At 1 a.m., August 1, 1911, a fire alarm was sounded at the Hamilton Asylum for the Insane, marking the discovery of what the Spectator called “probably the most horrible conflagration that it has been the misfortune of the district to suffer.”
The fire was discovered in a storeroom by night watchman, Fred Basset. After futilely trying to put out the blaze himself, Fred turned in the alarm.
The asylum’s own fire brigade, under the leadership of Chief Ironsides, had hoses turned on the flames within a matter of minutes. However, the flames were spreading so quickly that a call was soon sent to Hamilton’s Central Fire station requesting immediate assistance.
Fire Chief Ten Eyck and his men were already out at a lively blaze just past the far west end of Charlton Avenue at the Frid Brick yards. Looking back along the brow of the escarpment, the firemen could see the flames erupting through the roof of the main asylum building.
“Let her go, boys, you’ve got her now!” yelled the chief to his men. He then ordered that one hose be left at the smoldering brick yard fire scene in case the fire happened to flare up again :
“Hardly a word escaped the lips of the brave fire ladies as they glanced southward and upward in a grave realization that before them was the real task and that human lives were at stake. Above the clear clanging of the gong and the piercing siren whistle could be heard the commanding tones of the officers as they issued their instructions to the chauffer and those who rode behind. It was a mad race.” (HERALD)
After turning right off Charlton Avenue, the firefighters proceeded up James Street South towards the mountain. When they arrived at the base of the mountain, the tired horses had to stop because they did not have the stamina to pull the heavy equipment up the steep grade.
Fortunately, the chief and a number of his men were riding in the fire department’s new “auto truck” which was able to make the hill at a speed of 15 miles per hour, and delivered the city firemen to the scene of the blaze within 12 minutes of the first alarm.
Aldermen Birch, who had happened to be with the firemen at the Frid brick yards, had the foresight to call ahead to the engineer of the James street Incline Railway who soon had got up enough steam to get the incline in operation, allowing the horse-drawn equipment to be raised to the top of the escarpment.
The firemen quickly connected their hoses and within moments streams of water were trained on the building, aiming for windows. Not content with just this action, the chief sent some men into the building itself.
Running up flight after flight of stairs, carrying hoses, the men finally reached a hall, “along which the flames were spreading as if with a sort of hideous joy.” (Herald)
Stepping directly into the force of the flames, the men gradually drove it back.
“My God, I’m done; take this line; I must have air!” said one of the firemen before he fell from the ranks. Rushing to a window, the fireman broke it with his helmet and thrust his head out gasping for pure air.
“Stick to it, boys, stick to it,” cried the chief who was just behind his men in the dense, smoke-filled corridor, encouraging them in their battle with the flames.
Seeing that his men had secured that hallway, the chief went outside to check on conditions elsewhere in the building. The chief could see flames on the roof of the asylum.
The asylum inmates were in a state of great distress. A Spectator reporter on the scene described the chaos as follows:
“From the roof and the top story windows flashed the angry tongues of fire, while black smoke was belching forth from the building which looked like a volcano. Above the crackling rafters, the crash of the firemen’s axes, and the hiss of water, were the shrieks and screams of the terrified patients, who were rushing from window to window and looking through the iron screens which fortunately prevented them jumping out to sure death. One patient in the refractory ward, which was directly under the section that was burning, was seen rattling the wire screens and foaming with rage.” (SPEC)
From the lower city, the flames “which threw jets to a great height,” could be seen, and soon a stream of people ascended the mountain to watch the spectacle. As these people approached the scene of the fire, the Herald reporter noted that “the screams of the terrified inmates could be heard in the stillness of the night.” (Herald)
The asylum staff immediately put into action an evacuation plan. Great care had to be exercised because there could have been severe difficulties if the patients got out of hand. The Spectator reporter described the inmates as being “without normal self-possession at any time, and under the excitement of their terrible position, were raging mad with terror.”
Generally the evacuation went smoothly, although there was some confusion. Staff members, roused in the middle of the night, just put on any clothes that were handy, and, occasionally, staff members were mistaken for patients, and vice versa.
Fireman Thomas Fitzgerald, a tiller man on truck No. 2 of the Central Fire station, rushed up to the chief and said, “there are some people up there, Chief; I think we had better go up.”
Immediately an extension ladder was set up and the chief ordered Fitzgerald to go up it. Rushing up the ladder “like a squirrel,” Fitzgerald then crawled along a narrow sill outside the windows of the trapped inmates.
“There’s a whole bunch in here,” Fitzgerald called down, “get a life net” In a moment a large net was positioned, held by a team of firefighters, policemen, asylum attendants and civilians.
Time and time again, Fireman Fitzgerald would lunge through a window in an attempt to rescue the terrified old men, who tried to fight off their rescuer. Four men were pulled out of the room and thrown down into the life net.
In describing the rescue afterwards, Fitzgerald told the reporters that “one of the old men was on his knees in front of the screened window with his folded hands held up to the opening. One other old man was lying on the floor, and three were shouting and screaming and dancing about the room.”
After successfully rescuing four men, “Fitz” tried to save a fifth, an inmate who weighed over 200 pounds and was partially paralyzed. After trying unsuccessfully to carry him to the window, the fireman felt the flames blistering his own skin. He could also see the inmate’s body blister and char.
Staggering to the window, Fitzgerald himself was rescued by one of his comrades.
“You’re a brick, Tom, you’re a brick,” the firemen told Fitzgerald as he was carried down the ladder. After he collapsed into unconsciousness, Fitzgerald was laid out on the grass and was brought around in a few minutes.
Just after Fitzgerald had been dragged to safety, the roof of the fourth floor fell inward. Any further rescues were impossible. After a two hour battle, the asylum fire was officially declared to be out at 3 a.m.
Clearing away the rubble of the collapsed roof, the firefighters and policemen began “the melancholy task of removing the remains, (a task which) was rendered particularly gruesome by reason of the terribly burned condition of some of the bodies. (SPEC)
A few of the bodies were discovered “in attitudes of prayer, others looked as if shrinking from the flames.”
One by one, the bodies and pieces of bodies were carried out on a stretcher by “four bare-headed policemen in a gruesome procession” to a small building behind the furnace house. Eight asylum inmates perished in the blaze.
Among the spectators at the asylum fire were many relatives of inmates. Confusion reigned as to the names of the dead and nothing could be done to allay anyone’s fears until the bodies could be identified and all the other inmates accounted for.
Colonel John Hendrie was instrumental in coordinating any information coming from the asylum. He arranged for an official list of the dead to be drawn up as quickly as possible so that relatives could be informed.
Early the next morning, Police Constable Reynolds noticed a peculiar individual sitting alone on a Gore Park bench.
“What are you doing here?” the constable asked.
“Oh, I just heard that the silver king was going to give away money this morning at 10 o’clock and I thought I would get down here to the bank in time,” was the response.
Recognizing the man as “an escaped lunatic,” the constable asked him how he got downtown. He answered, “Oh, we had a big fire up there and I got away about 5:30 this morning.”
After describing the flames in great detail, the man was ordered to come with the police officer. He tried to dash away but was soon collared by Constable Reynolds.
“I’ll go along because I told want to have any trouble with a man your size, you’re too big!” the asylum patient said of his decision to give up.
Also the morning after the fire, a delegation from the provincial government arrived in the city to investigate the cause of the blaze at the asylum. Provincial Inspector E. R. Rogers, F. R. Heaks, provincial architect and D. M. Metcalf, mechanical inspector of the department of public works immediately set up an office. Fred Basset and several other employees of the Hamilton asylum were seen being taken away in cabs to be interviewed by the men from Toronto.
The Hamilton Asylum for the Insane, Ontario’s largest with an inmate population of 1231 and a staff of 175, had been built thirty four years earlier, in 1877. The institution was considered to have some major drawbacks, especially the overcrowded nature of most of the wards.
Hamilton Controller Bailey, inspecting the scene of the tragic fire, noticed that there were small rooms which held 11 beds and some rooms, only slightly larger, held 14 beds. “It is a shame,” he said, “to make these poor people sleep like that. It is not sanitary and it is certainly not right that unfortunates should be made to sleep under such conditions.”
“Many Theories as to Cause of Asylum Fire : Authorities Refuse to Speak Till the Inquest : Work of Restoration Has Already Been Started”
Hamilton Spectator August 2, 1911
The community has not recovered today from the horror caused by the terrible holocaust at the Hamilton asylum in the early hours of yesterday morning, and it was the subject of conversation in all quarters. Most of the talk centered around the possible causes of outbreak, and in the absence of specific information on the subject, all sorts of alarming and fantastic theories were discussed and disseminated. To the ordinary but highly imaginative personage, the theory of the fire being started by an elementary piece of badly-insulated electric light wire was much too unromantic, and nothing short of a fiendish scheme on the part of some desperate maniac to destroy the building and the lives of hundreds would be accepted by them as a solution of the enigma of how the conflagration was initiated.
The asylum authorities, though more reticent than ever this morning, dismissed the fiend and match theories as preposterous pointing out that the place where the blaze obviously originated was in the storeroom, which was not accessible at the time to the patients. It was also stated that none of them are allowed matches either.
Much discussion is going on over the fact that the main building is not provided with fire escapes, and many argue that this should be remedied at once.
Among the other stories going the rounds is one about the fire engine of the asylum not being in working order, this being given as the reason why the fire spread so rapidly after it was discovered. In connection with this, Dr. English, the superintendent, said that the fire apparatus of the asylum worked splendidly, though he would not specify whether the engine was working or not, stating that such questions could only be answered by the coroner’s jury.
George Lynch-Staunton, K. C., has been appointed by the government to look after its interests at the inquest which will be held on Friday evening. He went up to the asylum yesterday afternoon, and had a long talk with Dr. English, explaining that his conversation was simply to enable him to familiarize himself with the details of the fire.
Another conference was held yesterday afternoon between Hon. John S. Hendrie, Dr. English and Provincial Inspector Rogers, at which it was decided to go ahead at once with the restoration work. The reason why the government is in such a hurry to get the repairing started is because the asylum is very much crowded, and the accommodation provided by the section burned out is badly needed.
Inspector Rogers left the city last night for Toronto, but positively declined to give out further information, stating that anything more that he had to say he would put into the report that he would make to the department.
HISTORY AND DATA
The Hamilton asylum for the insane was completed and first occupied in 1877, being originally intended as an inebriate asylum. It was from the beginning, however, adapted to general purposes of an insanity hospital and asylum. The main building is a large red brick structure, with a corridor running through the centre, dividing the building into two wings, one used for the men, the other for women. An addition has been built o the men’s wing since 1877 – practically a separate “cottage.” A number of such cottages have been subsequently erected on the grounds.
The Hamilton asylum is the largest in the province, having an insane population of 1,231 in June of this year. The attendants in direct attendance upon the insane are calculated at the ratio of one to eleven. In the United States one to seven or eight is the rule. Hamilton has 175 employees altogether, including farmers and gardeners for the large grounds cultivated, and mechanics. The medical staff includes three doctors, an assistant superintendent, and superintendent Dr. Walter Murray English. Dr. James Russell, one of the acknowledged leading scholars and mental alienists of America, was the first superintendent, retiring after twenty-five years, when Dr. English came from London o take charge.
The government of Ontario carries all insurance upon public buildings belonging to the province, except in the case of the Central prison, which means that the province will have to foot the bill for the fire yesterday.
There are ten insanity asylums in Ontario, the oldest being that of Toronto, which was established in 1842.
Following is the complete list, showing date of establishment and insane population.
Year Insane Pop.
Hamilton 1877 1,231
London 1871 1,077
Toronto 1842 881
Mimico 1890 620
Kingston 1876 567
Brockville 1895 693
Cobourg 1902 155
Penetang 1904 368
Orillia 1861 813
Woodstock 1905 182
Hamilton asylum is equipped with a fire sprinkler system, chemical tanks for incipient fires, and maintains a fire brigade with a steam fire engine. The engineer of the lighting and heating plant has charge, the assistant engineer is first officer, the carpenter, the electrician, and the chief guards in each ward constitute the other officers. No patients are included in the fire brigade, nor are patients included in the regular fire drill at irregular intervals, which has been the established custom for some time at the asylum. None of the provincial asylums are built upon the fireproof plan of construction, most of them being erected before steel building became common. Kingston asylum, being o stone, is an exception to the red brick buildings which have become the type of Ontario’s lunatic asylums, as is the insane hospital at Penetang, once a reformatory.
The interior of the local building is arranged, for the most part, in small rooms, the staff offices occupying the front of the ground floor. The top floor is reserved for bedrooms for the attendants.
A few wards are maintained for senile cases, though as a general rule insane patients cannot be put together into large dormitories. The men burned yesterday were senile cases.
The sexes in provincial asylums run about even, there being 603 men and 628 women at the Hamilton asylum at the time of the fire yesterday. The men’s wing is to the left of the corridor as one enters the main door. Being set close to the edge of the mountain, the elevation gives a more than ordinary draft of air, which no doubt added to the difficulty of fighting the fire.
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