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Quite right Caeciliusinhorto! Tweak made accordingly, and I thank you for it. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks to all who chipped in here. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 12:15, 16 August 2019 (UTC)