The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-08-13 00:00:00

TERRIFIC: 'FIRE IN LONDON.

TIIREE LIVES LOST.-DAMAGES HALF A

MILLION.

The greatest fire the present century has witnessed
in the West-end of the metropolis broke out soon after
seven o'clock on Saturday night in Westbourne-grove,
on the well known premises of Mr. William Whiteley,
and, raging all night and Sunday morning, remained
unextinguished late on Sunday night. Immense
blocks of buildings were razed to the ground, three
people were :tilled by falling walls, and several indi-
viduals injured, and while the Metropolitan Fire
Brigade had to employ an enormous and unprece-
dented force to cope with the outbreak, the whole re-
maining districts of London were left unprdtected in
case of emergency. The damage caused is roughly
estimated at half a million pounds sterling, and.by far
the greater part of this vast property is uncovered by
insurance. The scene of this enormous conflagration
was, as has been stated, the vast emporium of Mr.
William Whiteley, a trader equally well known as the
Universal Provider, and whose chief business pre-
mises are in Westbourne-grove and Queen's-road,
Bayswater. The establishment is an immense one,
and has, unfortunately, during the last five years
obtained a painful notoriety by reason of the great
fires which its walls have witnessed. The buildings
cover an enormous area of ground and are of great I
height, the majority of them being six floors high,
while one or two are of five storeys. The block in
which the fire broke out was that looking upon Q ueen's-
road, conprising Nos. 147, 149, 151, 153, 1.55, 157, and
159 in that thoroughfare, and abutting upon Douglas-
plaae, where the outbreak actually occurred. The
buildings were handsomely erected in York stone,
with strong iron girders, iron doors between the
various blocks, and hydrants fitted upon every floor.
Firemen were kept upon the premises day and night,
and one of Mr. Whiteley's strictest rules was that at
night all hydrants should have the hose attached,
with the " branches " screwed up, and the deliveries
laid out ready for immediate use, so that in the event
of a fire occurring in any one part of the building
the firemen should have everything ready to their
hand, and that it shall only be necessary to turn on
the water. With all these precautions, however, the
fire broke out on Saturday night, spread all over the
block, and destroyed all parts of it, besides having
other disastrous results.

All hands had left the premises at the usual time
on Saturdayafternoon, and the firemen on duty had I
gone all over the buildings and found that everything
was all right, until, soon after seven o'clock, a slight
smell of burning attracted attention to the Douglas.
place end, which may be described as the manufac-
turing premises. This place was a particularly dan-
gerous one, for in the basement were stored great
quantities of oils and drugs of every description, to
meet the requirements of a very large business in
this direction. A brief examination revealed the fact
that the worst had happened, for it was too obvious
that an outbreak was raging upon the second floor. A
shout for help was raised, and almost instantly one of
the hydrants was turned on, and wa'er was poured into
the floor. The outbreak, however, had already gone
too far to be so easily checked. Thick, suffocating
smoke rose up in clouds and rolled along the build-
ing, and flickering bursts of flame told of a still
more serious condition of affairs. It was at once de-
termined to have recourse to the aid of the Metro-
politan Fire Brigade. The next quarter of an hour
in the history of the progress of the fire was pro-
bably the most exciting that the oldest fireman hat
ever witnessed. In addition to the various precau-
tions already mentioned in view of the outbreak of
fire on the premises, a special fire-alarm signal had
been fixed between the Queen's-road premises and the
nearest Metropolitan Fire Brigade station—Her-
mitage- street. Paddington - green. The fireman
rushed round the building to this alarm when he
found the fire getting too strong for him, and pulled
the communicator. This rung into the station at
7.30, and while the manual engine was sent on the
telephone bell was rung, and the news at once trans-
mitted to the superintendent of the district
at the dept, Victoria-street, Westminster. This in-
formation induced the superintendeet at once to turn
out two manuals and two steamers from the four
nearest stations to Westbourne-grove, Knightsbridge,
Kensington, Notting-hill, and North Kensington. In
a time to be measured by seconds, these engines were
out of their stations and on their way to the scene of
the fire, but the Hermitage-street manual was of
course first upon the scene. Engineer Penfold, an
experienced officer of the brigade, found smoke and
flames already issuing- froth half a dozen windows of
the building, and a scene of great excitement in
progress. The people were pressing upon the fire and
the firemen, the efforts of the one or two policemen
who were up to that time on the spot being power-
less to prevent them, and when the order was
given to get the manual to work the two fire-
men who proceeded to this task—Assistant-officer
Ambrose Lester, 132, and Fourth-class Fireman J.
Brown, 446—found no difficulty in doing so. Then
came the disaster of the conflagration. The fire did
not seetn to be a large one, nor to have 6een burning
long; but suddenly, without one iota of notice or
alarm being-given to the ufifortunate people in the
streets, the great walls fell out, and several persons
were crushed and buried by the ruins, great masses
of brickwork knocking them down in all directions.
The scene was intensely startling and exciting, and
for a few minutes a panic seized upon the crowds who
had first collected, and they scattered right and left.
A vast mass of brickwork filled the roadway, and it
suddenly dawned upon the people round that the
fire-engine was actually buried, and that there
must be some persons buried too. Then, with great
pluck and determination, the police, the firemen who
came up on their engines just sent on, and not a few
members of the general public chanced the terrible
danger of the still hanging masonry which seemed
bound to come down, and hastily threw the heaps of
bricks about in order to rescue those who might be
underneath. The firemen, by reason of their helmets,
and by other circumstances of good fortnne which it
is difficult to comprehend, had escaped being baried,
and, managing to keep their feet, were able to move
away from the spot, but the blows and wounds which
they received had comprised terrible injuries. Moreover,
the fire had burst out with fearful strength when the
fall came, and the intense heat had burned and
scorched their faces. Some of these men were at
once placed in cabs and driven off to St. Mary's Hos-
pital. Infinitely more dreadful consequences, how-
ever, had been involved in the same cccurrence. In-
dividuals all round, policemen and civilians, were
doubled up with pain, or bleeding copiously from
deep flesh-wounds, and all this time the grave question
was asked, how many people had been buried under
the brickwork? In the meantime' too, the fire wee
asseming dangerous proportions. Two hydrants had
first been brought into play, and these were followed
rapidly by the working of the steamers which had up
to that moment arrived. Then the anxiously-await-
ing authorities at Westminster and Southwark received
the first definite news of what the fire was. "We
find," ran the message, "that Whiteley's manufac-
turing premises are well alight; a wall has fallen
down; two of our men have been seriously in-
jured and removed to a hospital, and we are
•informed that there are people buried in the
ruins." This alarming news was passed from mouth
to mouth over the telephone, ten minutes to eight, or
20 minutes from the first call, so that in that short
space of time events had rapidly culminated in a
disaster of a very grave nature. From the "A " dis-
trict—the one in which the tire was actually burning
-,six steamers and two more manuals were turned
out on the receipt of this news, while when the head-
quarters staff were asked to send on all available aid,
the request was liberally and unhesitatingly responded
to, and steamers from all parts of London were sent
on. No fewer than 22 steamers were soon either at
the fire or tearing on their way there; vans with coal
-and -hose were sent on from Southwark, as well. as
the American and extension ladders; and the chief
officer went on himself to
~aid
,his superintendent in
what RBI obviously a lasting and an enormously
difficult work. •
The fire did not appear in the earlier moments to
be of such a threatening character as it soon became,
and there is little doubt that when the wall fell out
the flames obtained such a vent as added momentarily
to their strength. One of the most remarkable parts
of the whole history of the-fire is the extraordinary
-manner in which the wall burst out, and at such an
early period before' it is reasonable to suppose the
walls could have become seriously heated. The imme-
diate theory propounded, therefore, was that an ex-
plosion of some character or another had occurred
first, and persons in Kensington - gardens - square
maintain that they saw the first smoke, and
are convinced that an explosion must have
occurred, because there -• were no flames until
afterwards. It might be possible that a large
vessel containing oil or spirit, bursting, would
blow out tne
,wall, but the explosion theory is
stt ongly borne out by several of those earliest on the
scene. A man named Kerridge says he was coming
out of a building close by and saw people running
towards Douglas-pace. An engine from Hermitage-
road ran iup, and went tow-arus the factory buildings,
and then he saw smoke pouring from the windows. He
was assisting the police to keep the crowd back when
he heard a shout, and immediately afterwards there
was a sound as if a bomb-shell had exploded, and the
walls fell, some inwards and some outwards. He
afterwards assisted the police to search for buried
people. It is certain, however, amongst so touch
that is doubtful, that very determined atimpts
were made to "-clieck the ' fire in its earlier

stages. When the steamers began to arrive the first
batched of the men ran up the central staircase in
Douglas-place with four lines of hose, and essayed to
meet the fire face to face, marine incessant strepms

of water into the names. The men, however, who
were not inclined to shrink from a position unless in
case of absolute necessity, were slowly but surely
beaten back. The iron doors were all red hot; the
whole five floors of the one building were ablaze, and
although the ilames were kept for a little while in
check upon the floor where the men were directing
the hose, the fire was actually over and under them.
The firemen stubbornly fought floor after floor, and
bad every time to retire. Very soon the stores
were blazing, other blocks were catching,
and the fire slowly and surely ran right
up the entire length of Douglas.place and
began to attack the front buildings in Queen's-road.
The chief officer soon sent a message to Southwark-
bridge-road telling his directing officers there that
they could not send on too much help, especially in
the way of coal, hose, and men, as the fire was a very
large one. In fact, there were so many directions in
which the fire was burning that the difficulties and
dangers of the work were increasing with every five
minutes. A large riding school at the back, in Ken-
sington-gardens-square, caught fire on the one side of
the square of burning buildings, houses in Westbourne-
grove were getting scorched, and then with terrible sud-
denness the buildings in Queen's-road got ablaze. Floor
after floor and building after building blazed up, and
it seemed as if the firemen had lost all mastery
of the outbreak. In Queen's-road the spectacle was
a grand one. All the window glass and frames had
quickly been destroyed, and through the great gaps,
which had been handsome windows in the evening,
the gigantic furnace could be seen roaring and blazing.
At half-past eight, when the roofs had been burnt
th-ough, the flames leaped high, and threw a brilliant
light, which was seen for miles round. At that time
messages were circulated stating that the whole block
was ablaze, that the fire was extending, and was likely
to boa very large one, and that all help which could
be obtained must be sent on.

The pressure upon the fire brigade authorities at
this time was enormous, and may well claim very
serious attention from Londoners. There was not a
station in the A district but had its engines out, and
there was not a single steamer left at home in the
district; the D, or south of the Thames district, was
in a similar startling position, not having a steamer
left to cope with any fire which might break out; and
the Clerkenwell, or City district, and the C, or White-
chanel districts, were also almost totally denuded of all
appliances, and were put to extraordinary straits. There
had been 34 steamers, six manuals, three hose
carts, four extensien ladders, one coal van, and
173 men sent on to the fire, and now messen-
gers were running between the horse con-
tractors and the stations to borrow horses
and coachmen, and other " calls " for fires kept
coming in from °thir districts in a most extraordinary
manner. Headquarters itself had to turn out to a
fire in the Borough. Kennington-lane station re-
ceived another call; the firemen at the East-end were
so busy in turning out for the ringing oi fire alarms-
and "calls by strangers," that the Mile-end station
was shut up, opened again, and shut up a second time
within half an hour; while the Holloway station
also had to be closed; and affairs was in as
dangerous a condition as it is possible to imagine.
It will illustrate the unprotected condition of
all districts of London to state that steamers
were at the Westbourne - grove fire and at
work from Brompton, Chelsea, Kensington,
North Kensington, Paddington, Baker - street,
Portland-road, Regent-street, Clerkenwell, Isling-
ton, St. Luke's, Scotland-yard, Kentish Town,
Holloway, Hackney, Mile-end, Poplar, Shadwell,
Hishopsgate, Shoreditch, Kennington, Tooley-street,
Rotherhithe, Deptford, Old Kent-road, Greenwich,
Camberwell, Brixton, Clapham, Battersea, and
Waterloo-road. Manuals had been sent on from
Westminster, Fulham, Notting-hill, Paddington, St.
John's-wood, and Hampstead; and ladders had come
from Southwark, Hammersmith, Holborn, and Cam-
den-town. Moreover, the steamers had had to be
turned out from the workshops in Southwark, and it
is startling to think, with all these engines tied
at the West-end, what the results of a great City or
an East-end outbreak would have been.

At eleven o'clock the great fire may be said to have
been at its height. All round the neighbourhood the
steamers were standing busily pumping, and coal had
to be requisitioned from all parts for their wants. In
Queen's-road and down Douglas-terrace, the firemen
were pouring water steadily into the different win
flows, while the long ladders were pitched against
the buildings and the men, from the coigns of vantage
afforded by them, poured water into the flames with
additional advantage from being on a level with the
burning floors. The work was full of remarkable
instances. Every few minutes walls or floors fell in
in the centre of the premises with a roar resembling
the discharge of artillery, and there were strange huge
gaps left ot shaking and bending was which gave the
ruins an extraordinary aspect. One very exciting
incident occurred in the very height of the fire,
by which six firemen had the narrowest possible
escape from instant death. One of the extension
ladders had been thrown against a lofty building, and
the upper or telescopic ladder was being made use of.
Six men were standing on this length directing
delaeries, when there was a sudden burst of flames,
anti the ladder caught fire. The hauling gear was in-
stantly destroyed, and it was only the foresight of
the chief officer which saved the men's lives. He has
given very strict instructions that there shall always
be a foot lashing to the ladders, and this alone held
up the extension. The men got down speedily,
somewhat burned, and the ladder was reduced, in
the upper part, to charred wood, before it could be
removed.

One step which was taken by the firemen saved a
great amount of property. The American ladder was
pitched against the end building but one, which seemed
very likely to get attacked. The men entered with
the hose, and while a number poured water on the ap-
proaching fire the others removed furniture of a most
valuable description, with which the building was
crowded, to a place of safety. The fire licked the
place, and severely scorched some parts of it, but a.
stubborn resistancs was made here to its further ad-
vance, and at last met with success. The buildings
Nos. 147 and 149, one of which was used as a pan-
technicon, were thus saved from total destruction, a limit
was placed to the extent of the fire, and the firemen
began to see their way to overcoming the great con-
flagration.
In the meantime a body of men had been busily
engaged in removing the rubbish where the wall had
•
fallen in, and had succeeded in recovering three
dreadfully mangled bodies, all of men, and apparently
of men of the working class. Two were in their shirt-
sleeves, and had evidently run from some place near, or
had thrown off their coats to help in the work, and
the cause of death was evident. Each had his
skull beaten in with the dead weight of masses of
brickwork, and death must have been instantaneous,
for the features were not drawn up as if the unfor-
tunate men had suffered extreme pain. The remains
were removed to the Paddington Baths close by,
and there remained_ for a great part of the
night awaiting identification. A number of people,
for crowds pressed in in idle curiosity, loudly
asserted that one old man, about 60, was named
Alfred Blake, the watchman of the premises, and this
led to rather a draur,tic incident. The wife and son
of Blake were brought to identify the remains, and
the wife at once cried out that it was her husband,
and burst in a fit of sobbing. The son looked, and
said, "I'm sure it's not him; my father never wore a
collar in his life." The wife was certain it was her
husband, and the son was equally positive it was not,
when Blake himself entered the room, and the son,
overjoyed, said, "There, what did I tell you ?"
Strangely enough, the bodies remained unidentified
during Sunday, and were removed to the parish mor-
tuary.
In the early hours of Sunday morning the spec-
tacle presented rivalled the scene of all great London
fires of recent years. In Queen's-road the work of
the firemen was carried on with enormous danger,
for vast masses of masonry as big as a man kept
crashing down, breaking the windows opposite, and
blocking up the roadway. Viewed from the end
warehouse, which had been saved, the area of ground
Nvich had a few hours before been covered with
palatial buildings presented the aspect of a small
town which had been cannonaded. In the centre
a lofty chimney - stack stood tottering, and
everywhere great masses of flame bursting up-
wards indicated partially-destroyed gas mains. By
t hree o'clock the fire brigade authorities deemed the
fire in hand, and a stcp-message was circulated over
London stating that a block of buildings, covering an
area of 2001 t. by 150 ft., had been burnt out and the
roofs destroyed, while all steamers were dill at work.
In fact, day ight had far advanced before any
steamers were enabled to leave, and when to the in-
experienced observer the fire seemed completely sub-
dued, eight steamers continued to pour water on the
flames. This task continued all day Sunday, and in
the evening fresh men and officers were sent on to
continue the work.

As to the precise amount of the damage caused
many opinions are expressed, but it is believed in well-
informed quarters that the amount will be little less
than half a million. Mr. Whiteley had only left for
the Continent on Saturday morning, and it was not
possible, therefore, to obtain final information upon
this or other points. It is believed that one-third of
the stock only was insured in a foreign office, Engiish
offices having refused the risk; the loss will conse-
quently fall chiefly upon Mr. Whiteley, who is the
Bole owner of the undertaking. The dates of previous
fires which have occurred upon the premises are as
follow: Nov. 17, 1882; Dec. 26, 1882; April 26,
1884; Oct. 20, 1884 (small) ; June 17, 1885; and
Dec. 22, 1885 (small). The cause of the fire is a
my stery.
The following is a list of the persons who were
killed by the explosion which occurred shortly after
the outbreak was discovered: James Hampden Gill,
aged 41, of 15, Pickering-place, Bayswater; Robert
Hyde, aged 63, of 20, Pickering-place, Bayswater; a,
young man, about 25 years of age, awaiting identifi-
cation at the mortuary.
The following are the names of those injured who
have been admitted as in-patients to St. Mary's Hos-
pital: Charles Antineknap, 21 years of age; Police-
constable 222 F., of 2, Buryfields, Guildford, feet and
legs crushed by falling wall; Edwin Evans, Police-con-
stable 8 F R., of 83, Wpodchester-street, Harrow-road,
lacerated head; Ambrose Lester, 32, fireman attached to
the Hermitage-road fire brigade station, Paddington,
severely burned about the body ; James Brown, 31,
irenaan 446,, attached to the Hermitage-road, fire
brigade station, Paddington, severely burned and lace-
rated wrists. George Edward Bette'', 30, carman in
Ms. Whiteley's employ, of 32, Villiers-road, College-
park, Willesden. fractured thigh. occasioned by aseist-

fng to rescue horses.; ghomas Lonsdale, 53, plumber,
of 23, Pickering-place, Bayswater, fractured shoulders,
and injuries to head; Charles Baldry. 34, coachman,
of 62, Amberley-road, compound fracture of the legs.
It was found necessary to amputate one leg shortly
after admission. In addition to the above official list
of injured, there are thirteen others whose injuries
did not necessitate their detention in the hospital, and
who, after being attended to by the medical staff, were
sent to their homes.

Mr. Whiteley was at Ostend on Sunday morning
when the news of the conflagration reached him. He
caught the next boat to England, and reached West-
bourne-park at six o'clock in the evening. He at
once inspected the ruins, and later on in the evening
visited the wounded who are lying at St. Mary's
Hospital. After he had made an inspection of the
scene of devastation, he (Mr. Whiteley) was inter-
viewed at his house in Porchester-terrace, Bays-
water, by a representative of the Press Association.
The Universal Provider was at the titue when the
reporter called about to sit down to dinner, but at
once granted the sought-for interview. He entered
the room with a broad smile on his face, and did not
seem in the least disconcerted or disheartened by the
stupendous loss he had undergone. So buoyant vi ere
his spirits that the circumstance drew forth comment
from the reporter, but to this Mr. Whiteley laughingly
replied that, great though his loss would be, yet the
inevitable must be faced, and it was far better to en-
counter a reverse of fortune with a smile rather than
a downcast brow. It was a gigantic stroke of bad
lack, and how best to repair the mischief that had
been done was that to which he was already devoting
his best energy and attention: Misfortune had
dogged his footsteps since the first fire in November,
1882, with a persistence that would have induced the
great majority of men to give up the struggle in des-
pair; but through all he had held on, not mourning
over or looking back on past losses, but rather with
quickened energies preparing to recoup those losses
in the future.

The firemen were still at work on Monday night
upon the scene of Saturday night's great fire in
Queen's-road, Bayswater, and it was expected that it
would be armee days before the brigade will be enabled
to leave the spot. The great heaps of flooring and
brickwork piled up within the walls of the ruined
block contained, underneath their great weight,
material upon which smouldering tire could feed;
and the firemen knew that a few hours' inattention
would result in a fresh outbreak. All day long,
therefore, steamers were at work, and officers and
men were eogaged directing continuous streams of
water into every point at which the danger of a fresh
outbreak was apprehended. There was no Bale
danger in the work, from the risk of falling walls.
These partially-destroyed structures held together in
a most extraordinary manner, many of them quite out
of the perpendicular, all more or less shaky, and
every one constituting a risk which was not to be
ignored or neglected. In the centre of the block,
where there was a large area of ground completely
open and free from the buildings which occupied it on
Saturday afternoon, one large shaft stood erect and
lofty, without any support, and topped by a long piece
of iron piping. This was a most dangerous part of
the situation.
In Douglas-place. however, the fruiterers, pro,.
vision, and other shops were on Moncay being cleared,
a large staff of men starting upon the work early in
the morning. In some of these shops the floors above
,had not fallen in, and one or two of the structures
soon began to assume a comparatively clear appsar-
• ance. At the back, however, where the fatalities
occuried, the heaps of brickwork outside, and the
extraordinary masses of twisted iron girders and thick
gas pipes intermingled with masonry on the inside,
remained untouched. The small fire escape belong-
ing to Mr. Whiteley, which had been run round
when the fire first broke out, and was buried in
the fall of the wall, remained where the men were
killed, bearing striking witness to the weight
which fell upon it. In Queen's-road the large
masses, some of them over a ton in weight, of stone
, work which fell from the fronts of the large shops in
that thoroughfare remained untouched. As to
whether any more lives have been lost than the three
already reported there is some uncertainty. In-
Auiries have been made for more than one person
since, and there was some reason to fear that the
body of one of Mr. Whiteley's policemen might be
under the debris. The third body, which remained
unidentified was on Monday recognised as that of
Henry Muggeridge, a workman in Mr. Whiteley's em-
ploy,who lived at 3, Dartmoor-street, Notting-hill-gate.
The seven persons injured, who remain in St. Mary's
Hospital, are progressing favourably. Mr. Whiteley
colemplates offering a reward for information as to
the cause of the fire, as he suspects incendiarism.
Those who will suffer by the fire very greatly are
those servants of Mr. Whiteley who, living in the
block, have had their -rooms and all their household
goods destroyed. None of these is insured, and a
public subscription has been suggested for them. The
neiehbourhood of Westbourne-grove was thronged on
Monday by an unusual crowd, who were kept out of
danger by the exertions of the police.