What do you think of this fact?
Before spreadsheets and paper ledgers, the English government kept track of its money with sticks. When it finally threw them away, it lost its Parliament too.
Money you could snap in half
Tally sticks were the Exchequer’s receipts for government income, in use since at least the 12th century. A tally was usually a piece of willow. Notches cut into it recorded a payment or a debt, and then the stick was split lengthwise. The Crown kept one half, the stock, and the other party got the foil.
The trick: the grain of the wood meant the two halves only fit each other. Faking a matching half was practically impossible, which made the system surprisingly forgery-proof.
An act from 1782 ordered that records be kept on paper, but it only took full effect in 1826. Paper won, and the old sticks piled up. About two cartloads were left over.
Burning the evidence
In 1834, the Clerk of Works, Richard Weobley, had to get rid of them. Instead of giving the wood away to staff as fuel, he had them burned in the furnaces beneath the House of Lords. On 16 October, two workmen, Joshua Cross and Patrick Furlong, fed the sticks into the fires all day.
Those furnaces were built for coal, which burns hot with a small flame. Dry wood burns with a tall flame. The flues overheated, their copper lining melted and the woodwork behind the walls caught fire. Flames were spotted at around 6 p.m., and by 6:30 a fireball burst through the roof, reportedly visible from Windsor Castle.
By morning, the House of Lords was destroyed and the House of Commons badly damaged. Westminster Hall and the Jewel Tower survived, and nobody died. An official inquiry later named the burning of the tallies as the cause. The painter J. M. W. Turner later made two paintings of the fire.
Bonus fact: The fire also destroyed the official standard yard and standard pound, Britain’s official reference measures for length and weight.
So the Palace of Westminster you see in photos today exists because someone cleaned out the government’s old receipts.