This week 60 years ago: Two Clerkenwell fire station crew members die in Smithfield Market disaster
Clouds of smoke drift over the Smithfield meat market in London after an underground fire at the Union Cold Storage Company. - Credit: PA Archive/PA Images
Two hero firefighters from Clerkenwell Fire Station died in the Smithfield Market disaster.
Three hundred people turned out for the funeral processions, starting outside the Rosebery Avenue station, of station officer Jack Fourt-Wells and fireman Richard Stocking.
The market blaze, just outside Islington’s Charterhouse Street boundary, started at the Union Cold Storage Co and burned for three days.
The fire was so bad that about 1,700 firefighters, and 389 fire engines, were called.
Mr Fourt-Wells and Mr Stocking lost their lives in the cold storage basement in the early stages of the battle.
You may also want to watch:
They were wearing inadequate breathing apparatus, and their deaths prompted London Fire Brigade to overhaul its oxygen equipment and safety procedures.
Dozens more were injured. Millions of gallons of water were squirted, and the damage amounted to £2million: the equivalent of £44m today, according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator.
Most Read
- 1 'Good Samaritan' chased off random attacker who hit woman
- 2 Man wanted in connection with Kings Cross sex assault
- 3 Thornhill School's 'dream' library opens after parents' 'relentless' fundraising efforts
- 4 Islington arts groups get £6.6m government Covid boost
- 5 Islington's great beer gardens - reopening today
- 6 Campaigners debate future of Holloway Women's Building with Peabody Trust
- 7 Hackney and Islington have some of the loudest neighbours in London
- 8 Drugs and cash seized in multi-force police op
- 9 Bunhill by-election set to go-ahead following Claudia Webbe's resignation
- 10 Can you help identify this man?