A roller coaster life with tragedies and triumphs
Today's blog is a follow up to the one I wrote about Jane Catherine Tost, taxidermist, way back in 2022. (If you wish to acquaint yourself with that blog before reading this follow up, please click onto the name tag of Jane Catherine Tost at the end of this blog). In that blog I mentioned that her Jane's son Charles Goutliffe Jnr and son-in-law, James Coates were killed fighting a fire at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1872 and that is the focus of today's blog. PRINCE OF WALES THEATRE FIRE From newspaper reports at the time, it would appear that in the early hours of Saturday the 6th of January 1872, the Prince of Wales Theatre in Castlereagh Street Sydney near King Street caught fire rapidly. A full house the previous night had seen "The House that Jack Built" and all had left the theatre. The alarm was raised about 3.30am but firemen were virtually helpless against the fire's ferocity which was believed to have started in the property room were ...