The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-12-23 00:00:00

Vaulted y a

Two warehouses,

400 yards

House. I

i with centre wall—

Cottages

Jamaica-street,

400 yards

I Public-
! house.

The whole of the engines from the fire-police station, with
the whole of the firemen, under the active superintendence
of Mr. Whitty, chief constable, and Mr. Hewitt, of the fire
brigade, got to work almost instanter.. The engine of the
West of England Insurance Company was, too, we learn, the
second that came up. But though the supply of water was,
on this occasion, very fair, and they all got to work with the
utmost vigour, it became evident, from the first, that little
or nothing could be saved from the several burning or ig-
niting premises; and their exertions were properly directed
to the extinguishment, so far as they could, of the terrific
blaze in the outskirts, so as to prevent the spread of the
destructive element to the houses immediately adjoining the
warehouses, as well as those on the opposite sides of the
three streets, north, south, and east of the area, which were
in imminent peril, as the wind blew rather freshly, first from
about the W. by S. and latterly and more strongly, from
about W.S.W. The neighbourhood is extremely dense in
small houses and in population; and it is a matter of great
congratulation that their exertions were so far successful;
for had any part of Newhall-street, or more particularly
Greenland-street, on the north side, become ignited, a large
breadth of the south part of the town, from the original site
of the fire, in a N.W. direction towards, and perhaps across,
St. James'-street, must:have been swept away. Great as the
destruction is, the result may be considered as a fortunate
escape, and the town tiwe the credit to the fire-police in par-
ticular, and (amidst all the new plans that have been de-
vised) are bound, we think, to support them in their frequent
and dangerous labours, under numerous difficulties, until
some more approved and practical system be introduced.
No accident, happily, occurred to life or limb, so far as we
could learn, though one man (as we shall hereafter notice)
had a fearful and narrow escape.

The first estimates made of a loss are generally much ex-
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believe we may claim the credit of priority. ;” c---;-h4--
somethinv like the accurate uwivect from authentic
sources—for we are unwilling to "fright the town from her
dealino in mere vague and indefinite rumours.
Our contemporary of yesterday has been led into an error in
this respect, and we decline falling into the same groove,
however we might make the vulgar stare by a flaming an-
nouncement of destruction on such an occasion—an occasion,
indeed, which is always sufficiently lamentable as regards
our local happiness and prosperity without dealing in the ex-
travagant. The loss, we believe, will be found (in place of
£70,000 to £100,000) to be, in all, from £45,000 to £47,000—
chiefly in the following articles :-
7,000 to 8,000 quarters of wheat ;
1,400 bags of cotton ;
50 casks of madder;
100 barrels of tar and turpentine
30 to 40 tons of dyewood, &c., &c.
, . .

About 91 tuns of olive oil, worth about £5,000, (not in-
chided in our estimate,) are vet in the cellars of the eastern
warehouse (called " Crane's''), but every hope is entertained
that it will be saved. The western warehouse is called
" Guyton's." The tire was so far subdued by one o'clock—
the flames being reduced to the vaulted cellars under the west
yard—that little apprehension was entertained of its spread-
ing to any of the adjacent property, much of which was long
in jeopardy. Many of the inhabitants, chiefly ptrsons in
humble life, were naturally much alarmed, and removed their
furniture and families at necessarily great loss. The outer
wood-work of a number of the houses and buildings in
Greenland-street, Newhall-street, and even Parliament-
street (though to windward), was much blistered, and the
walls in some instances completely blackened by the dense
smoke of the resinous combustibles ; but the engines played
upon them copiously and so cooled them down, that the da-

mage was comparatively slight.
The two warehouses were both of great height, and also of
area,—as will be seen by the plan, which we have made at
right angles, for the convenience of our printers, though the
parallel streets, east and west, near to which they stood, are
not precisely of the same length. They covered an area (to-
gether) of 1460 yards. These were, we learn, rented from
Messrs. Thos. Dover and Co., agents for the proprietors—
that on the west by Mr. Guyon; that on the east by Mr.
Crane. The first contained principally grain, wood, and
some brimstone; the latter cotton, grain, fustic, and tallow.
During the early part of the fire, Lieut. Butler, in com-
mand of H.M.S. Etna, sent his marines on shore, in charge
of Mr. Wright, chief officer under him ; Captain Cumming
of the 15th Regiment, from the barracks, Duke-street, with-
out requisition, also brought up' their respective forces, and
rendered efficient service, in maintaining order and keeping
ample space for the firemen, until their services were grate-
fully dispensed with.
Yesterday afternoon, at two o'clock, the only portion of
the buildings, with the exception of some inconsiderable ruins,
that remained standing, was the shell of Messrs. Platt's tur-
pentine works in the middle, and the outer or side walls
only of each of the warehouses, one on the east, and the other
in the west, of the space; both still apparently maintaining
their perpendicularity ; both perforated with numerous win-
dows, and both surmounted in the centre with an engine
chimney.

Having now noticed the fire in more particularly a mercan-
tile point of view, we proceed to the descriptive. We do not
remember any fire more rapid and incontrolable in its effects,
or presenting such a variety and succession of extraordinary
scenery. In the early part, the rush of immense crowds, the
alarm of the neighbours, the shouts of the firemen astounded
the ear ; while the belching of flames, and the ascension of
huge and continuous red flames and clouds of black smoke
from the turpentine and other combustibles filled the eye—
both tending to indicate a calamity of unusual magnitude,
that might extend to distant parts of the town. The fire was
at its height about a quarter-past seven o'clock—the turpen-
tine works, both yards, and the warehouses being then in si-
multaneous, terrific, and, we may add, sublime blaze. No
painting could have conveyed even an idea of its magnificence.
About ten o'clock the scene, as viewed through a gateway of
an outer wall in Greenland-street, was equally remarkable,
though much varied and varying. This gateway opened into
the yard containing the turpentine and tar vaults. The
warehouses, the turpentine distillery in the middle, and, in-
deed, the whole area were yet in a rapid state of combustion.
The sun shone at the time (beyond the spot) from a cloudless
sky. The thin smoke through which he was occasionally seen,
for a moment shorn of his beams, and like his inferior lumi-
nary the moon, was succeeded by dense vapours pitchy dark ;
these by lurid flame, and these by a clearer atmosphere, that
admitted him to resume his resplendency. These alterna-
tions and intermediate ones, presenting varieties even in a
minute that astonished and awed the beholder. The smoke
in immense clouds rolled to the northward and eastward over
the town, and appeared to those at a distance to be produced
by a series of explosions. At one o'clock the scene in both
streets was almost equally curious. Facing Parliament-
street were the ruins of the warehouses—the outer sides
bounding an area—part of which, over the turpentine vaults
(nine in number), resembled the supercrust of a volcano, and
the boiling tar and turpentine running down into the street
formed no distant resemblance to the lava. We looked into
some of these vaults by an opening archway next the
street, and also down several openings in the arch-
work in the yard. Virgil's description of the infernal
regions conveys no adequate idea of the sight. The arched
" bowels of the earth ' here appeared to be one mass of
smothered flame, almost at a white heat, and struggling to
escape by the apertures or hatchways at the tops of the arch-
ways. The flames did sometimes ascend ten to fifteen feet,
and were alternately succeeded by bursts less significant, co-
mingled with black smoke. The bricks and mortar must
have been almost calcined, yet they held together. These
large vaults have, we learn, been used, for many years, for
the stowage of turpentine, and other bituminous substances,
arid the waste had formed a cake on the floors of from a foot
to eighteen inches in depth. The water, thrown copiously
in, whenever an aperture near the street was available by a
firemen, seemed to have but trifling quenching effect. The
flames, if for a moment subdued, again burst up with ap-
parently equal violence. The injection of sand, indeed, in
place of water, would, were it practicable, be much more
efficient in such cases. The water as it met the combustion
produced a loud hissing noise. About one o'clock, the scene
from opposite the gateway in Greenland-street was no less
curious. The black volumes of smoke from the vaults oc-
casionally so darkened the atmosphere, that it appeared like
moonless midnight, and we could not see even to take a
pencil note. Anon, the red flames succeeded, the light,
too, shone around, and all was bright and palpable. The
numerous window openings, in the only two warehouse walls
standing, sometimes appeared of a flaming, and sometimes—
the bright shining through the whiter vapour or steam—as if

they admitted a light like translucent silver. The whole re-
minded us, though it was on a much more magnificent scale,
of the illuminated scenes at the close of a melo-dramatic
piece in a theatre.
It is somewhat remarkable that the strip of houses east
and west of the area, and close to the warehouses, though
within the area of the four streets, should have escapee
This is to be accounted for by the walls not having an

_ .
portion or\communication either in the warehouses or the
houses built against them. Many of them were in great
danger, particularly in Newhall-street, including a milk-
house with a straw-loft. The straw took fire, but it was got
out into the street in a burning state, and the fire within was
kept down by buckets of water.

Mr. Whitiy and his superintendents and men were most
active throughout. At one time fire-police-officer 449 was
in great danger of losing his life. He was sent by Mr.
Hewitt into the upper room of the eastern warehouse,
facing Parliament-street, to draw up a hose, before the pre-
mises ignited. Mr. Hewitt himself was also in the building.
The flames, however, ran along the lower room, level with the
street, so suddenly and unexpectedly, that the latter had diffi-
culty in escaping by the stairs, and when be got out the flames
burst out from the door, and cut °flail retreat for the poor
fellow above. He could neither get down by the stair, from
the smoke, nor by the outside for the flames. The ladders
were got, but could not be used. At this crisis Mr. Hewitt,
at great personal risk, crept on his bands and knees, tinder
the flames, which ascended a little, and succeeded in.shutting
the door whence they proceeded. The man above, seeing
the flames below him cut off as by a valve, did not stop to
consider how, and lowering himself speedily by the rope,
was soon by the side of the officer whose presence of mind
and fearlessness thus saved him from inevitable destruction.
The warehouse was soon after in one mass of flame.

We observed many of the inspectors and police, as well as
our head-constable, most active throughout. They were all
so black and begrimed that we could scarcely recognise
them. Mr. Whitty, and many others appeared as if they
had taken up the exploded trade of manual chimney sweep-
ing. Many gentlemen—thousandsindeed--visited the scene
during the day, and St. James's-street was crowded with
pedestrians, cars, gigs, &c.