For the rescue of three people at a fire at this address, during which Fm Patrick Fitzgerald was killed when a wall fell on him. The following details appeared in The Times on the following day.
‘Shortly before 4 o’clock yesterday morning a fire which was attended with a fatal result to one of the fire brigade men, occurred at 32 Charlton Street, Somers Town, in a public house known as the Coffee House. The house was a very old one, its existence dating from the time when gardens were abundant in Euston Road. The fire was discovered by a policeman, who gave the alarm, and engines speedily arrived. Several persons who were in great danger were rescued by a fire-escape under the charge of a fireman named Gooch. The engines were then brought into action. A fireman named Patrick Fitzgerald was standing on the pavement getting the hose up, when the front of the house suddenly fell, burying him beneath the ruins. Every effort was made to extricate him and only a few minutes elapsed before the rubbish was cleared sufficiently to enable his body to be removed. Life however was found to be extinct. The unfortunate man had been in the brigade for 15 months.’

Gooch was one of the first ‘nineteen’, (twelth), to receive the Council’s Silver Medal for Extraordinary Bravery, No individual citations were recorded for these nineteen.

Return to History main page