The remains of the Masonic Hotel after the May 23, 1896 fire.
Gail Pope is social history curator at the MTG.
OPINION
On May 23, 1896 at 5am, the sleepy township of Napier was awakened by the strident ringing of a fire bell. Because of a recent spate of inconsequential blazes, the alarm no longer had the “magical effect it once did”, causing unconcerned inhabitants to simply turn over and resume their dreams.
The urgent and persistent clanging from both the Napier and Ahuriri Fire Station alarms continued, however, and those who arose beheld a “magnificent spectacle of great sheets of flames shooting upward”. The Masonic Hotel on Marine Parade was ablaze, with dense volumes of smoke and flame issuing through the roof.
Fire had broken out in the hotel’s kitchen sometime during the night, and the resultant “suffocating fumes of smoke” rapidly seeped through every crevice in the wooden structure. Luckily a servant, sleeping in a bedroom above the kitchen, was alerted by the smoke, and through the blackness scrambled to wake those in adjoining rooms, before racing downstairs to “peal out the alarm” on the Masonic Hotel fire bell.
Spreading rapidly the “very heart of the building” was consumed by an “angry mass of flame” within what seemed like minutes. As the Napier Fire Station was located in Herschell St, firemen were quickly able to unravel hoses and with “considerable promptness” had jets of water directed at the “burning mass”.
At the height of the fire, the Napier Brigade had 10 leads of hose, while the “Spit contingent” had four, all connected to hydrants. These hoses were laid on from Marine Parade as well as Hastings and Emerson Sts, while the fire brigade’s steam engine sent through salt water from the well in Tennyson Street. During this intense battle, so large was the volume of water used that the Napier reservoir fell just under a metre, while the Napier Waterworks engine, which supplied the water, “ran at full throttle”.
Because brick buildings surrounded the Masonic, firemen were able to confine the flames to the hotel and the old wooden portion of Palmer’s Livery Stables on Marine Parade. Fortunately, before the fire took hold in the stables, “willing hands” had evacuated all horses.
Vulnerable wooden buildings were situated across the road on Hastings and Tennyson Streets, however, and at risk to the onslaught of leaping flames and sparks. To thwart the danger, firemen swarmed onto roofs and any other vantage point they could find, fighting the conflagration in the “face of blinding heat” with such skill and determination that the danger was averted.
Luckily there was no wind, but at the height of the inferno, the heat proved so intense that the seats lining Marine Parade became too hot to touch. Not wishing to miss any of the tableau, spectators standing near them were compelled to slowly inch backward towards the shoreline to prevent being scorched.
Firemen and volunteers “bravely distinguished themselves” to such an extent that the Hawke’s Bay Herald journalist stated, “all deserve thanks for their plucky conduct”. Several suffered from the effects of fire – one of the many “willing volunteers” was rendered unconscious by “suffocating smoke” and had to be carried outside to recover, while Fire Superintendent Waterworth “was stunned by the force of a blow” from a hose branch attachment knocking him temporarily unconscious. Waterworth recovered shortly afterwards and quickly resumed his duties.
By eight o’clock in the morning, the Napier and Spit Fire Brigades, “under efficient management, had nobly mastered the flames” so that the fire “was practically suppressed”. As a precautionary measure against reignition, water was sprayed on the smouldering embers until midday.
Most of the hotel guests lost their personal belongings, “indeed several had barely time to dress, so rapidly did the fire spread”. One of the disadvantaged was Mr J McGinty, “teacher of music, piano, singing, and voice production and the art of rendering”, whose room was directly above the fire – he lost everything. The Newman family from Wanganui, who were “wintering in Napier”, had in their luggage “jewellery and other valuables” worth £500 (now around $165,000). The following morning a search in the embers only recovered a “few diamond rings”.
Desecration of buildings and belongings was not only confined to the hotel. Many businesses suffered from water damage, including Bereford’s tobacco shop whose premises were flooded “as a stream of water poured in at the back door and came out the front”, while Smythe’s bookshop “lost whole rows of books stacked on shelves”. However, the “greatest sufferer” was Burnet’s Hat and Cap Factory, as water poured through the ceiling saturating most of their millinery merchandise.
How the fire started remained a mystery as, before the servants retired for the night, all fires in the kitchen had been damped down and lamps extinguished. The following day, men were occupied in removing debris to clear the site in immediate readiness for rebuilding a new hotel.
On June 3, 1897, the formal opening of the newly built Masonic Hotel occurred. Mayor Swan paid a well-deserved tribute to Neal and Close, owners of the property, for having erected the “finest and most commodious of structures” in Napier, with the handsome frontage extending right to the top floor, thereby affording a “magnificent view of the Pacific”.
John Close responded to Mayor Swan stating that he had “frequently been told that the new Masonic was far too large and in advance of the time”, but he quietly added, “everything that Neal and Close does is to advance the city of Napier”, a sentiment loudly applauded. The newly built Masonic sadly only lasted almost 34 years, collapsing in the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake.
