GLIMPSED in 'Looking Back' last month among more of the unique collection of photographs of Blackburn 38 years ago reproduced in the second volume of the newly-published '1963 Blackburn -- A Proud Town' book being sold in aid of stroke victims, the now-vanished Crown Hotel in Victoria Street stands out with much less soot-stained stonework in this 1900 picture (above).

For the reason why the four-storey hotel -- pictured left of centre in this view from across the town's old Market Square -- appears much cleaner than its neighbours is that it had not long been rebuilt.

For its three-storey predecessor -- which matched the premises seen to the left of the hotel in this photograph -- was destroyed at the end of November, 1891, by a huge gas explosion.

Five people were killed and 11 injured in the blast which also wrecked an adjoining shop known as the Sixpenny Bazaar.

And the extent of the devastation can be seen in this picture of the aftermath, lent by Blackburn local history buff, reader Mr Jim Halsall.

Indeed, the force of the explosion was so great that, as the Northern Daily Telegraph reported, more or less every shop around the Market Square suffered damage as the vicinity was strewn with broken beams, window frames and scattered masonry. Even as far as 70 yards away from the blast, shop windows were blown out.

The NDT told how scores of people people rushed into the blazing ruin to rescue anyone who was trapped despite the escaping gas catching fire and sending up a sheet of flame that within minutes had the debris blazing furiously.

Inside the Crown, furniture was smashed to matchwood and the newspaper was amazed that, among such devastation, an aspidistra plant was recovered with not one of its ten tall stems broken.

The bodies of four men were retrieved from the ruins -- two of them elderly tailors and the others a travelling draper and a wholesale cloth dealer, both middle-aged.

And killed in the next-door bazaar was the 57-year-old wife of a mill manager. The Crown's owner, wealthy beer magnate Alderman John Rutherford, offered to pay for all the funerals.

But so great was the heap of rubble where the buildings had stood that it was three days before it became certain that no more lives had been lost.

Yet, what was tragic was that the five who were killed had, in effect, died for the sake of just ten shillings -- 50p. And though it was equivalent of £27.12 today, it was still a wretched amount for five lives to be lost over.

Yet, that was the sum that was in dispute when the giant gas meter in the Crown's cellar became redundant and, as the coroner's inquest was told ten days after the tragedy, the Corporation's gas department offered to buy it from its owners for just ten shillings -- nowhere near what it was thought to be worth. Instead, it was sold for £1 to a fruiterer called Mark Robinson whose efforts to remove it led to the disaster -- and he and his butcher brother, Francis, being charged with causing the five deaths.

The root of the catastrophe lay in the switch the previous September from stallholders on the Market Square being supplied with gas for their lamps via the big meter in the Crown's cellar -- owned by a committee of traders -- to individual ones of their own that were housed in the ground. Committee member, draper George Ormerod told the coroner he was told by a Mr McMinn, of the gas department, that the supply had been cut off to the disused meter in the Crown and that the Corporation would pay ten shillings for it -- a price so ridiculously low in Ormerod's view that he said he would rather break it up than sell it for that.

The fatal upshot was it was sold on the Wednesday before the explosion to Robinson who testified to the inquest that he had arranged to remove it the following Monday and was told by both Ormerod and the Crown's landlord James Houghton that the gas supply to it had been disconnected.

As he and his brother began the work of uncoupling it in the dark cellar -- a job for which they armed themselves with a candle and hammer and chisel in case the key spanner they had was not big enough -- they smelled gas.

Mark Robinson asked the landlord to come and examine the meter, but Houghton assured him that two Corporation men had told him the gas was cut off.

So going back and sitting on top of the meter and working by candlelight, Robinson gave the union joint another rap with the hammer and suddenly gas "came with full force."

He blew out the candle's flame and his brother Francis ran upstairs and told Houghton to put out the lights in the hotel while he ran some 100 yards along Victoria Street to the gas department's offices in the municipal building near the junction with Richmond Terrace to raise the alarm.

There, Mark Robinson testified, he was told there was no-one available to go down to the hotel. He replied: "You have a telephone for the gasworks. Send for men there. Do you want the Crown blown up?"

He dashed back to the Crown -- only to see it blown up just as he feared. He and his brother later went to the police station to give themselves up for causing the explosion, but stated it had been an accident.

Tellingly, though his evidence was disputed by the Corporation's lawyer, Recorder and MP Mr M W Mattison, he was not cross-examined and nor was any evidence given to contradict his story. The jury was sympathetic to the brothers -- one member was actually applauded when he said he thought the Corporation ought to have seen the gas was cut off after it had given notice that it would not be supplied through the meter in future.

A verdict of accidental death was recorded. Nonetheless, the next morning the Robinsons were committed for trial at Manchester Assizes, charged with five counts of manslaughter.

Despite the inquest verdict, the Chief Constable contended that the brothers had broken the law by disconnecting the meter without giving the legally-required 24 hours' notice to the gas department in writing.

Three months later, when they came before the Grand Jury at the Assizes "no true bill was found" -- meaning the prosecution's case did not hold water -- and the Robinsons were discharged. Yet, but for ten shillings and the never-explained misunderstanding over whether or not the meter was disconnected, they may have been spared their ordeal -- and five lives might never have been lost.

The Crown Hotel and other buildings in Victoria Street were demolished in 1965 to make way for the development of Blackburn's current shopping precinct.