Causes of Fires in London, 1890

Victorian Childcare

I've seen quite a few of these grim cases ... what did you do, after all, if you had no-one to watch your kids?

CORONER'S INQUEST.

Yesterday an inquisition was taken before Mr. Stirling in the Board-room of Middlesex Hospital, on view of the bodies of Ann and Sarah M'Grath, aged 4 and 5 years, who were burnt to death under the following lamentable circumstances.
    John Ainwrignt, a labourer, No. 19, Oxford-buildings, deposed, that he lived in the room on the second floor, under that in the occupation of the deceased children's father. About 12 o'clock on Thursday witness was in his own room, when he was alarmed by seeing flames burst into it from the room overhead. He rushed up stairs calling for assistance. The door of the room was padlocked. Witness broke it open, but no one could enter on account of the smoke and flames. Thcy obtained some water, with which they put the fire out. The children were then found huddled in each other's arms. They were quite black, and all their clothes were burnt off. Some persons took them away to the hospital. Witness found two pieces of wood in the window-seat. Everything was destroyed in the room.
    By the Jury.—The mother of the children is in prison, and has been away three months. The father is sometimes away from 4 o'clock in the morning till 7 at night.
    The Coroner ordered the father to be brought in. Mackintosh, the beadle, said that he heard from the neighbours that the father was attentive and kind to his children, and that whenever he could come home he did.
    The father stated that he left home that morning about 7 o'clock. He lit the fire, and then locked them in. The Coroner asked him if it were proper to Iock children of so tender an age in a room by themselves?
    The father said that he usually left the key with a woman, but who was out that day. He worked for Mr. Nicholls, the dust contractor, and was in all parts of the town. When he came home at night he heard them say their prayers and put them to bed. (here the poor fellow burst into tears and left the room.)
    Mr. W. T. C. Robinson, house-surgeon, said that the children were so severely burnt that it was impossible they could survive. One died the next morning at 5 o'clock, and the other at half-past 10.
    Verdict-- "Accidental death."

Incendiary Mice

It's rodent day, apparently, on the Cat's Meat Shop, courtesy of the Leisure Hour from 1860.

Did you know that mid-Victorian mice, like their modern counterparts with a fondness for electric cables, were a fire hazard? (can anyone forget the classic BBC headline - sometimes I really admire their copywriters - Mice Suspected in Deadly Cat Fire?)

But surely they did not manage to nibble through gas-pipes? No, it's marginally more plausible, but only just ..

Mice . . . are usually considered as being merely mischievous nuisances, whose sole descrtructive propensities are directed against candle-ends, cheese, and corn, nibbling through skirting-board, cupboards and boxes, and other trivial predations. We shall find, however, by a further investigation of facts, that mice, powerless as they may seem to be of producing evil on a large scale, may nevertheless cause a large and destructive loss of property, and even of life. . . . .
    A fire is discovered: how did it originate? What the green fat of the turtle is to the alderman . . . such is phosphorus to the mouse - a decided luxury, an epicurean morceau. Advantage of this well-known partiality is taken by the commonly used vermin poison, now extensivelyy sold under the name of "vermin-destroying paste," the basis and active principle of which is phosphorus. This is self-evident from its smell, its being luminous in the dark, the manner in which it burns, and the phosphoric acid produced by its combustion. A thin layer of this, spread upon bread-and-butter, and put in the neighbourhood of its holes, will lure the unsuspecting mouse from his ordinary cheese or candle diet to the poisoned and invariably fatal bait. We have watched its effects: at first it appears to act as a narcotic, or stupifying agent; the mouse walks and stumbles about, unheeding the presence of man; it seems intoxicated. Death, however, soon follows; and upon examining their bodies a few minutes afterwards, evidence of extensive inflammation of the bowels is to be found. . . .     
    Some few years ago, a fire originated in a cupboard, very mysteriously. Satisfactory and conclusive evidence was given at the time, that no lighted candle or fire had been in the room for months. The shelves of the cupboard, the floor, and the ceiling of the room underneath were burnt, when, fortunately discovery took place, and the ravages of the flames were stopped. . . . . All that was found were the remains of a lucifer match-box, and the ends of a few burnt matches. Evidence of the existence of numbers of mice was apparent, from the great quantity of the droppings of these little animals.
    It is hardly necessary to state that the power of ready ignition possessed by lucifers is derived, amongst other things, principally from phosphorus. In all probability, the mice endeavoured to get at the contents of thge box, attracted by the smell of the phosphorus; the friction caused by their continued nibbling was sufficient to ignite the matches; the box, the shelf, the floor would follow; and hence the catastrophe.
    This explanation appears to us to be more credible than that of wilful incendiarism, or spontaneous combustion ...

The phenomenon of spontaneous combustion solved, perhaps? Crime writers fond of the locked-room mystery, take note.