MAN LOSES HIS LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 107, 7 May 1923, Page 5

MAN LOSES HIS LIFE

A FATAL HOTEL FIRE.

(II TELEGKAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

CHRISTCHURCH, 6th May.

A fire with fatal consequences occurred at 4.20 a.m., when the Railway, Hotel, in Manchester street, near the' Railway Station, was gutted, and a man named Finn Roy O'Donnell, aged 33, a labourer, lost his life.

The. tire originated near the kitchen. It had a good hold when discoveredr It was thought at first that all the inmates of the hotel had got out safely, though with the loss of most of their belongings, but later O'Donnell's body was found. There were sixteen persons in the house. The fire was due, it is thought, to the fusing of electrical wires, which had been giving trouble.

The hotel, an old wooden building of 23 rooms, was owned by Ward's Brevery. The licensee is "Andy" Pringle, th» well-known trotting trainer and driver. The insurances were £3000 on the building in the Commercial Union Office; £1000. on the stock, and £600 on the furniture, in the Liverpool, London, and Globe Office. . -'

The contents of the bar and the storeroom were only slightly affected by the fire.