Should Ballantynes department store apologise for its devastating fire?

Thursday, 17 November 2022

The funeral for the 41 victims of the Ballantynes department store fire at Ruru Lawn Cemetery, Christchurch, 1947.

The Ballantynes department store fire remains one of New Zealand’s deadliest disasters. An inquiry found store management 'did not take all reasonable steps' to protect staff. 75 years on, should the company just say sorry? MICHAEL WRIGHT reports.

Seventy-five years ago, on November 18, 1947, a fire tore through Ballantynes department store in Christchurch, killing 41 people. The devastation played out in full, appalling view of thousands of people in the central city.

“For those in the neighbouring buildings who heard the screams of women and saw them moving frantically about in the inferno, those minutes will forever remain seared on their memories,” The Press wrote.

“Spectators of fearful panic, with a tragically inevitable end, they were helpless.”

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A wall of Ballantynes department store is demolished after the 1947 fire.

Many of those screams belonged to the victims. Thirty-eight of the 41 who died were Ballantynes employees. Many of them young women working in the millinery and accounts departments, housed in the store’s upper floors.

As the fire, which started in the basement, quickly consumed the building, they found themselves trapped.

Jessie Smith, 18, was one of three teens among the 41 victims killed in the fire.

In 1948, a commission of inquiry listed the store’s labyrinthine network of vents and openings among the reasons for the fire’s rapid spread and devastating effect. It also found that Ballantynes management failed its staff.

Employees worked on as smoke thickened on the shop floor, and customers were let in as late as 20 minutes after the fire was first detected. When the evacuation came it was done ad hoc, by individual staff.

“In our opinion,” the commission concluded, “All reasonably possible steps under the circumstances were not taken to provide for [staff and shoppers’] safety and escape.”

Local drama Ablaze re-enacts the Ballantynes' fire of 1947, one of New Zealand's deadliest disasters. (Video first published in September, 2019)

Despite this, there has never been a public clamour for penitence. The commission found that while Ballantynes had no sprinkler or alarm system, it had contravened only minimal city bylaws around unpermitted building work involving inappropriate materials.

Even the building’s startling lack of external fire escapes was not considered a breach, as Ballantynes had never been requisitioned by the fire brigade over their absence.

The brigade itself also came in for censure. It arrived at the scene woefully ill-equipped to fight the fire, the commission found, then wasted crucial minutes doing little to contain it.

Whatever outcry there was has faded with the decades. Ballantynes was overtaken in the public consciousness by bigger, deadlier disasters, although a rump of dissent endured.

In 1994, New Zealand Geographic magazine spoke to several survivors. “Kenneth Ballantyne, that wicked, wicked man,” said one, referring to a company director at the time, “[He] was thinking of money, not people.”

The company has never offered an apology for the role it played in the tragedy. Asked directly this week, current chief executive Maria O’Halloran did not mention any plans to make one. “Due to the lapse of time and in the absence of those who were actively involved, it is difficult for me to comment about this,” she said.

Lyn Hughes and Noel Street lay flowers at the Ballantynes memorial after its restoration in 2014. Hughes said her father, who has since died, received “huge closure” by attending the reconsecration: “He never went to Joyce’s funeral.”

“It is my understanding that members of the Ballantynes family personally visited the families of all those affected. I can only imagine what a harrowing visit this would have been for all.”

Jessie Smith, 18, was one of the youngest victims. Recently finished school and about to study nursing, her job in the Ballantynes accounts department was a stopgap. Di Keenan never met her aunt Jessie, but has never forgotten her grandparents’ grief over their daughter’s death.

“My nana never went into Ballantynes again,” Keenan said. “My poppa died of a heart attack. I think he was 56. They said it was the stress of the whole thing.”

“For me it is not about apologies. I appreciate that Ballantynes always acknowledges the date with the wreath at the memorial. The loss to my mother's family was immense and caused so much pain and sadness. I would have loved to have had her as my auntie.”

Lyn Hughes also lost an aunt – Joyce Street, who was 28. Her father Noel Street, Joyce’s brother, never mentioned any acrimony towards his sister’s employer.

“I talked to dad extensively about it,” Hughes said, “I don’t recall him ever saying anything about being upset [at Ballantynes] or anything.

“We’ve moved on 75 years later haven’t we?”

On Friday, Ballantynes will again lay a wreath at the victims’ memorial at Ruru Lawn cemetery in Bromley. Floral tributes will adorn its Christchurch and Timaru stores and it will host a memorial service for the victims at Christchurch’s Transitional Cathedral.

“We will never forget the precious lives lost or the solemn lessons learned from the fire,” O’Halloran said.

Keenan will be there. After she has laid some peonies at her aunt Jessie’s grave, as she does every year.

“I wish I had known her,” she said. “I remember mum always talking about it…the grief of [losing] a young girl at 18 who everyone loved. A bright little bubbly thing. All she wanted to be was a nurse.”

*CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Jessie Smith was the youngest victim in the fire. The youngest victim was Claire Aileen Hamilton, 16. (Amended 9.49am, November 18, 2022)