The following melancholy accident occurred in the house of Mrs. Clitherow, fire-work-maker; near Halfmoon-alley, Bishopsgate-street: Mrs. Clitherow, with two journeymen, her son, and eldest daughter, being at work in her shop, to complete some orders against Friday, about half past one o'clock in the morning some tea was proposed as a refreshment; while this was drinking, some of the materials upon which they had been at work, by unknown means, took fire, when Mrs. Clitherow's eldest daughter ran up stairs to alarm her three sisters, who were in bed. Her sisters pressing her as to the safety of her mother, she came down again, but not till the flames had got to such an height, that, every attempt to get out of the front door proving abortive, she, with one of the men, got into the yard.
She there first perceived that her clothes were on fire, which the man had scarcely extinguished, by assisting her to get into the water-tub, before a beam fell, with the explosion of the roof, and broke his arm. At the same time, both the roof and the gable end of the next house, Mr. Gibbs's, was forced into the street, by which a person, who lodged in the garret, was thrown out of his bed upon the ground at several yards distance; this man's thighs were broke, and he is otherwise much hurt.
It was not till some time after the principal explosion, that the two unhappy people in Mrs. Clitherow's yard were found by the populace almost entombed in the smoking ruins: the young woman was conveyed to St. Bartholomew's hospital, and the two men to St. Thomas's - two of whom are since dead.
It is supposed that her mother and the other journeyman fell a sacrifice to an attempt to extinguish the flames in the shop below, as the principal part of the powder, which was deposited in the garret, was a considerable time before it took fire.
Happily, only six lives were lost, viz. Mrs. Clitherow, one journeyman, her son, and three daughters; nor were any other persons hurt than those above-mentioned.
Mrs. Clitherow's house is entirely consumed, but the two adjacent are only considerably damaged, as were the windows and tiling of almost all the houses as far off the spot as Broad-street Buildings.
It is remarkable, that the late husband of Mrs. Clitherow had a similar accident on the same spot about thirty years since, when several lives were lost
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