Civic funeral for 41 Ballantynes fire victims

On 18 November 1947 Ballantynes, a Christchurch department store and local institution, suffered the worst fire in New Zealand's history. It was cup week and the city was buzzing with visitors and shoppers. By mid-afternoon, when the fire began, an estimated 250-300 people were shopping at Ballantynes. They were served by a staff of 458.

At the time the store was made up of eight buildings, converted into ‘a perplexing maze’ by openings in the walls. The fire is thought to have started in one of the basements of the Congreves building. At approximately 3.35 p.m. staff member Percy Stringer observed smoke emerging from the stairwell to this basement. He proceeded downstairs but on encountering fumes and hot smoke returned to the ground floor. He asked another staff member, Edith Drake, to alert the fire brigade and management that there was a ‘cellar fire’.

Stringer and other staff, including assistant manager Roger Ballantyne, tried vainly to put out the fire. As smoke began to drift into other parts of the ground floor Ballantyne asked another staff member, Eric Boon, to call the fire brigade again. Though staff later confirmed witnessing an earlier call, Boon's call at 3.46 p.m. was the first the brigade logged as receiving. The delay in placing the call, or in the brigade's response, would contribute to the tragic events that followed. By the time the brigade arrived at 3.48 p.m. – undermanned and ill-equipped to deal with anything but a cellar fire – the fire was already ‘surging out of control through all the horizontal and vertical vents and apertures’.

The ‘disturbing dimensions’ of the fire were not yet apparent to those on the ground floor. They believed the smoke, which by now was emerging from the first floor windows, was a result of the cellar fire and that this could still be contained. No thought was given to issuing a general evacuation of the building. Some staff, returning from their tea break, were told to return to work. Customers continued their shopping, and more even entered the store – one as late at 3.56 p.m.

The initiative to evacuate eventually came from individual staff members who cleared their areas of fellow staff and customers as the smoke increased. Thanks in part to their efforts all customers and most staff escaped unscathed. Some staff, notably the ‘millinery girls’ and those working in credit and accounts, were less fortunate – they found themselves trapped. The loss of life amongst the company's staff became clear when they assembled at the King Edwards Barracks at 8 p.m. for a roll call. Of the 49 staff who did not respond, 40 had perished in the fire. Violet Cody, who had been pregnant with her first child, also died after jumping from the burning building.

A civic funeral was held in the days that followed. Approximately 800 family and friends filled Christchurch Cathedral for the church service and still more gathered in the Square outside. The funeral procession was so long that before the last of the 41 cars left the Square, the first was arriving at Ruru Lawn Cemetery in Bromley, over 4 km away. People lined the streets all along the procession's route and approximately 10,000 attended the graveside service.

A Commission of Inquiry into the fire found Ballantynes and the fire brigade responsible for the high loss of life. Ballantynes accepted its share of responsibility, but other businesses would probably have found themselves equally unprepared. The Commission's recommendations proved a catalyst for change ‘in the way public buildings safeguarded staff and customers, and in the administration of the fire brigade’. When Ballantynes reopened on the same site in temporary premises in 1948, fire alarms had been installed and a new pamphlet on safety was issued to staff. The first rule – printed in bold – was how to evacuate during an emergency.

In 2005 Ballantynes celebrated its sesquicentenary. Gordon Ogilvie, the author of a history commissioned to mark this occasion, commented that the company's recovery following the fire was ‘one of the most remarkable stories in New Zealand's commercial history’.

Image: Ballantynes fire (Archives NZ, Christchurch)