Qualla: Worsley Hotel fire https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Worsley Hotel fire https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire Worsley Hotel fire: Introduction https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire/ At 03:32 on Friday 13 December 1974, the first 999 call from the Worsley Hotel on Clifton Gardens reached A21 Paddington fire station. The hotel was actually a row of connected Edwardian houses, four and five storeys high, used by the London hotel industry to house its workers - young people from France, the Philippines, Mauritius, Italy, Hampshire, and Kent, training as waiters and porters and trainee managers, sleeping in cramped rooms when the hotels they served had closed for the night. Two fires had been set deliberately. By the time the first appliances arrived a few minutes later, the building was already lost. By the time the fire was under control at 08:02, seven people had died: a probationary firefighter and six hotel workers whose names are recorded in the London Fire Brigade's official history.

Read more: Worsley Hotel fire on Qualla

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/worsley-hotel-fire-wp/gcpv-worsley-hotel-fire-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Worsley Hotel fire: The Building https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire/ Numbers 3 to 19 Clifton Gardens, Maida Vale, ran the length of a quiet residential street between Warwick Avenue and Maida Vale. The houses were Edwardian, of four or five storeys, originally built for middle-class families. By 1974 they had been knocked through internally to for...

Read more: Worsley Hotel fire on Qualla

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/worsley-hotel-fire-wp/gcpv-worsley-hotel-fire-the-building.mp3 0:06 2 full Worsley Hotel fire: The Fire https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire/ Two fires were lit in the early hours of the morning, in different parts of the building. Smoke woke some residents, who then alerted others as best they could. One man tried to use a fire extinguisher on a small fire but did not know how to operate it. The 999 calls reached A21 ...

Read more: Worsley Hotel fire on Qualla

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/worsley-hotel-fire-wp/gcpv-worsley-hotel-fire-the-fire.mp3 0:06 3 full Worsley Hotel fire: Hamish Pettit https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire/ A four-man crew - three firemen and a Station Officer - entered a second-floor room searching for the seat of the fire. While they were inside, the floors above gave way. The partial collapse of the roof, combined with the weight of a large water tank above them, brought the uppe...

Read more: Worsley Hotel fire on Qualla

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/worsley-hotel-fire-wp/gcpv-worsley-hotel-fire-hamish-pettit.mp3 0:06 4 full Worsley Hotel fire: The Other Six https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire/ The other six people who died that morning lived on the upper floors of the building, where the fire spread most quickly. Their bodies were found after the fire was out. The London Fire Brigade's official record names them: Patrick Dermitte, a seventeen-year-old waiter from Franc...

Read more: Worsley Hotel fire on Qualla

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/worsley-hotel-fire-wp/gcpv-worsley-hotel-fire-the-other-six.mp3 0:06 5 full Worsley Hotel fire: Justice and Aftermath https://qualla.com/worsley-hotel-fire/ A kitchen porter named Edward Mansfield, aged forty-one, was charged at the Old Bailey on 10 July 1975 with three arsons (the Worsley fire and two later fires at the Piccadilly Hotel) and the murders of the seven victims. The first trial ended on 23 July when the jury could not r...

Read more: Worsley Hotel fire on Qualla

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/worsley-hotel-fire-wp/gcpv-worsley-hotel-fire-justice-and-aftermath.mp3 0:06 6 full