HOTEL FIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 99, 23 October 1940, Page 6

HOTEL FIRE

WAITRESS'S DEATH

EVIDENCE OF BRIGADESMEN

CAUSE DISCUSSED

Officers of , tti?: Wellington Fire Brigade were .called as witnesses for the plaintiff inthe Supr'eriie Court yesterday afternoon iii- the case in which Olive Gwynne, a married woman, claimed £928 3s damages from Eobert Stuart Wilson* a hotel proprietor, as a result of the death of her daughter, Kathleen Olive Matthews, a 17-year-old waitress, in a fire which occurred in Lloyd's Hotel, in Lower Cuba Street, on February 10. Miss Matthews was employed by Wilson at the hotel at the time.

The case was heard by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) and a jury of twelve.

Dr. O. C. Maze&garb conducted the plaintiff's case and Mr. E. Parry the defendant's.

James William Stewart, a station officer of the Wellington. South Fire Brigade station, said that at about 4.30 ajn. while he was in Cuba Street awaiting instructions, Mr. Wilson called out from the balcony of the hotel that a girl was missing, and that her room was orj the top floor. He went upstairs to investigate, and after being held up by the flames at the top for two or three minutes he found the body of the girl in the end room, reclining behind the door on the mattresses which were piled in the room to a height of three or four feet. He opened the window of the room and showed a light for those who carried the body downstairs. The mattresses were piled as high as the bottom of the window frame. :

To Mr. Parry the witness said that the girl could have climbed over the mattresses to get to-the window. The mattresses were not higher than the sill. He noticed nothing burned in the room where the girl was- found or in the girl's bedroom next to it. He did not know whether or not the girl could have opened the window in the end room. The window, was not blocked by the mattresses or by furniture.

Gordon Drummond, inspecting officer of the Wellington Fire Brigade, said that at no time after his arrival at the fire in response to the alarm at 4.5 a.m. did he hear anything about a girl being on the top floor. Later, after the fire had been extinguished, he inspected the girl's bedroom and found the bottom half of the windowremoved. It had been nailed at some time. The window was in two halves and movement of the bottom half caused the top half to move also. There was a sash window in the end i room, but it would not stay up. He remembered Mr. Wilson saying in j reply to a question by Detective G. Hogan that he had interfered with I the fire in the furnace after the first i call at about 1 a.m. OPINION AS TO CAUSE. It was his job, said the witness, to ascertain the cause of the outbreak. He came to the conclusion that the fire had started in the kitchen. He took a shovel and a sifter with which to work upon the "ashes .and found.a lot of peelings and rubbish among the ashes around, the. furnace. They cleared the ashes out and, discovered a.hole burned through the floor approximately 20 by 10 inches. It was on the edge of the concrete surround of the furnace, and it was practically underneath the chute. He saw two metal ash bins, full. There were some pieces of light boxwood near the hole. Mr. 'Wilson said • that he.. was in the habit of putting- the ashes into boxes in the morning after raking them out, when the bins were full. Witness suggested that a box containing ashes had been placed where the hole was in the floor but Mr. Wilson denied it. When witness reminded him of the statement about putting ashes in wooden boxes Mr. Wilson denied having made such a statement.

"I came to the conclusion that ashes had been placed in a box beside the furnace," said the witness, in reply to a question by Mr. Mazengarb.

His Honour said he did not think the witness should have been asked that question.

The hole in the floor was full of ashes, said the witness, and they found the pieces of boxwood among the ashes in the hole. The wood differed from that of the surroundings, and on that he based his theory that it was boxwood.

Mr. Parry: Did you qualify your remarks fey saying it was a theory when it was published in the Press that the fire started from a box of hot ashes?

The witness: I gave nothing to the Press.

Did you see the statement that did appear?—l read the accounts.

Did you notice it was stated as a fact that the Fire Brigade had reported that the origin of the fire was a box of hot ashes?rr-I don't remember seeing that.

Asked by Mr. Parry how close to the furnace the origin of the fire was, the witness said there was a screen around the furnace and the fire started outside the screen.

It was feasible that hot material would drop down the chute on to the floor, said the witness, and fall all around the place where the hole was in the floor.

Mr. Parry: Why the theory of the box being on the floor?

The witness: There was nothing to suggest that the fire started in the chute.

The witness agreed that burning ashes would fall down the chute, but he did not think they would burn in the floor an oblong hole 20 by 10 inches. . ANOTHER EXPLANATION. Mr. Parry: Is there anything to your mind to negative this explanation of how the fire started: supposing there was an earlier fire that night, and supposing that after that fire had been put out hot material, possibly from' the outside of the chimney, had fallen down into the grate and fallen partly on to the woodwork, is there any reason why that should not be a perfectly good explanation of how the fire started? .-..-.

The witness: If anything had fallen down the chimney it would have fallen on the. concrete surround underneath the furnace. ... . ■ ■■.

There would hot .be more than a foot or two from the edge of the furnace to the woodwork?next.to the concrete surround, the witness added.

"Might not hot material iiave fallen down the chimney on to the floor and set fire to it?", asked Mr. Parry.

The witness replied that the line of travel of the fife. was . against that theory. There would have to be a different set of circumstances if counsel's theory were correct. SUPERINTENDENT'S EVIDENCE. Charles Alexander,. Woolley, Super-

intendent of the Wellington Fire

Brigade > said it;:seemed to him that the fire started at the point where the hole was in .the floor.- - - " : / ] Mr. Parry: You made a report to "the Fire Board, on. 4Jls^£^,^ .. Witness: I -di&'t'f £*• „ "'V..'- -

Did you report that the origin of the fire was a box of hot ashes?—l stated ir,' my official report to the board that that was the supposed cause of the fire.

The witness said that he was perfectly satisfied that that was the way the fire started.

The witness elaborated upon this statement, and in reply to the Chief Justice said that the hole in the floor was clearly defined, being almost a perfect oblong.

Evidence was given by John Kimmins, an ambulance officer, as to the condition of the body. . During the cross-examination oi Mr. Woolley, who was recalled, Mr. Parry said that it was perfectly clear that the fire originated within a foot or two of the furnace. It was common ground that the fire brigade was summoned to the chimney earlier in the morning and he was going to suggest that it was an obvious inference that the first occurrence was not completely dealt with, though he was not suggesting any wrongful act on the part of the fire brigade. He submitted that if it. was negligent for Mr. Wilson to go to bed at 2.15 a.m. after the fire brigade left, it was negligent of the fire brigade to leave.

TO Mr. Mazengarb, the witness Woolley said that he would, say most definitely, although he made his observations from the ground level in Cuba Street, that the chimney was not on fire when the brigade: was called on the first occasion.

Norman Charles Haigh, deputy building .superintendent of the Welling ton City Council, said, he had examined the premises after the fire. There was nothing to indicate that the boiler had started the fire, and he came to the conclusion that it had not There were definite signs of fire on the partition, and they were on the opposite side of the partition from the boiler. The side of the partition nearest the boiler was lined with asbestos, and to the best of his recollection that had not been- burned through. He thought the fire started on the outside of the partition, which was matchliried, and. that' it worked up the wall to the shaft, which was matchlined inside, with, plaster on the outside. :..'■•"..

He found evidence which made him believe that the window frame .in; the, girl's bedroom had been nailed there' for some time and that it had come originally from another room. The window in the room in which the girl was found was a rise and fall sash but there was nothing to keep the sash up when it was raised. The servants' staircase from the,ground floor upwards had been floored over on the fifth floor, so that it gave no access from that floor. ; The Court adjourned until today.