The Burning of Parliament was a great fire in London on 16 October 1834. The Palace of Westminster, the medieval royal palace used as the home of the British parliament, was largely destroyed. The blaze was caused by the burning of small wooden tally sticks. They had been used as part of the accounting procedures of the Exchequer until 1826. The sticks were disposed of in a careless manner. They were thrown in the two furnaces under the House of Lords, which caused a chimney fire in the two flues that ran under the floor of the Lords' chamber. The fire smoldered under the floor for most of the day. The senile housekeeper and a careless Clerk of Works ignored all the warning signs of the pending disaster. This led the Prime Minister to call it "one of the greatest instances of stupidity upon record". 