8 GIRLS KILLED IN A LONDON FIRE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1536, 4 September 1912, Page 4

8 GIRLS KILLED IN A LONDON FIRE.

CUT OFF BY FLAMES ON A TOP FLOOR. RESCUERS HELPLESS 7 FEET AWAY. VICTIMS RUSH PANIC-STRICKEN PAST SAFETY EXIT. As the result of a fire which broke cut on Tuesday evening, July 23, in'' the "danger zone" of the City of London in a. workroom occupied by Messrs. Angus Thomas, Moor Lane, Moorgate Street, eight girls wore .killed and two sustained mortal injuries. Tho circumstances of the calamity (says the "Daily Mail") were of the most heart-rending character. Tho hapless girls who perished were cut off from escape by tho lightning speed with which the fire spread, in the top floor of n fonr-storied building. There a piteous tragedy was enacted in the full sight of a large number of spectators.

The Alarm. At a quarter ipast six'in the evening a policeman noticed flames rising from the roof of the building. He blew his police whistle and ran over to the building to warn the inmates. Within three minutes of tho first sign of firo the whole cf the upper part of the building was a seething mass of flames. Tho fire seems to' have broken out in the front, and thus quicklv cut off escape by the staircase. Ine (fames rose high above the roof. Quicklv as the fire brigade arrived, they found the building burning fiercely. -A very few girls from tho worn where the fire began got out by the staircase in time. 1-rom the floors below the workers streamed out pell-mell. .... Meanwhile the majority of the girls in tho burning room were in deadly peril. Tho first fire-escapo arrived on the scene within three minutes of the call, but from tho front of the building nothing could bo done. At tho back a pitiful tragedy., was enacted. Two houses away from the burning building is Butler Street. >o 21 Moor Xane runs some way • further back from tho front than Ko. 23, which adjoins it, and thus for a. email distance its structure is parallel to -Butler .Street. Tho horrified inmates of the houses there saw the girls burnt to death a few feet away from them. • Apparently it was intended at sonifl timo to construct an emergency iron staircase leading down from the baok of the premises involved. At the angle rathe wall where the extension of ho. 21 joins on to No- 23, a- small square balcony fenced m with iron had been placed. Irom this a narrow parapet led along the roof of I\o. 23 to safety. But.escape here was impossible. I'he watcher, powerless to iaw tho girls crowd to the window overlooking this smoll balcony but names were shooting out fierce y between them and the next building, closing the narrow way to life. Balked of this hope .of satetv, they managed by some other means to reach the roof of the burning building Th« flimes drove them back as tar as thev could go%nd abort a dozen of hem, many of tlTcm with their clothes alight, wereseen clustered round a chimney at the very rear of the building. .-.

Crossing the- Pla^K-';. _ ,. £; v;' ■V thrilling account of -the.-rosciie-.-.'ot. two of the'girls'-and the death of a third when she.was on the verge of safetj was given by Frederick Bond, an cniplovM of Messrs. Harnson, umbreUa. manufacturers, No. i Butler Street, E.G., whoso 'premises abut on the rear ot tne scone of the fire. ■ ■ .. "It was shortly after six oolock, said Mr. Bond, "when I and two of my fel owworkmen heard screams. We rushed to tho back and saw that. James were bursting through tho roof of Messrs..Angus Thomas's premises. About a dozen yrls, who were screaming, and who seeincn mad with pain, were standing on.tho sloping roof at the rear of the premises. Just behind them was a mass of flames. ,Un : one side was a drop of 70 feet. My friends and I crept along the parapet until wo got opposite'the burning roof, which was Revoii feet away jiml abqut six feet hiehcr than tho wall on which we,were standing. The girls were .frontio, and"we tnouff&t they were going to jump to the pound. F shouted: 'Don't jump; we will help you.' AVe got two planks,- placed • them across the chasm, and called to them to come down. The heat even where we were standing was almost: unbearable. Directly tho planks were in position one of the girls slid down them .safely, to the parapet. Then another girl slid down, and she too escaped; A third ijirl-she was of rather heavy build-slid down the planks.' When half-way down sho -went on one side and one of the planks tilted. Tho eirl fell, but for a few seconds held on to the plunk. She was near enough to tho. parapet for me to seizo her hand, but I could not .bold her,, and she fell, down .70 feet, going through the roof, of the in the .well-be-tween the two building,'. : Eight or nine girls were still .pri. the .roof, out thtTheat was now so fearful that- we wero forcedto rush away. No one could stand it, and we were blistered by the flames.

Cauldron of Flame, Spectator on the roofs farther off saw the next scones in the tragedy. One by one the clothes of the girls caught alight, and they fell back into the building. The last two clung together before tho fire overcame them, and they fell from their narrow stone refugo into what was by this time a cauldron of flame, the roof having fallen in. Tho escape of ono girl was in tiro nature of a miracle. The- bottom of the well between the houses in Butler Street and the building where tho firo occurred, which was originally a yard, has been roofed in with glass to forni an office. The glass roof is covered with wire netting, and to this one girl probably owes her life.

With the firo creeping upon her, and her clothes already aliclit, she jumped from tho burning .building seventy feet down to the roof of this office. Her swift passago through the air put out the firo in her clothes. The wire netting broke her fall, and also prevented her from sustaining deadly injuries from tho glass of tho Toof. The netting wrapped itself round her as she fell on the roof,- and with it round her she crashed through the roof on to a desk in the office below. No one was in the office at the time,, but the noise of the fall brought the people running there, and they found her standing up, but suffering severely from burni and shock- • She was taken to St. Bar- • thnlomew J s Hospital. A moment or two later another girl followed her, but owing probably to the fact that the wire covering was-gone, carried away by tho-first girl, .the second who t-3-6ayed this route came to her death.- . Leaping to Death. . According to : one' account' tvro other girls jumped from a spot farther along the roof, and their bodies were found on the ground in flames. Water was poured over them, but they were dead. All these terrible scenes wero enacted m a few brief minutes. The fire died away again almost as swiftly as it had broken out. Water from many firo engines wasnow being poured on it from the front and sides of tho building, and within about twenty minutes of the outbreak it was well in hand. Firemen fighting their wav alon" the narrow parapet and up the stairs faced (loath heroically. They exposed themselves to many pptilp, but it was in vain. ~,.,,, u i The intense heat had killed all who were left in the stricken room or on the roof. Some of tho bodies were found crouching in a corner of the room; one or two had their arm? placed before their eves to shield them, as- though fire and death had come upon them suddenly. ■ Half on honv from the time when the first fifime was sc-en the fire w»3 out. The damaste to property was not very Mtenfive The top floor, where the outbreak occurred, was destroyed, and the ilame? hvutot through nflil did some damage to tho top floors of the adjoining premises, but th*T ■ hardly penetrated -to, the ■ floor below, and , were thns confined within a very narrow compnss.'

• Forgotten Exit. The most distressing fact connected with the dipaster is that in the panic which followed the juddenntss of the fire the pirU everV-wted- -the ample, safeEuan!*' which thoir pmplnyers- had proTided against fire danger. Iher.e were at. the time of the outbreak-Li irirU-in t.Jj« bank fiem of ths t/ip -flooT nnd -IS m the front room, where- also' were -the. manager,

■Mr. Marshall, his .son, a boy. named William Plume, nml nnother named Dennis. The rooms were • divided by a. wooden partition, villi nn open doorway on (ho exlremo right looking from Moor Lane, and on tlu> extreme left of the front room a staircase, led down to the third floor. In tho back room against the wooden partition was a* flight of stairs loading to tho roof, and very near was a window opening on to a short iron gjilleiy across which a window of the adjoining house, No. 23, could be readied without any difficulty. As to what happened in the back room after the alarm was given, statements aro conflicting. According to Mr. Marshall, he made nn attempt, to get to the girls working there, but, owing to the flames, was forced to Tetiirn to tho stairs, down which he rushed into the street and then up three (ligiits of stairs in. the adjoining ■ honso to the window by which they might have escaped. Hut tho girls were not The tragedy emphasise? the value of ftre drill. Had these girls possessed an elementary knowledge ot drill, the fatal confusion of tho first few minutes after tho alarm would not have occurred, and the means of escape which were so closo to them would not have been forgotten.

How the Fire Started. A narrative of how tho fire started was given by a boy employee named William Plume. * Speaking with much emotion, he said: "I was'(loins up brown paper parcels containing celluloid cards, with seal-ing-wax. I was drawing tho wax across a parcel when tho lighted sealing-wax fell off on to tho brown paper. It burned through that and caught the celluloid alight, and before I know where I was it ail flared up. The man that works with mo caught hold of tho parcel and tried to throw it out of tho window, but the flames were too much and ho had to drop it and it caught other celluloid things on the floor alight. We shouted out 'Fire,' and got all the girls out of our room, which is the front room. We waited for the malinger and his sou, and when they came we got them down the stairs. Then wo hfilrd the girls, screaming on the roof. Wo did not know about them, and did not know they wero there." -

The Victims. The eight girls who lost their lives were identified as follow:— Lilian May Adnms (aged 18), Watson Eoad, East Ham. Man - Rosina Ellis (17), Lewis Mansions, Liverpool Road, N. Millicent Fellowos (17), Cromwell Eoad, Walthamslow. Florence Edith Goring (15), Aslett Street, Garrctt Lane, Wandsworth. Alice Rose Coulter (15), Longcroft Eoad, Albany Road, Camborwoll. Elizabeth Watson (14), New Cut, Lambeth. Sarah Sanderson (25), Liverpool lioad,

Canning' Town. Ethel Violet Eudland (15), Compton Build ings, Walworth.