A Dreadful Burning Fatality:

Dreadful Burning Fatality.

THREE CHILDREN PRACTICALLY CREMATED.
A WHOLE FAMILY DESTROYED. ,

An awful affliction befell Mr Edward Bishop, shift boss on the Great Boulder mine last evening, where by his three daughters were burnt to death in the ruins of his home which was razed to the ground. Mr Bishop lived at 86 Clancy street in a large four roomed iron house and he also owns a house adjoining. He was engaged in making repairs to it yesterday evening while Mrs Bishop was attending to her household duties. About 6 o’clock she bathed her three children, Emily Elizabeth, aged 3 1/2 years, Eva 2years and Violet aged 8 months. She then she put them to bed, the two eldest in a cot in a back room and the infant in her own bedroom, which fronts the street.

The dreadful calamity which has befallen the unfortunate woman has left her so distracted that she has no clear, coherent impression of what she next did, but apparently she left a light in either one or both of the rooms and after locking the back door, she either went down the yard or across to the store opposite to get some candles.

Almost immediately after, smoke began to issue from the windows. She screamed to her husband, and frantically begged him to save the children. Several firemen who live in the street as well as Detective McLernon and Constable Rieger, were on the spot within a few seconds of Mrs. Bishop screaming and when she pointed out the room where the two older children were sleeping they dragged off a sheet of iron and tried to get them out. The flames however, beat them back, and though the firemen made several desperate efforts to seize the cot and drag it out, they failed. The lining of the wails then fell in a burning heap on the floor and bed, and the would be rescuers were reluctantly forced to admit that nothing living could exist in the room. With dreadful suddenness the burning pile developed tremendous heat, and drove the firemen and their assistants back and precluded any hope of saving the children.

Boulder Fire Brigade 1906

In the meantime word was sent to the electric light station to blow the steam siren — a system of giving alarm which has never proved satisfactory. A considerable period elapsed before the whistle was blown, but when it was the firemen turned out promptly and on getting to the scene of the fire they soon got a good stream on and the flames were subdued. The firemen had then the gruesome task to accomplish of retrieving the bodies from the debris. The bodies of, the little ones were terribly charred and almost unrecognisable. The two eldest had evidently been suffocated before the flames actually touched them, but the poor little baby, judging by the way it had crouched up in a corner, woke up before the flames reached it and had sufficient intelligence to realise that it was in danger.

The firemen placed the remains on sheets of iron and the police then took possession and removed them to the morgue.  How the fire originated is only a matter of surmise, as Mrs Bishop was too distracted last night to give an account of the condition of the place when she went out. One theory is that a kerosene lamp exploded, but the firemen, when making a search amongst the debris failed to find the remains of a lamp. The other theory is that she left a candle burning in one of the rooms, and that the curtains were blown into contact with it, and thus ignited the house. From the tremendous heat so quickly developed it is most probable that the poor, little children were soon mercifully out of suffering and though some of the people who gathered round, state that they heard them screaming, Constable Regier, who was one of the first on the scene, states that he did not. Last nights catastrophe was the culmination of a series of domestic troubles through which Mr and Mrs Bishop have gone. They buried one child a few months back and last night’s disaster now leaves them childless. Mr Bishop and his sorely afflicted wife were last night the subjects of very general and widespread sympathy.

From the Boulder Cemetery records:

BISHOP Emily Elizabeth – 3½yrs – Buried 18 Sep 1904, Methodist Section, Grave 42 A,  Father: Thomas Edwin Bishop, Mother: Rosina nee FENNELL,
BISHOP Eva, 2yrs,  Buried 18 Sep 1904, Methodist Section, Grave 42 A,  Father: Thomas Edwin Bishop, Mother: Rosina nee FENNELL,
BISHOP Violet Victoria Rose, 8 months Buried 18 Sep 1904, Methodist Grave 42 A, Father: Thomas Edwin Bishop, Mother: Rosina nee FENNELL.

The child that the Bishops lost not long before this tragedy was Annie May Bishop, born 1901, who died aged 4 months. Sadly she is buried alone in the Methodist section of the Old Boulder Cemetery which had closed not long before the death of her sisters.

Thomas and Rosina were married on the 23rd November 1899 in Boulder. Rosina was the daughter of James and Annie FENNEL and was born in South Australia. Thomas was the son of James and Elizabeth Bishop and was born in Victoria.
The Bishops were to have a further three children, Ada Lilian Rose Bishop born early in 1905 so Mrs Bishop may have been pregnant at the time of the fire. Thomas Edwin Bishop in 1907 and Elsie Dorothy Bishop born in 1909 all born in Boulder.

Also buried in the same grave with the three little girls in the Boulder Cemetery, is Stanley Peter BISHOP who is their uncle and the brother of Thomas Edwin Bishop. He was aged 19yrs when he died in 1909.

Thomas Edwin Bishop died in Boulder in 1922 aged 56ys,  he is buried alone in the Kalgoorlie cemetery.

Kalgoorlie Miner Tuesday 5 September 1922, page 4

Rosina Bishop died in 1967, in Footscray Victoria. There are no headstones on any of the graves.