A TERRIBLE FIRE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1765, 19 July 1888, Page 3

A TERRIBLE FIRE.

A terrible fire occurred ou the morning of May 31st at a general drapery and furnishing establishment, rented by Messrs Garrould, occup\ ring a considerable area at the corner of Edgware road and Queen street, j In the result the greater part of the premises were thoroughly gutted, and five women living on the premises were burnt to death, and four others were seriously injured. The fire broke out at a quarter past six o’clock. In close proximity to the kitchen is the boot-room, where stood a cask of carbon, and it is surmised that when obtaining a light for the fires a servam carelessly threw the match into the vicinity of the cask. On being awakened at this moment the shop assistants who were lodging opposite to the premises found flames belching forth from all the windows of Messrs Garrould’s establishment. The housekeeper, who lived in the upper storey of the buildings in Queen street, was seen by one of the assistants opposite to come forward to the window of her room, but the flames compelled her immediately to retire, and she was never seen afterwards alive. The passage way and staircase to her rooms, being above the kitchen, were filled with flame and smoke, consequently escape, except by the window, was impossible for her When the premises were searched later the housekeeper and her niece were found suffocated in their rooms The partners, who lived on this part of the premises, easily escaped. This was not the case unhappily with the twenty-five young women living on the portion of the premises at the corner of the Edgware road. A number got out of danger under the courageous initiative of the chief dressmaker,"Mdlle. Shouard. Mdlle Shouard induced these young ladies to follow her out through their bed room windows on to the leads, whence they travelled to a spot where they were easily rescued. Others were rescued from back windows of the Edgware road corner premises looking upon Queen street. Mr Stephenson and other assistants had got ou to the roof of one of the one-storey premises (back shops) lying between the Edgware road and the Queen street premises, with the view of saving the young ladies in the rooms in the Edgware road establishment. Rescues were first attempted from a window nearly 140 feet from the street and about 120 feet from the roof on which Mr Stephenson and his comrades stood. The first young lady, a Ivliss Evans, a dressmaker, jumped into the arms of Mr Stephenson, who with extreme difficulty saved her life. The young lady next to follow, Miss Butterfant,' missed Mr Stephenson’s arms, and went right through the skylight into the shop below. She was picked up there with a serious wound in her thigh, and is not expected to recover. Other rescues were effected under very creditable circumstances by some painters working in the neighborhood. It is said that no fireescape was brought on to the scene for at least three-quarters of an hour, but the painters brought ladders from the Oxford and Cambridge Mansions. Having with these ladders got on to the' roof of the one-story premises, they drew the ladders after them, and while the flames were raging very fiercely around them rescued young ladies from windows a storey lower than those from which Miss Butterfant and Miss Evans had jumped. The three women who lost their lives, apart from the housekeeper and her niece, were M. W. Berry (twentyfour), employed in the dressmaking department, Agnes Hyland (twentyfour) and Emma Margaret Edwards (thirty-five), who were employed in the fancy department. Some of the remains discovered were so charred as to be almost unrecognisable. Two of the victims when found, it is said, were clasping jewellery, one of them a gold watch. One of the male assistants who was on the spot said that the young women whose lives were endangered screamed little, if at all. The fire was practically out by ten o’clock, but large crowds continued to hang about all day. Messrs Garrould, who estimate the damage at £60,000, are insured in ten offices. An affecting incident in connection with the fire is the death of a young lady, not one of the employees, who was staying in the house. She arrived in London on Tuesday for the purpose of attending the wedding, which was fixed for the day of the fire, of her friend, who was one of Messrs Garrould’s assistants Both lost their lives.