Historically, British aircraft had inboard engines. Think Comet, Victor, Vulcan and Valiant. The big disadvantage is that an engine failure is likely to take out the adjeascant engine and or a fuel tank. Not too good for survivability and this happened on more than one occaision.
The first podded production aircraft was the B707. It too had it's engine teething problems and engine fires were less of a hazard in these. The only experience I have of these is the early model KC135 (the military tanker version). The drill for the early models was just to shut off the fuel. There was no fire extinguisher. If the fire got critical and stated up the pylon, the fuse pin holding the engine on melted, the engine fell off - and end of problem!
Also, the weight penalty of rear mounted engines is significant. The BV10 was some 7 tonnes heavier that the B707, largely due to the supporting structure for the rear mounted engines.