2-982-320 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Bourse at Antwerp, recently destroyed by fire, 1858. View '...of the interior of this venerable building...The Bourse stood in the very centre of Antwerp. It was built at the dawn of the Reformation, in 1531, and in it for a considerable time a large portion of the trade of the world was carried on...So late as 1853 the burghers of Antwerp, in emulation of the Crystal Palace, had spread a glass roof over the central space, and the crash of the ironwork and glass was a main feature in the catastrophe. The fire appears to have arisen in an upper room, on the side of the Courte Rue des Claires. It was there, at least, that the flames were first seen, and in half an hour the place was enveloped in fire. The Bourse contained the Chamber of Commerce, the Tribunal, and the Record Office, the Syndical Chamber of the Stockbrokers, the Syndical Chamber of the Antwerp Brokers, and the Telegraph Bureaux. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was saved. All the archives of these various bodies are lost'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.