LYTTELTON FIRE OF 1870

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23843, 12 January 1943, Page 3

LYTTELTON FIRE OF 1870

BALLARAT WOMAN’S RECOLLECTIONS GAOL PRISONERS HELPED TO FIGHT FLAMES Recollections of the great fire of Lyttelton in 1870, given in a letter from a woman now living in Ballarat, Australia, were read to the Lyttelton ; Borough Council last night. The ' writer is Mrs Mozley, who was born in Lyttelton and whose maiden name was Mary E. Elmsley. She gives her 1 address as “Opawa,” 69 Bond street, Mount Pleasant, Ballarat. Mrs Mozley, in her letter, says that the description of the fire at Lyttelton on Christmas Eve recalled vividly to her the fire of 1870, and she could hear again the roar of the flames and the i crash of axes as houses were demolished in an attempt to stem the pro- 1 gress of the fire. Her mother, a widow, ■ lived in the upper part of Oxford street, and at the time of the out- : break was, with others, watching a brilliant display of the Aurora , Borealis. Suddenly they saw flames issuing from the hotel at the corner of Oxford and London streets. There was a strong north-easterly wind and the fire rapidly spread along London street and across the block to Norwich quay. “Mother woke us children up and prepared bundles of clothes for us to take in case the fire came our way,” says Mrs Mozley. Prisoners from the gaol were put to work to demolish houses between the hotel where the fire originated and Mr “Tommy” Hester’s shop, opposite the gaol, and she remembers seeing the prisoners, in their red flannel shirts, wielding the axes. She remembers the joy and relief they all felt when a fire-engine arrived by railway from Christchurch and they heard the first hiss of the water on the flames. The clouds of steam sent up were thought by people in Christchurch to be rain clouds. “What was an amazing thing,” writes Mrs Mozley, “was that right in the middle of the burned out block was a galvanised iron building containing oil, kerosene, and gunpowder. I heard one of the men say: ‘lf that goes up, then we are all gone and nothing can save us.’ But the building was not harmed in any way.” Mrs Mozley has lived in Ballarat for 50 years and has made her home there as much like a New Zealand home as possible. A photograph enclosed with the letter shows a profusion of New Zealand trees and shrubs. She compares the Port Hills with the Dandenongs, where she goes for summer holidays, but says the Dandcnongs are bush-covered, except where fires have • denuded them. , Christmas Time Recalled Christmas Day in Lyttelton in her girlhood is described by Mrs Mozley. Her family were great favourites with the Rapaki Maoris and they usually had a Maori, Happy Jack, to Christmas dinner. In the afternoon they would pack the baskets and “billy” and would walk to Rapaki where they shared the cake and other good things with the Maoris. Then they would go out in the Maoris’ boats and later cook crabs and cockles in a kerosene tin on the beach. In the evening they would set off for home, the _ bigger ones carrying the little ones “pick-a-back” and singing hymns and songs all the way. In the summer they would often tramp the hills, with picnic baskets and “billy,” and Mrs Mozley says that she many times walked to Christchurch and back the same day. Referring again to the fire, Mrs Mozley concludes her letter with the hope that Lyttelton may again build better and more worthily.