Home Page

On Sunday evening at 8-57 a fire broke out at the grocers shop at 147 Snargate Street occupied by Mr. A. Hall. In a few minutes the whole of the lower part of the premises were in a mass of flames that shot out across the road and scorched the shop front on the opposite side of the road. 

The police were very promptly on the spot with the hose reel, and in half an hour having confined the fire to the ground floor had extinguished the outbreak, a remarkably smart piece of work and more illustrating the fact that the Police Fire Brigade always being ready, succeeded in preventing serious conflagration by the promptitude with which they get to work. The alarm was given at 8-57 to Police constable Finch who was on duty at the Bethel corner, and he at once sounded the fire alarm on his whistle. 

The Military Police’s attention was called to the fact that smoke was issuing from the shop and the street being crowded with people with some of them unfortunately broke open a door. This at once fanned the flames and quickly the whole of the interior of the shop was in a mass of fire. One of the mounted police, Corporal Vesey, galloped to the Queen Street Fire Station and the hose reel was quickly on the scene. The flames by this time were being blown halfway across the street. The standpipe was quickly fixed and a splendid supply of water obtained, which quickly knocked out the flames. The military pickets in the meantime assisted in keeping back the huge crowd that had been attracted by the occurrence.  

Unfortunately however, the efforts of the crowd to assist the police in hauling the hose pipe along resulted in one of the stand pipes being broken but there was another - a double headed one in action all the time and the broken standpipe was quickly replaced by another brought by a mounted military police from the Fire Station. By 9-50 the flames had been extinguished and the brigade left leaving a constable with a hose to prevent a serious outbreak. The fire was confined as we said to the shop floor, the contents of the shop and the room behind being completely destroyed. The upper rooms were damaged by fire, and water and smoke, and Mr. Tanton's premises adjoining also were a good deal damaged by the smoke.  The fire never got a real hold of the building itself. The walls being a little more than scorched and were never really on fire. It was extremely fortunate that the outbreak occurred at an hour when so many people were about, as if it had only been allowed a few minutes more to get a real hold of the building, in addition to the shop fittings and contents they would have been serious destruction of property. 

The origin of the fire is not known. Mr. Hall left the premises at 7-50 and his cousin who lives with him at 8 o’clock and all was safe then. The Police Fire Brigade was under the command of Chief Constable Knott and there were 30 firemen present.