The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-11 00:00:00

FALL OF THREE HOUSES AND LOSS OF

LIFE.

The following is a more detailed account of this
melancholy accident than we were enabled to give
in our impression of Saturday :
A sad catastrophe took place on Saturday. Three
house., Nos. 146, 147,
,and 148, Tottenhatn-court-road,
fell down and caused the loss of five lives, besides doing
serious injury to several persons.
It was shortly after seven o'clock in the morning
that the three houses fill, and it is scarcely necessary
to state that the event created intense excitement in
the neighbourhood. During the rernainder of the day
that portion of Tottenham-court-road which lies be-
tween 'Warren-street and Grafton-street was barred to
the passage of vehicles, and the whole space was filled
by a dense crowd of people, who waited anxiously to
hear of the extrication of the bodies from the ruins.
Between Grafton-street and Tottenham-place there are
seven houses; five of these are or were occupied by two
furniture warehousemen; Mr. Hunter at No. 148 and
149, and Messrs. Maple and Co., 145, 146, and 147.
The houses which have fallen are the three centre ones'
—viz., Nos. 146, 147, and 148, leaving still standing on
either side of the ruins respectively one house of the
rival dealers. The front of Mr. Hunter's house and the
party wall—still standing—are newly built. The house
of Messrs. Maple is old, and would by this time have
been a ruin had it not been "shored" up at an early
period of the day. The weight of cement has torn the
front several inches from the walls, and the stack of
chimneys, which leans over frightfully, has separated
eight or nine inches from the roof. The wonder is that,
like its neighbours, it too is not now a heap of ruins.
In the shop of this corner house of Messrs. Maple and
Co., extending a great distance to the rear of Totten-
ham-court-road, there is an iminenee stock of valuable
furniture of all descriptions, which has fortunately re-
mained uninjured; but in one of the houses which had
fallen it is said that the furniture and other stock in
trade were of the value of several thousand pounds.
From 50 to 60 men were at work at the, time,
and some score or more of shopmen and others were
sleeping or dressing in different parts of the house
at the time of the accident. Oa 'she kitchen
range, which yet clings with tenacity its place in
the chimney nearly at the top of tree house, there
are still the kettles, and on the mantelpiece over it the
tea-pots and pewter wares which in s, few minutes would
hive been brought into use for the breakfast of the es-
tablishment. For some time atter the house had fallen
the fire burnt brightly, and the boiling water streamed
forth out of the kettle-spout on to the ruins below'. In
an adjoining apartment portions of wearing appara and
a carpetbag bang on the pegs against the well ; their
owner, while still in his bed, was suffocated amid the
fallen ruins. The cook, who was preparing the break
fast, is a mutilated corpse ; she was hurled among the
falling timbers of the adjoining house. A lad engaged
cleaning the knives escaped, although precipitated from
the top of the house, with only, a few slight scratches.
All around the spot where he was found lie piled up in
strange confusion the debris of the house. The thick
bressemers, strengthened with iron, which carried the
front of the houses, are snapped in the centre like thin
laths of wood ; girders and beams are snapped or
mingled in the strangest of forms; flooring boards are
wrung from their joists, and sheets of lead, torn off like
paper, are rolled and curled up in the most curious
shapes ; lath and plaster, brick and mortar, doors and
staircases, window frames and cupboards, bedsteads,
chairs, tables, and looking-glasses, are smashed and
broken and pounded up into rubbish ; and, as the men
work among the mass, they fall on a cup er a saucer, or
some other fragile piece of crockery, still strangely pre-
served, secure in its weakness, amid the general wreck.
As though to make still more complete the scene of ruin,
there are huge torn printed placards everywhere which
appear to rejoice in the catastrophe, and to grin more
horribly in the midst of the desolation. They are headed
with huge letters, " Fire, fire !" and go on to state tLat
the salvage stock froui the late fire—a portion of the pre-
mises were rebuilding, after a recent conflagration—is to
be sold at some alarming percentrge under the original
price, and " regardless of the cost." How much of the
cause of the present catastrophe is to be traced to the prin •
ciple embodied in these four words will never be fully
made known, but if it should be proved that, "regardless
of the cost," rival traders had disregarded the warnings
of surveyors and others, and sough to put showy exte-
riors upon rotten fabrics, and paid no heed to the foun-
dations or superstructure of decayed party walls, then it
is high time, for the sake of the public, that such per-
sona should be told that " extensive alterations," when
made "regardless of the cost," cannot longer be per-
mitted.

From the statement made to us on the spot it appears
that there are two versions in concision with the cir-
cumstances which hate led to this shocking calamity.
Some few weeks since the premises of Mr. Hunter, fur-
niture warehouseman and upholsterer, which imme-
diately adjoin the premises of Messrs. Maple and Co.,
were so much injured by a fire which broke out as to
render the rebuilding of the whole, or a great portion
nec?szary. These works were entrusted by Hunter to
Mr. Johnson, builder, of Proinix-place, Gray's-inn-road,
and ca:ried out under the direction of Mr. Redding,
Mr, Hunter's surveyor. While these works were pro-
gressing at Mr. Hunter's, Mr. Maple thought it a fitting
opportunity to have some enlargements and alterations
made in his premises adjoining, and Mr. MapL's altera-
tions were entrusted to Mr. Taylor, builder, &c., of Sesy
mour-street, Mr. Riggett, of Gower-street, being the
surveyor to Mr. Maple. These works were in progress,
and no apprehensions were entertained till Friday after-
noon, when Mr. H. Baker, the district surveyor, is
stated to have c:ime. to- view the premises, and ho at
once condemned the .old party wall standing on the
southern side.of Messrs. Maple's premises, numbered
145, 146, and 147, Tottenham-court-road, and directed
. . •

that it shoul f be at once underpinned, and from the
ground floor to the first floor. new brickwork put in.
The distinct orders stated to have been given by Mr.
Baker, the district surveyor, to Mr. Johnson or his fore.
man, were, that the workmen were to take the party-
' wall down.trom the ground fl )or to the first, and replace
it with new brickwork, whic'n west° be supported by "un-
der-pinning." It appears that Mr. Johnson's men came to
work about 6 o'clock, and, under orders from Mr. Moore,
the foreman to Mr. Johnsone they commenced the re-
moval ot the brickwork of the party wall. Mr. Taylor's
men were also at work in the premises belonging to Mr.
Maple, 147, Tottenham-court-road, the house imme-
diately abutting on the party wall referred to. It is
stated that Mr. Johnson's men commenced removing the
brickwork from the party wall in two places at the same
time—namely, near the front of the house at Tottenham-
court-road and also towards the back part of the premises.
It is said that these holes in the brickwork were made
to the extent of about six feet long by three feet high,
when the party wall gave way, dragging with it the two
adjoining houses, No-. 146 and 147, in its descent. This
is one version of the,cause which is stated to have led to
the catastrophe. The other version is that derived from
Mr. John Moore, the foreman to Mr. Johnson, the
builder for Mr: Hunter. He states that he had the
superintendence of the works in course of erection for
the new p:enises belonging to Mr. Hunter, at
148, Tottenham-ceur,coad, welch adjoin those ot Mr.
Maple's last house, numbered 147. The wall of 147
had, ho says, been much cut about for the purpose of
putting in a new bressemfr, and all the ties having any
connexion with the party wall had been cut off. The
district surveyor, Mr. Henry Baker, came on Friday
afternoon and inspected the works, and ordered the
party wall between 147 and 148 to be underpinned and
repaired. In accordancewith the direction of the dis.
trict surveyor he gave instructions to the men that they
should commence the underpinning of the party wall
that morning. They came at the usual hour and com-
menced the work, when the front wall of Mr. Maple's
nearest house, No. 147, fell outward, causing the entire
building to collapse, and that forced Mr. Hunter's party
wall into the area of the space on which the house, No.
148 (Mr. Hunter's) was being rebuilt, dragging the next
door house, No. 146, with it.
The first indication of anything wrong took place
about a quarter past seven o'clock in the morning, at
which time there were between 20 and 30 young men
and women, in the employ of Messrs.. Maple and
Co., on the preinises, either in bed or in the act of
rising and dressing. Of this number about 20 were
in the upper portions of the houses numbered 146
and 147, which have fallen. At the same time there
were Mr. Johnson's men at work at the wall en the
one side, and some of Mr. Taylor's (Mr. Maple's builder)
at work on the other. Two of these men were carpen-
ters, named Garnett and Richard Turner, who were at
work at their bench in the first floor of the house No.
147. At this moment a crackling noise was heard, and
a sound like thunder succeeded. The buildings fell with
a frightful crash. Shealy after a strong body of police
of the. B division, under Superintendent O'Brien and In-
spectors Checkley and Duigan, arrived, and labourer,
under the orders of Messrs. Johnson and Taylor, were
set to work to ascertain who were the sufferers, and to
rescue those whO might be found alive as fast as possill.e.
The first who escaped were, singular to relate, Mrs.
Christmas, the housekeeper, and two young women em-
ployed in the drapery department. They were in the
sitting room on the second floor of 146 when the house
fell, and were very slightly hurt. The escape of Mrs.
Christmas was truly miraculous. She was at the moment
of the fall dusting the piano, with which she was carried
away, and, falling in the hollow between the piano and
a beam, she escaped with a slight graze of the legs.
As soon as the alarm created by such a catastrophe
had in some degree subsided the muster-roll of the per-
sons known to be in the houses at the time of the fail,
and employed on the works, was called over, and also
those attached to Messrs. Maple's establishment. Among
the latter were Mr. Frederick Byng, ebief clerk ; James
Beam, Reginald Rudd, Horace Regnant, George Bayley,
George Eaton, William Ayres, William Beauchamp, a
youth who acted as cashier in one of the departments ;
Ann Briscoe, the cook ; and Mary Daly, house-servant.
Among those employed on the works, missing, were Mr.
Taylor, jun., the son of the contractor for Mr. Maples's
works ; Turner and Garnett, carpenters ; and George
Kevil, one of the labourers in the empley of Mr. John-
son, at work at the party wall on Mr. Hunter's side
of the premises. The large body of men set to work
soon succeeded in rescuing most of the above-
named, and they were conveyed in rapid suc-
cession one after the other to University College
Hospital, where they were at once attended to by Mr.
Ericson, one of the principal surgeons, Mr. Teevan, the
house-surgeon, and the whole of the medical staff. After
digging out ti-e ruins for about three-quarters of an hour
the men succeeded in reaching the body of the unfortunate
young man- Frederick Byng. The poor fellow was
found lying in his bed, which had fallen with the upper
floor, where he had slept. He hail evidently been suf-
focated, as there was no mark of violence whatever upon
his person, except a small drop of blood at one of his
nostrils, He was at once removed to the hospital, but
life was quite extinct. The next body was not got out
Mr some time after, and that was the unfortunate conk,
Ann Briscoe. It instated that when discovered she had