The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-04-01 00:00:00

A FATAL FIRE IN LONDON.

Early on Sunday morning a most disastrous fire
happened at Chelsea, and csused the loss of five lives
—those of a mother and four children—under very
painful circiamstarec a, The treader occurred at 22,
Pavilion-road, Sloane-square, and the house in question
was one of three storeys and 11 rooms, and was let out
in tenements. The ground 11 or was the store and
dwelling place of Mr. Green, a corn dealer ; the first
floor was occupied by families of the name of Clarke
and Barker, and the second by lodgers named Winson,
Barrett, an Walker. In all, 21 nersons slep: in the
house on the night of the fire. Everything appeared
to be safe when the lilacs was closed on Saturday
night.
Shortly after half-proit two on Sunday morning a
policeman passing through the street on duty found
the shop on fire and well alight, and at once tried to
arouse the inmates, some of whom were sleeping on
each of the flare. This was a work of no little diffi-
culty, and in the meantime the 'Linos were sprrading
rapidly. The constable at the saute time sent some of
the bystanders for the fire-escapes and engines.

The smoke, proceeding as it did from the provender
in the lower part of the premises, was very dense and
overpowering, and the inmates on being awakened
were for the time as much in danger of suffocation as
of actual burning. The first to escape into the streets
were the people on the ground floor, Mr. and Mrs.
Green, and the inmates of the floor above got out on
to the roof of the brewery from the back windows and
were in comparative safety. The Winson family, who
lived on the front room of the second floor, were
aroused among the very first, and the father, taking
charge of an infant, made his way to the front door,
callingto his wife and children to follow him. Oa his
reaching the ground floor the flames Phut into the pas.
sage, and it WAR with the greatest difficulty that he and
the child were rescued. As it was, his hair and
whiskers were burnt very much. The flames entirely
cut off all escape by the front of the hou,e for the
people following him, and they seemed to have gone
back to the second floor. Two of the children got from
a window there on to the brewery roof, in the rear,
and a third, a girl of It, jnmped from the first fl or
into the street, sustaining somewhat serious icjuries.
The mother and four of the children—all very young--
could not be rescued, and their bodies were afterwards
taken from the ruins, three of them being on the second
floor, and the others amen the rubbish on the ground
flier, where they must have fallen. Trie remainder of
the inmates escaped, mostly from the back of the pee.
mimes. All this occupied a very short time.

The Knightsbridge escape was brought to the spot in
about BON en or eight minutes after the diPcovery of the
fire, and it was at once pitched by the fireman in charge
against one of the second floor windows. The machine
broke Borne panes of glass there, awl the flsmes shot
out and set the canvas of the escape on fire, thus
nic,ssitating its instant removal, and preventing the
man from entering. The mfople in the rooms must
have been dead by this time, and the escape was
thereffire, as it happened, of very little use, Hoveral
steam firequigines reached the scene with all possible
sped, and the fire was sot under in Lisa than as hour
after the arrival of the engines, but the house wit by
that time gutted, and two aoj aning buildings were
somewhat injured. The brewery at the bark, a Web
proved of so much use in the escape of the inmates,
was also slightly damaged.

The search for the bodies began about five o'clock,
when the ruins were sufficiently cool, and lasted until
eight, when the remains of the poor people, which were
much disfigured, were taken in shells to the Chel.a
Workhouse. The names of the deceased were—Mary
Winson, aged 46; Alfred, 15 ; Arthur. 9; Frederick, 4;
and Cranfield, 3, Three of the family and the father