The Postcard
A postcard bearing no publisher's name that was posted using a ½d. stamp in Streatham on Wednesday the 30th. December 1903 to:
Miss C. H. Hovenden,
Chester House,
Mount Ephraim Road,
Streatham,
London S.W.
Local.
The message on the divided back was as follows:
"... me to go with you to
Little Hans Andersen on
Friday.
I shall be very pleased
to go.
With love from
Mary."
Little Hans Andersen
Little Hans Andersen is a 1903 musical fairy pantomime in two acts and seven scenes for children with lyrics by Basil Hood and music by Walter Slaughter.
It was a revised version of Hood and Slaughter's pantomime Hans Andersen's Fairytales, based on the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen which had opened at Terry's Theatre in December 1897.
After the last performance of the Savoy Opera A Princess of Kensington, the cast of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company dispersed.
Many of them moved to the Adelphi Theatre to appear in the new musical comedy The Earl and the Girl (1903), and they next appeared there in Little Hans Andersen from the 23rd. December 1903 to the 16th. January 1904 for 23 matinee performances. Hetty and Mary went to one of them.
Ventnor
Ventnor is a seaside resort established in the Victorian era on the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight, eleven miles (18 km) from Newport. It is situated south of St. Boniface Down, and built on steep slopes leading down to the sea.
The higher part of the town is referred to as Upper Ventnor (officially Lowtherville); the lower part, where most of the amenities are located, is known as Ventnor. The population of the parish in 2016 was about 5,800.
Ventnor became extremely fashionable as both a health and holiday resort in the late 19th. century, and was described as the 'English Mediterranean' and 'Mayfair by the Sea'.
However medical advances during the early twentieth century reduced its role as a health resort and, like other British seaside resorts, its summer holiday trade suffered from the changing nature of travel during the latter part of the century.
Ventnor's relatively sheltered location beneath the hilly chalk downland and south-facing orientation towards the English Channel produces a microclimate with more sunny days and fewer frosts than the rest of the island.
This allows many species of subtropical plant to flourish; Ventnor Botanic Garden is particularly notable.
Ventnor in the Two World Wars
-- The Great War and After
The physical fabric of the town was not affected by the Great War, although local businesses suffered from the suspension of the summer and winter resort trade.
Ventnor became a receiving centre for wounded soldiers, and the town's war memorial commemorates local men who died during the hostilities.
The summer holiday visitors returned in the 1920's, although the winter health trade never resumed. The town reached its zenith in the 1930's when steam packets operated between Southsea and the town's pier.
The Art Deco Winter Gardens opened in 1936/7. The relatively small sandy beach was ideal for bathing, and Victorian era hotels in the town's suburbs and near the sea, such as the Ventnor Towers Hotel, remained popular with tourists.
World War II and After
During World War II, the Isle of Wight became a heavily defended restricted area. The radar station at RAF Ventnor was attacked several times during 1940. The town itself was also bombed, and again in 1942.
By the end of the war, 120 buildings in the town had been destroyed, and nearly 1,500 damaged, with sixteen fatalities.
The holiday trade disappeared and was slow to return during post-war austerity. Nevertheless, by the early 1950's the number of tourists warranted 46 trains running between Ventnor and Ryde every summer Saturday.
Ventnor's Decline in Popularity
However by the 1960's, the British seaside holiday was facing competition from cheap foreign package tours and the rising popularity of motoring. The railway line to Ventnor station closed in 1966.
The pier, damaged by fire and the elements, had fallen into disuse and was finally dismantled in the 1990's. By the 1980's, according to author Michael Freeman:
"The town entered the twilight era that
characterised so many English seaside
places, with crumbling public facilities,
boarded-up shops, faded lodging houses
and hotels, not to mention unemployment".
Ventnor's Renaissance
However during more recent years, there have been signs of a renaissance, as Ventnor's strongly Victorian character has come back into fashion, along with development of the Haven, the re-opening of the Winter Gardens, the opening of new shops and restaurants, a lively cultural scene, and the growth in short- break travel.
The Troy Club Fire
So what else happened on the day that Mary posted the card to Hetty?
Well, on the 30th. December 1903, in Troy, New York, a fire partially destroyed the Troy club, killing club residents Moses T. Clough and William Shaw, and club guest Benjamin W. Kinney of Boston, Massachusetts.
The Iroquois Theatre Fire
Also on that day, the deadliest theatre fire in United States history took place, resulting in at least 602 deaths. Most of the victims were women and children attending a matinee performance of the musical Mr. Blue Beard, starring Eddie Foy Sr.
According to fire survivor Frank Slosson:
"The screams of the children for their
mothers and mothers for their children
I shall carry in my memory to my dying
day."
The Iroquois Theatre
The Iroquois Theatre was between State Street and Dearborn Street in Chicago. The syndicate that bankrolled its construction chose the location specifically to attract women on day trips from out of town who, it was thought, would be more comfortable attending a theatre near the safe, police-patrolled Loop shopping district.
The theatre opened on the 23rd. November 1903 after numerous delays due to labour unrest and the unexplained inability of architect Benjamin Marshall to complete the drawings on time.
Upon opening it was lauded by drama critics; Walter K. Hill wrote in the New York Clipper that the Iroquois was:
"The most beautiful in Chicago, and
competent judges state that few
theatres in America can rival its
architectural perfections".
The Iroquois had a capacity of 1,602 with three audience levels. The main floor, known as the orchestra or parquet, had approximately 700 seats on the same level as the foyer and Grand Stair Hall. The second level, the dress circle, had more than 400 seats. The third level, the gallery, had about 500 seats.
The theatre had only one entrance. A broad stairway which led from the foyer to the balcony level was also used to reach the stairs to the gallery level. Theatre designers claimed that this allowed patrons to 'see and be seen', regardless of the price of their seats.
However, the common stairway ignored Chicago fire ordinances that required separate stairways and exits for each balcony. The design proved disastrous: people exiting the gallery encountered a crowd leaving the balcony level, and people descending from the upper levels met the orchestra level patrons in the foyer.
The backstage areas were unusually large. Dressing rooms were on five levels, and an elevator was available to transport actors down to the stage level. A fly gallery (where scenery was hung) was also uncommonly large.
Fire Readiness Deficiencies Noted Before the Fire
Despite being billed as 'Absolutely Fireproof' in advertisements and playbills, numerous deficiencies in fire readiness were apparent:
-- An editor of Fireproof Magazine toured the building during construction and noted:
'The absence of an intake, or stage
draft shaft; the exposed reinforcement
of the proscenium arch; the presence
of wood trim on everything, and the
inadequate provision of exits.'
-- A Chicago Fire Department captain who made an unofficial tour of the theatre days before the official opening noted that there were no sprinklers, alarms, telephones, or water connections.
The captain pointed out the deficiencies to the theatre's fire warden, but was told that nothing could be done, as the fire warden would simply be dismissed if he brought the matter up with the syndicate of owners.
When the captain reported the matter to his commanding officer, he was again told that nothing could be done, as the theatre already had a fire warden.
Onsite Firefighting Equipment
The onsite firefighting equipment consisted of six 'Kilfyre' extinguishers. Kilfyre was a form of dry chemical fire extinguisher also sold for dousing chimney fires in residential houses. It consisted of a 2 in × 24 in (5 cm × 61 cm) tube of tin filled with about 3 pounds (1.4 kg) of white powder, mostly sodium bicarbonate.
The user was instructed to 'forcibly hurl' the contents of the tube at the base of the flames. However the fire took hold high above the stage, so the Kilfyre, when thrown, fell uselessly to the ground.
The Fire
On Wednesday the 30th. December 1903, the Iroquois presented a matinee performance of the popular Drury Lane musical Mr. Blue Beard, which had been playing at the Iroquois since opening night.
Attendance since opening night had been disappointing, people having been driven away by poor weather, labour unrest, and other factors.
The December 30th. performance however drew a much larger sellout audience. Tickets were sold for every seat in the house, plus hundreds more for the 'standing room' areas at the back of the theatre. Many of the estimated 2,100–2,200 patrons attending the matinee were children. The standing room areas were so crowded that some patrons instead sat in the aisles, blocking the exits.
At about 3:15 pm, shortly after the beginning of the second act, eight men and eight women were performing the double octet musical number 'In the Pale Moonlight', with the stage illuminated by blue-tinted spotlights to suggest a night scene.
Sparks from an arc light ignited a muslin curtain. A stagehand tried to douse the fire with the Kilfyre canisters provided, but it quickly spread to the fly gallery high above the stage. There, several thousand square feet of highly flammable painted canvas scenery flats were hung.
The stage manager tried to lower the asbestos fire curtain, but it snagged on a light reflector which stuck out under the proscenium arch. A chemist who later tested part of the curtain stated that it was mainly wood pulp mixed with asbestos, and would have been 'of no value in a fire'.
The principal actor Eddie Foy, who was preparing to go on stage at the time, ran out and attempted to calm the crowd, first making sure that his young son was in the care of a stagehand. He later wrote:
'It struck me as I looked out over the
crowd during the first act that I had
never before seen so many women
and children in the audience. Even
the gallery was full of mothers and
children'.
Foy was widely seen as a hero after the fire for his courage in remaining on stage and pleading with patrons not to panic, even as large chunks of burning scenery landed around him.
By this time, many of the patrons on all levels were desperately attempting to flee the theatre. Some had found the fire exits hidden behind draperies on the north side of the building, but found that they could not open the unfamiliar bascule locks.
Bar owner Frank Houseman, a former baseball player with the Chicago Colts, defied an usher who refused to open a door. He was able to open the door because his ice box at home had a similar lock. Houseman credited his friend, outfielder Charlie Dexter, with forcing open another door. A third door was opened either by brute force or by a blast of air, but most of the other doors could not be opened.
Many patrons panicked, crushing or trampling others in a desperate attempt to escape from the fire. Many were killed while trapped in dead ends or while trying to open what looked like doors with windows in them, but were actually only windows.
The dancers on stage were also forced to flee, along with the performers backstage and in the numerous dressing rooms. Several performers and stagehands escaped through the building's main rear exit, which consisted of an unusually large set of double doors that would have normally served the purpose of moving large fly sceneries and set pieces or props into the backstage area of the theatre.
When the large doors were opened, an icy wind blast rushed inside, fuelling the flames with fresh oxygen and causing the fire to grow substantially larger.
Many escaped from the burning theatre through the coal hatch and through windows in the dressing rooms, and others tried to escape via the west stage door, which opened inwards and became jammed as actors pressed toward the door frantically trying to get out.
By chance a passing railroad agent saw the crowd pressing against the door and unfastened the hinges from the outside using tools that he normally carried with him, allowing the actors and stagehands to escape.
Someone else opened the massive double freight doors in the north wall, normally used for scenery, allowing "a cyclonic blast" of cold air to rush into the building and create an enormous fireball.
As the vents above the stage were nailed or wired shut, the fireball instead travelled outwards, ducking under the stuck asbestos curtain and streaking toward the vents behind the dress circle and gallery 50 feet (15 m) away. The hot gases and flames passed over the heads of those in the orchestra seats and incinerated everything flammable in the gallery and dress circle levels, including patrons still trapped in those areas.
Those in the orchestra section exited into the foyer and out of the front door, but those in the dress circle and gallery who escaped the fireball could not reach the foyer because the iron grates (closed during performances to prevent patrons in the cheaper seats from sneaking downstairs to the more expensive lower levels) that barred the stairways were still in place. The largest death toll was at the base of these stairways, where hundreds of people were trampled, crushed, or asphyxiated.
Patrons who were able to escape via the emergency exits on the north side found themselves on the unfinished fire escapes. Many jumped or fell from the icy, narrow fire escapes to their deaths; the bodies of the first jumpers broke the falls of those who followed them.
Students from the Northwestern University building north of the theatre tried bridging the gap with a ladder and then with some boards between the rooftops, saving those few able to manage the makeshift cross-over.
The Iroquois had no fire alarm box or telephone. The Chicago Fire Department's Engine 13 was alerted to the fire by a stagehand who had been ordered to run from the burning theatre to the nearest firehouse. On the way to the scene, at approximately 3:33 pm, a member of Engine 13 activated an alarm box to call additional units.
Initial efforts focused on the people trapped on the fire escapes. The alley to the north of the theatre was icy, narrow, and full of smoke. Aerial ladders could not be used in the alley, and black nets, concealed by the smoke, proved useless.
The Chicago Police Department became involved when an officer patrolling the theatre district saw people emerge from the building in a panic, some with clothing on fire. He called in from a police box on Randolph Street, and police, summoned by whistles, soon converged on the scene to control traffic and aid with the evacuation. Some of the city's 30 uniformed police matrons were called in, because of the number of female casualties.
Due to the death of actor Jerome Sykes the previous day, the production of The Billionaires in which he was starring at the Illinois Theatre was canceled. Two victims of the Iroquois fire were members of the Billionaires cast who attended the Mr. Blue Beard performance.
Will J. Davis, the manager of both the Iroquois and Illinois Theatres, was at Sykes' funeral when he received a telephone call informing him of the Iroquois fire.
Aftermath of the Fire
Corpses were piled 10 high around the doors and windows. Many patrons had clambered over piles of bodies only to succumb themselves to the flames, smoke, and gases.
It is estimated that 575 people were killed on the day of the fire; at least 30 more died of injuries over the following weeks. (The Great Chicago Fire, by comparison, claimed the lives of approximately 300 people.)
Of the 300 or so actors, dancers, and stagehands, only five people died: the aerialist Nellie Reed, an actor in a bit part, an usher, and two female attendants. The aerialist's role was to fly out as a fairy over the audience on a trolley wire, showering them with pink carnations. She was trapped above the stage while waiting for her entrance; during the fire she fell, was gravely injured, and died of burns and internal injuries three days later.
An executive session of leaders of the ongoing liveryman's strike in Chicago determined to permit burial of the dead from the Iroquois fire without obstruction.
After the fire, it was alleged that fire inspectors had been bribed with free tickets to overlook code violations. The mayor ordered all theatres in Chicago closed for six weeks after the fire.
In New York City on New Year's Eve some theatres eliminated standing room. Building and fire codes were subsequently reformed; theatres were closed for retrofitting all around the country and in some cities in Europe. All theatre exits had to be clearly marked, and the doors configured so that, even if they could not be pulled open from the outside, they could be pushed open from the inside.
As a result of public outrage, many were charged with crimes, including Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr. Most charges were dismissed three years later, however, because of the delaying tactics of the owners' lawyers and their use of loopholes and inadequacies in the city's building and safety ordinances.
The exterior of the Iroquois was left largely intact. The building later reopened as the Colonial Theatre, which was demolished in 1925 to make way for the Oriental Theatre.
Additional Factors Reducing Survivability
The risks inherent in flammable scenery and props were recognized even in 1903. Two features, a safety curtain that confines fire to the stage area and smoke doors that allow smoke and heat to escape through the roof above the stage, combine to increase fire safety in theatres.
This arrangement creates negative pressure; the stage area becomes a chimney, and fresh, breathable air is sucked through the exit doors into the audience area. At the Iroquois, the smoke doors above the stage were fastened closed. This meant that smoke flowed out of the building through many of the same exits people were trying to use to escape.
Skylights on the roof of the stage, which were intended to open automatically during a fire and allow smoke and heat to escape, were fastened closed.
The curtain was not tested periodically, and it became stuck when theatre personnel tried to lower it. The curtain was not fireproof. Curtains made with asbestos interwoven with wire create a strong and effective barrier against fire. However the asbestos curtain at the Iroquois not only failed to lower, but also proved to be both weak and flammable. Chemist Gustave J. Johnson analysed a piece of the material after the fire:
"It was largely wood pulp. By mixing
pulp with asbestos fibre, the life of the
curtain is prolonged, the cost is
cheapened, and the wire foundation
may be dispensed with. It results in a
curtain that may get inside city
ordinances, but is of no value in a fire."
Emergency Evacuation
The owners of the theatre claimed that the 30 exits would allow everyone inside to escape the building within five minutes. Audiences in 1903 were aware of the hazard of fire, particularly after at least 384 people died in the Ringtheater fire in Vienna, Austria.
Exit doors opened inward into the auditorium. The crowd pressed against the doors keeping them closed. When people were able to pull the doors open enough to get out, some people were then wedged in the door opening as people continued to push on the door. Today, exit doors always open outward, so that people trying to escape will tend to push the doors open.
There were no exit signs. Many exits were concealed by flammable drapery, and many were locked to stop people sneaking in to the theatre. Even in recent years locked exit doors are often a contributing factor to the number of fatalities caused by fires in public venues.
Theatre staff had never had a fire drill. They were unfamiliar with the exits, and some refused to open locked exit doors.
There was no emergency lighting. The main auditorium lights were never switched on, so the theatre remained dimly lit, as during a performance. When tons of burning scenery collapsed onto the stage, the electrical switchboard was destroyed and all electric lights went out.
During performances, the stairways were blocked with iron gates to prevent people with inexpensive tickets from taking seats in other parts of the theatre. (Even though on the day of the fire, there were no empty seats in the house.)
Many of the exit routes were confusing.
There were several ornamental 'doors' that looked like exits, but were not. Two hundred people died in one passageway that proved not to be an exit.
Iron fire escapes on the north wall led to at least 125 deaths. The upper platform had no way of getting down. People were trapped on all levels because the icy, narrow stairs and ladders were dangerous to use. Also smoke and flames blocked the exterior way down.
Developments Following the Fire
The Iroquois fire prompted widespread implementation of the panic bar, first invented in the United Kingdom following the Victoria Hall disaster. Panic exit devices are now required by building codes for high-occupancy spaces, and were mass manufactured in the US following the fire.
A second result of the fire was the requirement that an asbestos fire curtain (or sheet metal screen) be raised before each performance and lowered afterwards.
The third result was that all doors in public buildings must open in the direction of egress, but that practice did not become national until the Collinwood School Fire of 1908.
Margaret Frances Sullivan
Also on the 30th. December 1903, the body of famed American journalist Margaret Frances Sullivan, who had died on the 28th. December, was taken to Detroit, Michigan, for burial.
The news of the Iroquois fire overshadowed that of Sullivan's death, denying her the published tributes she might otherwise have received.
