| 1825 | Court House in Vittoria (built in 1816) burned. It was then decided to build the Court House in London. |
| 1849 | (April 1) Arsonist burned shed prepared for immigrants in the wake of another cholera outbreak in London. |
| 1849 | (May 28) Arsonist set fire to Canadian Free Press offices in the O'Brien buildings on Dundas Street. The paper offered a reward for information leading to an arrest, however this reward was never claimed. |
| 1851 | The Thames River overflowed its banks in the first or many major floods in the area. |
| 1857 | (June 15) Hard frost killed crops devastating an already heavily depressed economy. |
| 1881 | (May 24) At 5:25 pm Pleasure ferry "SS Victoria" pulled away from the dock at Springbank with 600-800 holiday-makers anxious to get home. This was about 3 times it's safe capacity for the size of the ship. It was a double-deck 70-foot long vessel. It is thought that too many people crowded onto the upper level causing it to capsize just west of the railway bridge over the Coves. Some reports say that people crowded to the one side to watch other smaller boats going by, tipping the ferry. No real death tolls have ever been made but it is estimated that up to 230 people (mainly women & children) lost their lives. In London 182 were buried and others who died were from other communities. The reason so many drowned was that they had their heavy clothing (multi-layer dresses, baggy pants, etc) which weighed them down quickly in the river. |
| 1882 | (May) John Brown, city treasurer, commintted suicide in his office after being found to have embezzled almost $70,000 from the city. |
| 1883 | (July 11) Lightning struck the Imperial Oil Co. refinery in London East, completely destroying the plant. The preceding torrential rains had also swollen the Thames River causing the great flood of West London which killed 17 people and causing major damage to buildings. |
| 1904 | (January) Fire Chief John A. Roe was killed on duty. |
| 1908 | (August 18) Westman Hardware (121 Dundas St) burned to the ground. The entire Cronyn Block was either destroyed or heavily damaged in the blaze. Firechief Lawrence Clark (replaced John Roe who was killed 4 yrs earlier in a fire) & fireman Henry Wein and Sergeart John Cockburn of the Royal Cdn Regiment all perished in the fire. |
| 1910 | (August) First auto fatality involved a cyclist. |
| 1916 | (July 16) During renovations, windows were added to the Crystal Hall (197-199 Dundas Street) weakening the wall structure. As a result the Eastern wall of W.J Reid & Co. and the Crystal Hall collapsed killing 7 people on the street. After that the building code was born to ensure correct support of future structures. |
All the above information is from bits I've collected over the years (from various sources) and believe to be true and precise. I'm somewhat of a 'pack-rat' of little history bits and as I go through my notes and clippings, I'll be adding more . If you have anything to add to this list, (or any of my others) please email me them. (I'll give you the credit). 'auntie' chaos